By the mid-1910s Exmoor already possessed a full course shaped by members under W.A. Alexander with a subsequent rework by professional Stewart Gardner. In 1915 the club retained Donald Ross to undertake a “major revision”—not a ground-up routing on virgin land, but a comprehensive remake that he and the club executed in phases. Contemporary reporting and later club histories agree that the first three holes were finished late in 1915, with the balance completed over roughly four more years at a reported cost of $35,000–$40,000, concluding circa 1919. This chronology appears in a 2022 Western Amateur program (drawing on the Chicago Tribune, Dec. 15, 1915) and in the Chicago District Golf Association’s historical essay on Ross in Chicago.
Ross’s design intent is unusually well documented at Exmoor because the 1915 Tribune description of the opening hole itemized hazards and landforms that he built into the revised course: a thirty-foot-wide band of traps and copses 200 yards from the tee, a “long, rakish hazard” at 400 yards on the left, and a seven-foot gentled knoll guarding the approach. Those features still read as the strategic thesis of Exmoor’s first hole today.
Ross did return as the project unfolded—coordination notes name greens chairman Tom Wyles and professional Jack Croke as on-site partners—and contemporary accounts praised the results as they opened. The Chicago Evening Post lauded the new 17th as “the best hole in the land,” a superlative worth noting because it ties a specific Exmoor hole to period criticism rather than to generalized praise.
Unique Design Characteristics
Exmoor’s Ross revision worked with the site’s subtle relief—the club sits on an ancient glacial ridge—and he directed play up, down, and across the land to vary stances and sightlines. The club’s Western Amateur guide summarizes the terrain context and how Ross used it to set diagonal challenges from the tee and open, ground-friendly entries to greens. Many greens remain perceptibly raised and slope from back-to-front, with several defended by false fronts; others offer open run-ups that sharpen the value of precise angles.
Specific hole examples are well recorded:
No. 1 (par 4) retains the Ross-positioned early fairway hazards and the seven-foot knoll that complicates the approach; period descriptions from 1915 match present-day features restored during the club’s early-2000s work.
No. 16 (par 4) is the clearest modern illustration of Ross’s cross-bunker idiom at Exmoor. Using historic aerials, the club reinstated the diagonal string of cross bunkers that had faded, re-establishing the intended positional choice off the tee.
No. 17 (par 4), singled out in 1918–19 local coverage as exemplary, still reads like a Ross risk-reward hole where the precise tee line dictates whether the player can approach from the high, open side; this contemporary acclaim provides rare, hole-specific evidence of how Exmoor was perceived when Ross’s work was new.
No. 2 (par 4), described in the Western Amateur guide as “crowned in true Donald Ross fashion,” shows the domed target and tight surrounds that define much of Exmoor’s short-game interest today.
Taken together, these holes—especially 1, 16, and 17—offer the most legible through-lines to Ross’s Exmoor, both because their strategic elements are documented and because the club’s restoration choices have re-accented those elements rather than replacing them.
Historical Significance
Within Ross’s Chicago-area portfolio, Exmoor matters as a multi-year, resource-intensive re-creation of an established members’ course, undertaken immediately after his collaboration with Harry Colt at Old Elm (nearby) and contemporaneous with his work at Indian Hill and Skokie. The CDGA’s historical synthesis places Exmoor’s Ross campaign in 1915–1919 and quotes the era’s press praise for the 17th—useful context for understanding Exmoor as a showpiece of Ross’s Chicago period.
Exmoor has also served repeatedly as a championship host. It staged the 2018 Constellation Senior Players Championship (PGA TOUR Champions) at par 72, 7,149 yards—won by Vijay Singh in a playoff—which demanded tournament refinements without altering the identity of the course. The Western Golf Association has twice brought the Western Amateur to Exmoor in the modern era (2012, 2022), and the 2022 edition used a par-71, 7,143-yard setup detailed in the championship program. USGA records list Exmoor as host of the 1933 U.S. Women’s Amateur and the 1965 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, embedding the club in national competitive history. In state and regional reputational terms, Golf Digest’s current Best-in-State list places Exmoor among Illinois’s ranked courses.
Current Condition / Integrity
The broad outline of Ross’s 1915 routing still governs play, though at least five of his original holes have been replaced or substantially altered over time, according to Daniel Wexler’s assessment, and bunkering evolved during the mid-20th century. In 2003, the club hired Ron Prichard to restore lost Ross characteristics. Working from historic aerials, Prichard restyled every bunker in a grass-faced, Golden-Age idiom, reinstated diagonal hazards (notably the cross-bunkers on No. 16), re-defined green and tee perimeters that had drifted, installed new irrigation, introduced fescue for texture, and removed select trees to reopen angles. The project explicitly sought to restore strategic intent rather than to copy exact 1915 forms where evidence was thin.
