Butler National - Illinois - USA

Butler National Golf Club was founded by multi-millionaire Paul Butler, a local businessman, and it lies to the west of the Windy City in the Oak Brook suburb of Chicago. George Fazio and his nephew Tom Fazio designed the course and it opened for play in the early 1970s.

Butler asked the Fazios to construct a layout that would test the best and the architects certainly followed that brief, creating one of the toughest tracks in all of the USA.

Most holes are tree-lined and long off the tee with several man-made water hazards adding a further degree of difficulty. The real threat to par here, however, are the undersized, deceptively contoured greens, many of which are offset to the fairway, placing a premium on approach and recovery shots.

The par three 5th starts a tricky stretch of holes on the front nine. Played to an island green, it demands an all-or-nothing tee shot across water to a green that’s also protected by sand on either flank.

If anything, the back nine is tougher than the outward half, epitomised by the par four 12th (a former par five) where its long, tight fairway leads gradually uphill to a small green sitting behind a pinched entrance.

Tom Fazio has returned in more recent times to beef up many of the bunker complexes – as if the course wasn’t hard enough.