“Hinsdale Golf Club has a tendency to lull the golfer into a false sense of security,” wrote championship golfer Chick Evans in a 1956 Sun-Times article after a tour of our course. He further went on to say that, “At first glance it looks easy, yet it’s anything but that,” and, “The fairways and the tees and the greens were simply gorgeous.” Today, over sixty years later, the same words apply to our wonderful golf course.
Chick was talking about a golf course that was laid out in 1907 by our golf professional Jock Adams with the help of David Foulis of the famous golfing family. The Foulis family, including U.S. Open champion James and well known golf architect Robert, were brought to this country by Charles Blair MacDonald to work at Chicago Golf Club. Overtime, the family branched out to different parts of the Midwest to grow golf in this part of the country.
David Foulis, inventor of the seven iron, steel putting cup, and flagpole, came to Hinsdale in 1920 and over a period of twenty years, turned our initial punitive layout into one of the finest strategic “Golden Age” courses in the Chicago area. Since that time, other well-known architects such as Lawrence and Roger Packard, as well as Dick Nugent, Bob Lohmann, and Billy Fuller, have added their touches to the course while being conscious of maintaining its wonderful character.
Each of the holes on the course has its own interesting and distinctive character. Tom Doak, the well-known golf architect and critic, said that he found our course’s par three holes particularly interesting. One of them being our signature “Andy Gump” sixteenth hole that’s a par three with a 217 yard carry from an elevated tee to an elevated green. The green slopes from right to left with the course’s deepest bunker guarding the left side and with the right side guarded by a large bunker shaped in the image of the famous 1920’s comic strip character Andy Gump. Another par three of interest is our sixth hole named, many years ago by a poetic member, “Dark Pool”, which has a 170 yard carry over water to a green guarded on either side by bunkers with nowhere to bail out. Many a golfer has left a prized Titleist V1 at the bottom of this “Dark Pool”!
There is a nice mix of long and short par fours to interest the golfer. The shortest par four on the course, the second hole which is only 335 yards long, is known as “an easy five or a hard four” by the members. The narrow driving area is protected by trees on the left and, on the right, a large bunker which obscures the view of water behind it. Once the drive has been negotiated, there is a short pitch to the green which comes right down to water guarding its front edge. There is often the temptation to pitch the ball close to a pin set near the front of the green with the result being a ball in the water. The small sloping green makes for an often difficult putt. The longest par four, the twelfth hole at 454 yards, is a challenge to any golfer. The landing for drives is guarded on each side by large, mounded bunkers with out of bounds all the way down the right side. The small green is also guarded by bunkers with water in back of the green for those who overestimate.
The course has three par fives with the “serpentine” seventh hole, at 597 yards, being the longest hole on the course and is a testing par five. The fairway is guarded by trees from tee to green with a slight dogleg to the left in the middle of the hole. The approach shot is guarded by bunkers about fifty yards from the green as well as bunkers on each side of a small green.
All in all, it’s a very interesting and challenging course. To quote Chick Evans again, “Don’t let Hinsdale fool you. It’s not an easy course”.
Richard Pinto, HGC Club Historian