Ravisloe Country Club

Ravisloe was founded in 1901 on the 120-acre Briggs farm at Homewood, south of Chicago, by members of the Standard Club, and it is recognised as the first country club in the Chicago area with a Jewish membership. Theodore Moreau and James Foulis laid out the original course; in 1916 the club brought in Donald Ross, whose work here continued until 1924.

In 2008, after a hundred and seven years, the club closed. The property was bought by Claude Gendreau, a veterinary surgeon, who reopened the course to the public. That is why a Ross design of this quality can now be played by anyone with a tee time, which in Chicago is close to unique.

What it asks of you

Par 70 over about 6,320 yards, and unmistakably Ross: small greens, extensive bunkering worked in tight around them, and waste areas that ask a question the yardage does not.

Small greens on a short course mean the same thing they mean at every Ross course, which is that the approach is everything. A player who can control the distance of a wedge will score; a player who hits it long and lands on the wrong part of the green will three-putt and not understand why.

The greens run fast, and reviewers say so consistently. On surfaces this small, speed is the defence: a putt from above the hole is genuinely hard to stop, and the safe miss is short of the flag rather than past it.

What players say about it

The points below summarise what recurs in public reviews on course sites, booking platforms and regional golf coverage. These are other people’s opinions, not ours: we have not played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• Value is the point almost every review makes: a Donald Ross course, in good order, at a public green fee.
• Several reviewers call it the best public course in the Chicago area, and it has appeared in state rankings alongside private clubs.
• The greens are described as fast and true, and the fairways as well kept.
• The course is walkable from the Homewood Metra stop, about forty-five minutes from Millennium Station, which for a course of this standing is remarkable.
• The Ross bunkering is intact enough to be worth studying.

What comes up against

• At 6,320 yards and par 70 the course gives a long hitter little to do off the tee.
• The small greens punish a high handicap harder than the scorecard suggests.
• Being public and well regarded, it gets busy, and pace of play suffers at weekends.
• The clubhouse and surrounds carry the marks of a private club that had to be repurposed, which not everyone likes.

Getting there and when to go

The course is on Park Avenue in Homewood, about forty minutes south of the Loop by car and forty-five by Metra from Millennium Station.

The season runs roughly from April to October. June and September give the best conditions; book early for a weekend. Tee times are booked with the course.

Green fees

Rates and tee times are set by the course. See the course’s own site.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location, the course’s published history and regional golf coverage for the founding, the Ross work, the 2008 closure and the reopening, and public course records for par and length. The opinion section summarises public reviews read in September 2026; we report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations.

We have not played this course, and this page is no substitute for a round. Nobody has paid for this page, and no one saw it before publication. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.