Course: Cog Hill Golf Club, Course No. 4
Location: 12294 Archer Avenue Lemont, IL
Yardages: 5441 (red)/6033 (green)/6382 (white) /6750 (blue) / 7144 (gold) / 7554 (black)
Website: http://www.coghillgolf.com
During a recent roadtrip with college buddies, I had the privilege to play the No. 4 course at Cog Hill Golf Club, also known as Dubsdread. The course will be hosting the BMW Championship later this month, the third of four stops in the FedEx Playoff series. Let me start by saying this is by far the nicest course I have played in my life, and thus my review may be most positive than others, however, I would contest there is not much to dislike when it comes to Cog Hill No. 4.
The course has a tradition of hosting golf tournaments at the highest level, to include the Western Open Championship from 1991-2007, the 1997 U.S. Amateur, and as previously mentioned, will be hosting the BMW Championship through at least 2011. Although it has the storied history, the course was renovated between Sept. 2007 and Sept. 2008, and is truly a different test than the old Dubsdread.
The course is ranked No. 45 in Golf Digest’s “America’s 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses,” and No. 1 in Golfweek’s “Best Courses You Can Play.” I am not sure, but I think these ratings may have been prior to the renovation, and I would be interested to see the overall reviews of the course post-renovation. The renovation was conducted by Rees Jones, know as the Open Doctor for his work on courses such as Bethpage Black and Torrey Pines among others. (I am no expert, but I can certainly foresee the Open heading to Cog Hill No. 4 in the next decade or so.)
The greens fee of $150 includes cart and a small bucket of balls to warm up with. Perhaps my only two complaints lie here, both the fact that carts were quite old and slow, and for a fee of $150, I feel one should be allowed to hit 1,000 warm up balls if he or she so desires. (On our given day it was warm, so 10 balls into the warmup session I was drenched in sweat and ready to give up on the range.)
The practice facilities include a grass driving range, a small short game area which includes a regulation-sized green and several angles to chip from, and a monstrous putting green featuring plenty of room to hit putts from all angles and elevations. I’m not sure I could have hit a sand wedge from one end of the green to the other, it seemed to travel on forever.
As for the course itself, it was literally perfect. When the course was renovated, almost every blade of grass was torn up, to include every tee box and every green. This resulted in perfect teeing ground, flat as a pancake and perfect angles. Except for divots from the those playing that day, there were no imperfections on any of the tees. Each box had a yardage plate, and given that they are only a year old, you can assume they are pretty accurate.
The fairways are lush, perfectly manicured, and each and every sprinkler-head was marked. Since the carts are not GPS equipped, these markings were much appreciated, providing distance to the front, middle, and back of the greens.
The most memorable, and costly in terms of strokes, are the bunkers on the course, all 98 of them. I’ll do the math for you, that’s over 5 bunkers per hole. They have all been rebuilt, and can be very punishing if when you find them. The quality of sand is very good, and even after a major rainstorm, they were still very playable and seemed to soak up the water very well.
The course is quite lengthy, playing almost 7,600 yards from the back tees. During our round the back tees were closed in preparation for the coming event, and we played the blue tees which measured 6,750, still lengthy from that tee level. One of the many changes they made during the reconstruction was to create additional teeing grounds, and each hole now has numerous teeing options. This is likely a feature aimed at demonstrating the course’s versatility to host a major such as the U.S. Open, giving the USGA flexibility in how they setup the course.
Overall, very high praise for the redesign of Cog Hill No. 4. I did not have the opportunity to play the course prior to the redesign, however, after seeing numerous photographs in the clubhouse and watching video of the tournament held there in 2007, it is quite evident that the course has changed significantly. The $150 price tag may scare those not native to the area, but when you consider the other premier options in the Chicago area, the price is not unreasonable. Highly recommended, and I’ll give it five stars on the Palm scale.
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