Highland Woods Golf Course

Don't play Highland Woods on a weekend unless you have 5.5-6 hours to spend. The course is too crowded and the pace is atrocious. We waited at every tee and on every shot.

Just got done with a 4 hour and 20 minute round on what seemed like a fairly busy day for the course. Great value for your buck! Super friendly staff and fun vibe throughout the facility. Some bunkers need improvements but saw signs that they were working on quite a few and that's great. Good offerings as far as food and such goes but I think we expected that knowing there's no real kitchen or "restaurant"! The 6th hole for my group proved to a huge, fair, and fun challenge but highly recommend to play it conservatively. I'm a 4.0 handicap from the blues and thought the rating and slope were acceptable and the golf course itself was worth the price and challenge!

Big Fan!

My friend and I (or sometimes by myself) typically play an early 18 before work, and can finish in 2.5-3 hours. I've played here 5 times since 5/23/16 in the early AM, and on 4 of the 5, I've run into a HUGE backlog of people that started on the back nine. Groups of 1-2-1-1-2 blocking up several holes. They are not aware or receptive to letting people making the turn go ahead. Complaints to the clubhouse have been useless, and I'm told, "they should let you play through".

Very disappointing, as they have made some improvements to the course that were getting it back to a better track. If you have to pay for 18 and can only play 13 though, it's just not worth it... not to mention the aggrivation.

This is the second time this year we played Highland Woods Golf Course. Although the course is in average shape for a public course, there is absolutely no on course management. We arrived in line at the counter at 1:45 for our 2:20 PM Saturday tee time and waited in line to pay for over twenty minutes. There was only one person on duty and he was taking reservations, taking payments, looking in the back room for someone's lost something or other, repeatedly picking up the phone...that is poor. Only to find out that they were short of carts. The reason they were short of carts is that peoples were taking over 3 hours to play each nine holes. After we finally got our golf cart, we teed off and it took over 6 hours to play. We finished right before 9:00 PM. Even worse, the beverage cart person must have left at 5:30 PM as we never saw her on the back 9. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day...but I did not want to spend the night!

I'm still working on my game, so this course is excellent for me. Wide fairways, open grass and roughs. Unfortunately, this is why pace of play is so slow. You can usually find your ball, but you and your partner could be 150 yards apart on the same hole.

Challenging greens. Good condition, although the tee boxes could use some work.

No two holes play the same way, with the exception being maybe #16 and #18. Other than that, every hole has its own quirks.

It's gotten more expensive over the years (as most things have), but I used to get out for under $30 a few years ago, now it's usualy $40-$45.

Would NOT recommend playing on a weekend. Could easily be a 6-hour round. Weekdays, you can pull off 4:30.

I've played Highland Woods multiple times. I've always liked the layout and it's not to far from where I live. On this day I have a couple complaints. I was low on golf balls so I decided to buy a sleeve at the course. I should of went somewhere else because they didn't carry the type of ball I use and I was charged $12.00 for the sleeve (3 NXT Tour S balls). That's WAY to expensive. It should be more like $6.00. Granted I played a day after it rained, but the overall condition of the bunkers was bad. One instance, I hit into a green side bunker on 16 and there was a pond in the bunker. It was deep, muddy and I wasn't able to see my ball or even rake it out. Beyond that my experience was fair. I'd play the course again, but I will not be buying golf balls or be playing when there has been rain.

Staff is friendly. Course conditions good except greens are too slow

After taking 4:40 minutes to play 14 holes I had enough. The Rangers told me that 5 plus hours is a typical round of golf on a public fee golf course in the Chicago area. Really! Not at any course I play at Their pace is plus 6 hours and they just don't care and think it is fine.

Your Rangers are clueless and seem to enjoy themselves riding the new surfer like carts. They sure don't try to speed anyone up. We were timing the group in front of us and they were taking 7-9 minutes once the reached the green That is about 2:30 hours just on the greens. The ranger not once said a word to them

You have zero respect for your paying customers

I would not play here again if you paid me

You should be embarrassed

Played on a Friday afternoon and it was a 5+ hour round. Maybe the low greens fee attracts a lot of bad golfers? It's a very nice layout on forest preserve land and no houses to worry about. Every hole is different and it is challenging. My only complaints are that the greens were somewhat slow and the sandtraps were very hard without much sand.

