Cantigny (Woodside & Lakeside)

Cantigny is a 500-acre estate located in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, belonging to The McCormick Foundation, a public charity created in honor of Colonel Robert McCormick, the former Chicago newspaper baron.

Named after the French village where the US Army embarked on its first sustained offensive during the Great War in May of 1918, Cantigny is one of America’s best run public-access golf facilities and within its impressive grounds, there are a couple of museums, 40 acres of formal gardens, camping and picnic areas, as well as a wonderful 27-hole golf complex.

Designed by Roger Packard, son of architect E.Lawrence Packard, and opened in 1989, the parkland course at Cantigny is laid out in three 9-hole circuits that present all manner of challenges as they wind their way in and out of wooded areas, past a dozen lakes and a couple of creeks, to intelligently-bunkered green sites.

The Woodside nine are routed through the most heavily forested part of the course but water still comes into play here, especially at the 171-yard, par three, 8th where the island green is played to from island tees on the other side of a lake.

The Lakeside nine have four lakes that feature on six of the holes and the pick of these is the 410-yard, par four, 9th which has water on either side of a narrow fairway leading to a green that’s also aquatically-challenged on three sides!

Hillside is not as long as the other two nines but it contains some of the most difficult holes on the property. The 405-yard, par four, 6th is a favorite of many, played to the island double green that is shared with the 8th at Woodside.

The course was renovated in 2003 by the Jacobsen Golf course design company and the reward for this work came four years later when Cantigny hosted the US Amateur Public Links Championships.