Greens were resurfaced with Pure Distinction bentgrass in the mid-2010s (documented in club communications and superintendent notes), and by 2018—when Exmoor hosted the Senior Players—the club had completed a suite of improvements under Prichard that included these resurfaced greens and significant bunker work. Separately, contractor reports indicate the bunkers were rebuilt with Better Billy Bunker construction during the late 2010s, improving drainage and sand performance without changing the restored shapes.
In 2020, Exmoor engaged Andrew Green to develop a contemporary master plan. Ahead of the 2022 Western Amateur, Green executed targeted adjustments that respected Ross’s framework while refining specific holes and interfaces. Published descriptions note: re-worked No. 9 with a new left-side fairway bunker cluster and hummocks replacing an aging tree and a redundant left greenside bunker; updates to tees and circulation near No. 1; and practical adjustments to No. 18 to improve tournament flow and member play. These changes, combined with ongoing tree management, have sharpened vistas from the clubhouse and re-emphasized Exmoor’s landforms.
Today the member-play par is 72 at 7,180 yards, with the CDGA maintaining current ratings; championship setups toggle yardage and sometimes par (e.g., Western Amateur 2022 at par 71). The club’s private status is unchanged, and practice grounds (range, short-game, putting) support both daily play and tournament preparation. On balance, Exmoor retains a substantial quantum of Ross’s routing logic and green-to-tee relationships, many of his green platforms and surrounds (now re-grassed), and a bunker scheme that—while modern in construction—was deliberately returned to Ross’s strategic placements in 2003 and refined in 2022.
Uncertainties / disputes. Two points merit caution. First, attribution of Exmoor’s earliest (pre-Ross) design varies across sources. Club-adjacent histories credit the early 18-hole course to member W.A. Alexander with assistance from professional Stewart Gardner; some secondary compilations attribute the earliest 9 holes to C.B. Macdonald, H.J. Whigham, and/or Herbert J. Tweedie. Without direct access to Exmoor’s minute books, construction ledgers, or pre-1915 course plans, these attributions remain partly inferential. Second, while the 1915–1919 Ross timeline is strongly supported by contemporary reportage, the precise completion year and total project cost appear in multiple ranges ($35,000–$40,000); reconciling those figures would require consulting the club’s annual reports and invoices from the period. The extent of surviving Ross holes also varies by interpreter; Wexler’s note that the present course omits “five original holes” is a useful benchmark but not a primary document.
Sources & Notes
Western Amateur 120th Championship Program (2022, Exmoor CC host edition). Pages on club history and the golf course include Ross timeline (first three holes late 1915; remainder over next four years; $35,000 cost), description of the original No. 1 hazards from Chicago Tribune (12/15/1915), terrain context (glacial ridge; 145 acres), and restoration details for 2003 (Prichard) and 2022 (Andrew Green refinements).
Tim Cronin, “The Enduring Genius of Donald Ross” (Chicago District Golfer / CDGA, Nov. 2022). Chicago-area synthesis noting that Ross’s 1915 Exmoor revision transformed an 18-hole course by W.A. Alexander and others—first reworked by Stewart Gardner—and that the 17th drew high contemporary praise; cites five-year, $40,000 project scope.
CDGA Club Page: Exmoor Country Club. Current yardages, ratings, and member-play par (Black tees 7,180 yards, par 72), club contacts, and founding year.
PGA TOUR Champions – 2018 Constellation Senior Players Championship. Tournament pages confirm Exmoor as host, par 72, 7,149 yards, weathered course stats, and event outcome.
Western Golf Association – Western Amateur at Exmoor. Photo galleries and event materials confirm Exmoor as host in 2012 and 2022. Yardage/par for the 2022 setup (7,143 / par 71) appear in the championship program.
USGA Champions Media Guide (2025). Host-site listings identify Exmoor as site of the 1933 U.S. Women’s Amateur and 1965 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur.
Top100GolfCourses (course profile). Collates published assessments including Daniel Wexler’s note that today’s course follows “much of Ross’s routing (minus five original holes)” and records the 2003 Ron Prichard restoration. (Secondary synthesis; not a primary document.)
Greens and bunker construction updates. Superintendent/ERS notes (2018) reference Pure Distinction greens resurfacing in fall 2014 and describe a three-hole short-game practice area; contractor reporting notes Better Billy Bunker upgrades on all 18 holes in the late 2010s.
Golf Digest – Best in State (Illinois). Current list placing Exmoor among ranked Illinois courses (2025–26 cycle).