The history of long-gone and, in some cases, forgotten golf courses in the Chicagoland area has always intrigued me.
Some popped up overnight during the golf boom of the 1920s, then disappeared just as quickly during the Depression.
The
National Golf Review in 1939 had a star-studded rating panel compile a
list of the Top 100 courses in the world. In the No. 23 slot on that
list was Lasker Golf Course, built on the private estate of advertising
mogul Albert Lasker.
Lasker – who invented the soap opera as an
advertising medium on radio and TV – owned a 480-acre estate in
Everett, Ill., just west of today’s Lake Forest. In 1916, he became a
part-owner of the Chicago Cubs with William Wrigley. He later sold his
ad business to three employees – Foote, Cone and Belding.
The
estate was called Mill Road Farm and was bordered by Everett Road to
the north, Telegraph Rd. to the east, Old Mill Rd. to the south, and
extended about 200 feet west of where the Tri-State tollway is today.
In
1925, Lasker boldly built his golf course after being snubbed by
private clubs because he was Jewish. Lasker summoned William Flynn, the
premier golf course architect of the day, to build a par-72 course
measuring just over 7,000 yards, considered remarkably long in that era.
Very
few people outside Lasker’s inner circle ever saw the course, and no
distinctive photographs have surfaced. The only thing I could find is a
1938 aerial map from a government survey of Illinois. Continue reading...