I enjoyed to play at your course.

Great Course, Friendly Staff, and beautiful landscape

OK, A very good round, course was in very good condition.

Course in good condition greens little slow no rangers at all 5hours to play on a Monday unacepable

They had aerated the greens and the greens were very bumpy and sandy. It was very slow to play, over five hours. my recommendation would be go early

I haven't played this course in years because the pace of play was so incredibly awful. I thought I'd give it a shot again, and I will never go back. When we got to the 1st tee box right on time for our tee time, we learned there were FIVE groups still waiting to tee off! There was no starter or rangers either, so it was a free for all. You have NO SHOT at playing a round under 6 hours at this track.

The course was in adequate shape for the time of year/weather, and there is a big driving range. Do yourself a favor though - if you make the mistake of playing this course, block your whole day off and don't plan on being to get into any sort of swing rhythm.

The Good: Decent forest preserve country course located very close to I-90 West. Expansive layout is pretty secluded and devoid of housing, which is a nice plus. Fair conditioning and large, slick greens that can be very challenging. Layout is relatively wide open, with huge sand traps as the main barrier to a good score. Very strong Par 5's, a couple of good Par 3's on the closing half, and fair variety in the Par 4's. Practice facility includes driving range, putting green and short game area. Value at under $60/hr is good for quality of course.

The Bad: Overall amenities are lacking, which is expected from a city course. Clubhouse is very limited and does not have large sitting or banquet area. Poor yardage markers and no GPS. No restroom areas on-course. Staff is nice enough, but slow pace of play is not managed. Too many uphill forced carries for the average golfer.

The Verdict: Highland Woods is a fairly average course for the western Suburbs. Good course to play if looking for relatively stress free round (unless the wind blows!), but don't expect to finish in 4 hours.

Best Hole: The long, dogleg right Par 5 is a significant challenge. Drive must avoid trees left and water right. Approach shots are very tough.

We had an 11:25 tee time on this course. We arrived to find that we had a 1 hour wait because frost had set back tee times. It was November 14. Why was frost a surprise to the staff? This course was overbooked without regard for the golfers. The first tee had 7 foursomes waiting on it. We left because we wouldn't have been able to finish our round. Nobody was allowed to tee off on 10. This was handled terribly and was a late season money grab. I am not happy that I lost $10 on a booking fee. I learned a few lessons that day and won't patronize either places again. Golf now or Highland Woods.

3 minute intervals between tee times?? Yes sir. At highland woods anyone can experience a 5.5 hour round when greed takes over on a nice November afternoon. This was apparent upon pulling into the parking lot when there were no golf carts at the clubhouse. No golf carts? Yup. They were all out on the overbooked course. Had to wait to load bags until a previous 4 some finished their 5 plus hour round. And they could flip the cart still loaded with garbage. Absolutely tragic what they will do here for a few extra bucks. And again. 3 minute intervals for groups of 4. Won't be back no matter the rate. Horrible extended round.

2 hour 40 minute front nine on a Wednesday afternoon with no ranger in site.Spoke to someone at the turn.He went out to look for problem. 2 hour 20 minute back nine.

We had a 1:30 tee time. There was myself and one person on the tee time. It took us over 5 hours to play 18 holes and barely got the round in. One employee came out and asked how it was going, on the 7th hole. We told him there was 1 group slowing everybody up. He said he would see what he could do. We never saw him again for the rest of the day. On the 17th tee, a par 3, there was 3 groups waiting for 1 foursome to finish the hole. If they would hire a ranger to keep the pace of play at a reasonable rate, we might go back. However, this is not the first time I have had trouble with pace of play at Highland Woods. Therefore, I do not recommend this course.

It started off badly as they were backed up 10 minutes. We had to wait to tee off on literally every hole. I teed off at 1:30 (tee time 1:10) and finished the front nine at 4:50. Only made it through 12 holes be size I had to make dinner reservations. I couldn't believe they didn't have a ranger pushing the pace. The group in front of us spent way too much time looking for their balls. Bad experience.