Harborside International: Links Against the Skyline

The far South Side of the lake is industrial and open. Harborside International occupies 11001 South Doty Avenue on ground that used to be landfill and now plays as two links eighteen—Port and Starboard—with the Chicago skyline standing in the distance like a second clubhouse. Dick Nugent opened the Port Course in 1995. The wind off the water is the architect who never left. From the Loop the drive is about thirty minutes south, a shorter run than Lemont or Wheaton and a different city when you arrive: water, grass, and the towers stacked to the north.

No other downtown in the country offers this exact public day: true links turf, waste bunkers, fescue, and a skyline in the frame. Traditional comfort here is a harder, older golf—play it along the ground when the wind says so, keep the ball under the weather, walk off knowing the lake had a vote.

The terrain is the lake plain. There are no forest corridors. There is weather. Port is the more photographed of the two; Starboard holds its own ranking. Both run past seven thousand yards from the tips with slopes that climb when the wind is up, which is often. Greens sit in bowls and on shelves. A miss that would live on a parkland hole dies in the fescue here. Choose tees with humility. The beauty is spare: tall grass, pale bunkers, water light, the city as a painting at the end of a par four. It is not pretty in the estate sense. It is handsome in the coastal sense.

May, June, and September are the weeks when the wind is still honest and the heat has not sat on the landfill grass. October can be the finest month if the season holds—clear air, the skyline sharp. July and August play; bring water and a hat. Winter belongs to the range, which the Golf Range Association has repeatedly treated as one of the country’s serious practice grounds.

The clubhouse is a destination building for a South Side links: shop, food, a place to get out of the wind. The practice field is enormous. Book Port if you want the picture. Book both if the day is the point. Collared play. A cart is wise when the wind is a wall.

Nearby, the lake and the Skyway are the geography. Downtown is the view rather than the neighbor. Chinatown and the museums are on the way back north if the afternoon still has hours. This is not a shopping district. It is a course.

The limitations are the ones links golf always charges. Wind will ruin a score and make the day. Conditions can vary with weather on exposed ground. The neighborhood is not Glenview. A North Shore Fazio will look richer in the trees. Harborside will look like Chicago. Peak fees are real and still lower, some seasons, than Dubsdread’s top number.

Harborside is a Citywide Spotlight Diamond Destination because the city finally built links on its own lake and left the tee sheet open. Choosing Port or Starboard over an inland parkland municipal is a choice for wind, for the skyline in the shot, and for the older amenity of ground-game golf beside American water. The comfort is traditional—a cap, a low ball, a drink after the weather—and the benefit is a round that could not be moved to another town without losing the view.