The Glen Club: A Naval Field Turned Fazio Lawn

Glenview’s old naval air station used to send jets over the North Shore. In 2001 the runways became a Tom Fazio course and a clubhouse that looks as if it had always been a country house. The Glen Club occupies 2901 West Lake Avenue as the most finished public-access golf day in the market: rolling fairways, lakes, skyline on a clear hole, and a building that serves lunch as if membership were assumed. From the Loop the drive is about thirty-five minutes up the Edens and west on Lake, through the North Shore grid and into the trees.

The conversion of Glenview Naval Air Station into The Glen is one of the better land stories in American suburbia. A military field became housing, a town center, and this course. Fazio used the open acreage for movement and water rather than for novelty. Traditional comfort here is the country-club day offered to the traveling player: collar, no denim, a tee sheet you can reach with a week’s notice, a dining room that does not feel like a snack shack.

The terrain is broad and composed. Fairways rise and fall over two hundred acres. Lakes come into the line of play without turning every hole into an island. Bunkering is Fazio’s: visible, fair if you commit, expensive if you do not. From the back tees the course plays more than seventy-one hundred yards with a slope in the low one-forties. It is less brutal than Dubsdread and more concerned with proportion. The long par fives ask for two honest shots and a third that does not float. Greens are true when the staff has them. Wind off the lake, twenty miles east, still finds the higher ground.

May, June, and September are the weeks to book. The North Shore warms later than the city. Fall is the handsome season—maples and the last of the fescue. July will play hot. Early spring can be wet. The season runs roughly March to December when weather allows. Indoor simulators and the range keep a winter visitor from wasting the drive.

The interior is why this house sits second. The clubhouse holds a golf shop, dining, event rooms, and a small overnight wing if the day should become a night. Conditioning is the reputation. Service reviews treat the floor as a private club that happens to sell public times. Book a week ahead. Play eighteen. Stay for the meal. The Glen Town Center is a block away for a coffee or a shop before the Edens.

Nearby, Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe is a short drive north. The North Shore towns—Winnetka, Wilmette, Highland Park—hold the older shopping streets. O’Hare is closer than the Loop, which makes the club a useful first or last day for a flying golfer. Kohl Children’s Museum sits close; this Diamond does not require it.

The limitations are access and price. Public times are real and they are not endless. Peak fees sit with Dubsdread in the premium tier. A member will always see a friendlier book. A municipal North Shore course will cost less and look less composed. The Glen Club will look like the day you meant to buy.

The Glen Club is a Citywide Spotlight Diamond Destination because Fazio and a finished clubhouse were opened to the visitor on ground that used to launch aircraft. Choosing this course over a locked private nine or a plain park-district eighteen is a choice for proportion, for Lake Avenue’s trees, and for the older amenity of arriving dressed and being received as if the house expected you. The comfort is traditional—a collar, a true green, lunch that belongs to the building—and the benefit is the North Shore without a proposer.