Glen View Club

Set within the small North Shore village literally named “Golf,” Illinois, Glen View Club is a private club on roughly 200 acres shaped by the North Branch of the Chicago River and a century of architectural interventions. Visitors today encounter a parkland course with an expansive practice range and short-game area on the site of the club’s original 1897 polo field, a substantial clubhouse (rebuilt in 1921 after a fire), and a golf-first experience that hosts regional championships and club events while remaining member-oriented. The course plays as a par 72 at just under 7,000 yards from the back (“Mach”) tees, with multiple forward options. It presents broad corridors punctuated by restored, irregular-edged bunkers and green pads that have been expanded back toward historical perimeters, producing more corner hole locations and contour-engaged recoveries. In recent years Glen View has emphasized improved air movement and vistas via targeted tree work, and it maintains the historic Dewes family log cabin as a visual landmark between the 16th and 17th holes. While the routing retains a late-19th-century footprint, the surfaces and hazards reflect a long stewardship culminating in a 21st-century return to William Flynn’s 1920s character rather than to the interim work Donald Ross undertook in 1913.