Big Run Golf Club

Old course with great overlay of holes

Great condition as well

I've played at Big Run since 1979. One of my favorite old school clubhouses in Chicago. Proshop, bar and locker room pretty much as is since it was built in the 40's or 50's. Might even be older than that. Course conditions vary from year to year as Big Run has never had a full blown sprinkler system. Bunkers are hit and miss in regards conditions. Greens are slower than most places and pretty smooth - if they cut them any closer you'd have all kinds of folks complaining how unfair they are. A wonderful routing that's changed over the years....some of updates unfortunately a bit over the top. For the first time in years the 18th fairway is in decent shape,...not a swamp and cut almost all the way out to Long Run Creek. Do yourself a favor and play the green tees. The Par 5's then become fun versus having to blast 3 shots to get to the green.....3 of the Par 5's play especially long from white and orange. Note - from the greens it's still over 130 slope and almost 6200 yards. Rough is overly lush this year and does need a trim as it's difficult to find balls that venture off the fairway in some areas. Fairways are bit sketchy but remember - there's not a full blown sprinkler system....so Big Run plays/looks and feels different each season....which is just part of it's overall beauty and charm. Overall 3.5 stars but personally I like Big Run a lot. It's a course I always enjoy playing and I've played it easily more than 50 times.....so it's a 4 star for me regardless of what others think of it.. Highly recommended for avid golfers and any avid golfers in Chicago land are really missing the boat if they haven't ventured to Big Run. It's better than Cog 1/3, Gleneagles and I would put it on par with Ruffled Feathers modern design versus the muddled sort of old school you get at Big Bad Run.. Try to play it during the week especially in the afternoon. On weekends it's likely a very long 5 hour round due to the difficulty of the track. We had a noon tee time finished in 330 and played at what we thought was a leisurely pace. Cheers!

Car path and rough coniditions must be maintained much better.

This course was recommended to me by a friend, but I do not think I will be returning. The course just overall felt "weathered" and outdated. I was told by someone on the course it's been up for sale a few times. The course is in decent shape and has a lot of challenging holes with water and trees. The "hot deal" rate was very nice and if you live near the course worth it, but I think it's not coming from Chicago.

Fair ways need attention rough grass is high hard to find Balls n hole pin placement is tough.

I used to love this course but the fairways were more like roughs. Weeds were growing on the fairway on one of the nicest weekends like it hasn’t been cared to for weeks.

Overall fun but the course conditions were extremely poor for the price

This course is long, challenging, and in pretty good shape. A lot of other courses you can get to par 5s in two shots but with 600 yarders here you need to play more strategic. I also like that they have a 200 yard par 3. They space tee times out enough where we never really had a long wait until we got to 14 because one slower group caused a bit of a log jam. I plan to add this to my consistent rotation of courses.

I don't know what kind of grass is on this course (bentgrass?) in the rough....but wow.... I lost about 4 balls in the rough just because the grass was soo long and thin bladed... There was times where I was standing right next to my ball and took 2 minutes to find it because of how long and dense the rough was.... Also it was impossible to hit out of unless I used a wedge.

Had a 7:50 am tee time and it took us five hours to play due to very slow pace of play. There were no course rangers to help with pace of play.

The greens are also very slow.

Won’t be in a hurry to return.