Alright, so you’re asking about golf courses in Mundelein, Illinois. Yeah, I’ve spent some time out that way, swung a few clubs there, for sure.
Look, it’s Mundelein. You’re not gonna stumble onto some hidden Augusta National out there. What you get is pretty much what you’d expect from suburban golf. Some courses are decent, kept up okay. Others, well, they’re a bit more on the “rustic” side, if you catch my drift. You pay your money, you hit your ball, sometimes you find it. It’s golf. It passes the time.
You’ll find some spots that are maintained pretty well, you know? Greens roll okay, fairways are mostly green. Then you get others that feel more like just open fields where someone stuck a few flags. It’s that kind of hit-or-miss suburban golf scene. Nothing that’s going to blow your socks off, but it serves its purpose if you’re in the area and itching to play.
Now, you’re probably wondering why I sound like I’ve cataloged every blade of grass on Mundelein’s golf courses. It’s not like I woke up one day and decided to become the foremost expert on Lake County golf. There’s a story there, like there always is with these things.
It all happened a few years back. My wife’s sister, Carol, her husband, Mike, decided he was going to become a professional bowler. No joke. Bought all the custom balls, the fancy shoes, even got one of those wrist guard things. Quit his job as a systems analyst. Carol was beside herself, obviously. Anyway, Mike’s big plan was to practice at some renowned alley that was, for some reason, near Mundelein. And since our own place was undergoing a massive kitchen renovation – dust everywhere, no running water in the kitchen for weeks – we ended up staying with them in their Mundelein house.
So there I was, marooned in Mundelein for what felt like an eternity, but was probably three or four weeks. My wife was trying to run interference with Carol and Mike’s “dream.” Me? I can only watch so much home improvement TV. And Mike, when he wasn’t at the alley, was talking about lane conditions, oil patterns, and the physics of a perfect strike. It was… a lot. Enough to make a guy need some fresh air, and fast.
I figured, “Well, I’m here. There must be golf courses.” So I started checking them out. My first venture was to Pine Meadow. I’d heard it was one of the better ones. And yeah, it was pretty good. Nice layout, challenging enough. But it wasn’t exactly cheap, you know? Not an everyday kind of place on a “stuck at the in-laws” budget.
So then I explored some of the other local options. Played at Countryside Golf Club a couple of times. They have those two courses, Prairie and Traditional. They were… golf courses. You could hit a ball, walk around. Pretty standard stuff. Did the job, which was mainly to get me out of the house and away from discussions about bowling ball core dynamics.
I remember one afternoon at this little municipal track, forget the name now. It was cheap, I’ll give it that. The greens were a bit like putting on a well-used doormat. The guy in the “pro shop,” which was more of a shed, looked like he’d lost a bet to be there. But it was golf, and it was quiet.
So that’s how I got my accidental PhD in Mundelein golf. Not by choice, but by a combination of a kitchen demolition and a relative’s sudden, passionate, and thankfully short-lived, bowling career. You just make the best of it, right? Sometimes “making the best of it” means finding any patch of grass where you can swing a club in peace.
Mike, by the way, never went pro. Hung up the fancy shoes after a local tournament where he finished near the bottom. Went back to IT, much to Carol’s relief. And me? I haven’t felt a burning desire to rush back to golf in Mundelein. But if you find yourself there with some time to kill, well, now you know a bit of what you’re in for. It’s an option, that’s for sure.
