Cog Hill Golf & Country Club's Dubsdread in Lemont
LEMONT, Ill. -- Cog Hill Golf & Country Club is a 72-hole daily fee facility, the centerpiece of which is No. 4, Dubsdread, which is also the premier public golf course in Illinois.
After being closed to play in 2008 for renovation, Dubsdread re-opened in 2009 to great expectations. In fact, the facelift by "Open Doctor" Rees Jones may well have elevated Dubsdread to "U.S. Open venue."
Until then, though, Dubsdread will host the PGA Tour's BMW Championship, a key tournament in the year-ending FedEx Cup playoff. And, of course, it will be open to the public for daily-fee play, for a reasonable $150 per round, with cart.
The redesign of Dubsdread allows the golf course to now play from 5,441 yards all the way up to 7,554 yards. Jones removed many shorter fairway bunkers to allow average players to have more fun, while adding or moving bunkers farther back off the tee to challenge better players. The green complexes also were brought back in line with the original Dick Wilson and Joe Lee design.
Best of all, though, Dubsdread is a very difficult golf course that still lets average golfers play: Even the most wayward shots can usually be found and recovered from - but, of course, most of the time, the stray shots will cost you at least a stroke.
In short, Dubsdread is one of the great, classic public golf courses in America - and someday, it just might be a U.S. Open venue.