Established in 1888, Town & Country Club doesn’t carry a single “marquee” architect’s name, but its evolution is remarkable. Golf has been played here since 1893, when Scotsman George McCree marked out a five-hole course with tomato-can cups and fishing-pole flags. In 1898, Chicago amateur E.J. Frost designed a nine-hole layout, and by 1907 member Ben Schurmeier and professional Robert Foulis expanded it to eighteen. Over the years, respected figures including Tom Vardon and A.W. Tillinghast helped shape the course into its modern form on the original bluff-top site overlooking the Mississippi and the downtown skyline.
In 2024, architect Jeff Mingay and Turfgrass Director Bill Larson advanced a master plan that expanded greens and fairways and refreshed bunkers and tees with forms inspired by the course’s history. A long-running tree program opened strategic vistas and playing corridors. Importantly, selective earthmoving returned landforms closer to their original contours—re-establishing historic surface-drainage patterns, including the swales on Holes 11 and 14. The work was completed in spring 2025.