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July 1.: 1927 WILMETTE LIFE . .., 15 · lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiUIWIIUiliiiiUIWIIIIIIIIIIIIRIIIIIttlllllltiiiiiiHIHIIIIIIIIIIMtiHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIItiiHIIII ., . . . . . . .,~~~~~~~. ,. . ~~~~~~~~~~. . . ~~!,!. : . . .~!~~~~~~. . . . . . ,:tr lll .. Skokie, 29 Years Old, a Great Golf Organiz3tion Fine Clubhouse and Course "Show Place" of North Shore Club, Favoring Expansion, Develops Rapidly-Called a Scientific Set of Holes By RAY C. PEARSON T HIS is the fifth of a series of articles about the great golf clubs of the north shore. The story herewith presented describe· the Skokie Country club, one of the oldest in the Chicago District. It is a story of progressiveness that made success. 1 THE P I C T U RES: Miaa Eva B EFOHE this century o f mar\'c:lo us Johnson, club champion (insert); progress opened, before "someStanley Hopkins, club champion thing" called radio amazed the world (upper right); Skokie's fine cluband before house (lower left); the tennis courts Am e r i (bottom). c a n youth winged 1 across th e land ,,·as hought cheap. Figur e out Atlan - what. land ,·alues w ere on the north tir: from shore tw e nty -nin e years ago, follow New York through 0 11 th e meteoric rise which to Europe. Yen· closelv r es emble s a pyramiding a group of proposition - and w e find the explanamen wh o ti on of win· Sko kie is · the staunch orsought s ur - ganization h is today. cea ~. e from Paul G. Chac e, secretary of the club. bu s ine ss has gin·n me some interesting informacares got tion , which concerns not only the totogether and day. hut the future of Skokie. I a sked formed the Sk-okie Country club. It was wa \' b a c k i ;1 · · 1897-98, to be PHIL GAUDEN, "PRO" more exact, that these sportsmen selected a site for their club o n the wooded fringe of Glencoe just ca st o f the Skokie marsh. The,· started mode stly, rode alOt1g in this ~entury's ··parade of progress" and today Skokie with it s beautiful clubhouse and equally beautiful golf course is one of the .. s how places" of the famed north shore. Developed Rapidly In thi s se rie s the writer has selected some tweln· golf club s and of those to he de scribed Skokie enjoys the dis. tincti o n of being- one of the oldest. Tht>re may he clubs antedating Skokie in the C hicago district but it would not tak e a great many fingers to count them. \Ve have said that Skokie starte d modestly, but development fa st and ce rtain as the years rolled bv has res ulted in an organization as staunch as the well knov.;n rock of Gibraltcr. The Skokie of twenty-nine years ago isn't the S kokie of today, except in one respect- a spirit of good fellowship that would be hard to beat. It has grown, grown beyond the dream s of that smalJ group of men who formed the organization. It is still growing and there is an interesting story concerning the club which has nothing to do with golf. It is the story of busines s acumen,; it is the story of a shrewd judgment which prompted the organizers to pick the s ite for their club on the north shore. ., · him if the club carried a · bonded clrhtedness. Expansion Good for Club " Sure, it has," he an s,ycred, "hut it is not the sort 0f obligation, which remains at a set figure. or is reduced or paid off at a specified time. \Ve have found expansion good for our club and always arc improving and increasing our holdings. Only recently we a r'quircd some acres of Skokie marsh land. Some dav thi s will he drained and then that ground will be just a s \·aluablc as any in our section." And then came the explanation of this expansion move. "Sometime," continued Mr. Chace, "Sometime, and perhaps the time isn't far vff, Skokie is going to find that Rise in Ground Values Helps just how much Skokie was " set back " when the land was secured back in 1898, the writer doesn't know, but we can safely juggle figures to arrive easily at the conclusion that Skokie some of its present grounds are too Yaluable for a golf club. Then we'll dispose of it and move over on the land recently acquired. So you sec a little bonded indebtedness is trivial bu siness." There is an incident which should he mentioned here. A few years ago the clubhouse was burned down. Out of the ashes there came a bigger and better clubhouse. Just another eVIdence of the progressive spirit at Skokie. The club membership is restr icted to three hundred. There is a wait ing lis t and it is not small. We are informed that "ari ~ tocracy" . has no place at Skokie. Members play "goodfellowship" as their hig card. (Continued on Page 17)