Beverly Country Club

Infobox Golf Facility


imagesize = 250px
caption =This is Hole #2 (Par 5, 582 yards).
golf_facility_name = Beverly Country Club
location = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
establishment = 1908
type = Private
owner =
operator =
holes = 18
tournaments = USGA Amateur Championship (1931); Western Open Championship (1910, 1963, 1967, 1970); Western Amateur Championship (1930); Women’s Western Open Championships (1957, 1960, 1965); and Chicago Victory National Open Championship (1943)
website = [http://www.beverlycc.org Beverly Country Club]
course1 =
designer1 = Donald J. Ross
par1 = 71
length1 = 7016 yards
longest Hole = #11 - 604 yards
rating1 = 72.1 (unofficial)
record1 = 64 - Tom Weiskopf (1967)

Beverly Country Club, located in the American city of Chicago, Illinois, is one of Chicago's historical cornerstones. The club was founded in 1908 and initially designed by George O'Neil, also the club's first professional golfer. Shortly after, well-known golf course architect Tom Bendelow helped fortify the layout. In 1918, the legendary architect Donald J. Ross created and executed a master plan to renovate the course. Since, the Beverly Country Club has been a mainstay in American golfing circles. In 2002, the Members of The Beverly Country Club adopted a plan to completely restore and rejuvenate the golf course. Under guidance of golf course architect and restorer Ron Prichard, the course has recaptured the design concepts which Ross himself included in his original work at The Beverly.

Architectural History

Beverly’s mark on American golf was firmly made when club officials decided to ask legendary architect Donald J. Ross to create a master plan to renovate the course and bring it back to major championship standards. Over the course of nearly a decade, the entire Ross plan was adopted. In a fitting touch of déjà vu, a dedicated group of Beverly members recently led the club through a restoration of the golf course that reclaimed many of the Donald J. Ross features that had been lost over the decades. The genius of Ross’s work lies in the routing of the golf course, in which no two consecutive holes run in the same direction, despite the fact that the course is laid out within a perfect rectangle that is hemmed in and bisected by three arterial streets and a railroad line. Ross made excellent use of the dominant geological feature of property: a prominent ridge that runs from behind the fifth green eastward through the promontory above the second fairway. Five holes on the front nine are designed around this ridge, which had been part of the southern shore of prehistoric Lake Chicago, a forgotten body of water that deposited sand dunes along Beverly’s back nine. Students of Ross’s design “school” will recognize his mark throughout the course, particularly in the tee and green complexes. With its golf course stretching beyond 7,000 yards, Beverly is now honored as being one of Golfweek’s Top 100 Classic Golf courses in the United States.

Tournament History

Over the years, Beverly has been the host of four Western Open championships (1910, 1963, 1967 and 1970); one USGA Amateur Championship (1931); one Western Amateur Championship (1930); three Women’s Western Open championships (1937, 1960 and 1965); and the 1943 Chicago Victory National Open Championship, a wartime substitute for the National Open.

Future Tournaments

Continuing its longstanding support of amateur golf, The Beverly Country Club has been designated to host club a number of golf championships over the next several years. In 2009, Beverly will host the United States Golf Association (USGA) Senior Amateur Championship. In 2010, the club will host the Illinois State Amateur Championship run by the Chicago District Golf Association (CDGA). The Beverly Country Club will also host the 2011 Western Golf Association (WGA) Junior Championship, making it one of only a handful of clubs which will have then hosted the full complement of the three WGA Golf Championships which includes the BMW Championship (formerly the Western Open), the Western Amateur and the Western Junior.

In 2014, Beverly will again host the Western Amateur for the first time since it did so in 1930. In July of 2008, the WGA announced that The Beverly Country Club was selected to host the Western Amateur on a rotational basis along with six other leading Chicago-area clubs including Conway Farms Golf Club, Skokie Country Club, North Shore Country Club, Exmoor Country Club, Olympia Fields Country Club and Rich Harvest Farms.

Famous Tournament Champions

* 1910 Western Open Championship won by Chick Evans
* In 1925, Virginia Van Wie captured one of her first championships at Beverly
* 1931 US Amateur won by Francis Ouimet
* 1963 Western Open Championship won by Jack Nicklaus
* 1967 Western Open Championship won by Arnold Palmer
* Patty Berg and Mildred Ella "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias have each held the women's course record which is still held by Susie Maxwell

A Proud Caddie Tradition

The Beverly Country Club has a long, proud relationship with the Western Golf and the [http://www.westerngolfassociation.com/ Western Golf Association] , a charitable trust which provides full-tuition scholarships renewable for up to four years to deserving caddies. The program started in 1930 and was originally endowed with the donated golf winnings of Chick Evans, all of whose golf winnings went toward the scholarships as a way of preserving his amateur status. Today the Evans Scholarship Program is supported by tens of thousands of contributors across the country, one of the largest of which is the Beverly Country Club. With nearly 300 of the total 8,500 Evans Scholar alumni, the Beverly Country Club also boasts the record for the largest number of Evans Scholar alumni of any club in America.

Holes

References

* [http://www.beverlycc.org "Beverly Country Club"]
* [http://www.golfclubatlas.com/beverly1.html "Golf Club Atlas"]
* [http://www.westerngolfassociation.com/ "Western Golf Association"]