In 1913 the founders of Old Elm invited Harry S. Colt to the North Shore during one of his rare North American visits. Colt spent about a week on the property, walked and staked a plan, and left the club with drawings and written instructions. He recommended that Donald J. Ross—then already a prolific builder and greenkeeper—supervise implementation in his absence.
The club accepted that recommendation, making Old Elm a singular collaboration in which Colt’s routing and strategic bunkering concept were built on the ground by Ross, who shaped the greens and oversaw construction. Contemporary accounts and later club and society histories have treated Old Elm as the only U.S. course to bear the tangible hand of both Colt and Ross. The course opened in 1913, with refinement and construction continuing under Ross’s on-site direction as features were finished to match Colt’s notes.
The early division of labor matters here because it explains Old Elm’s unusual blend of forms: broad corridors and naturalistic, torn-edge hazards consistent with Colt’s pre-war work, combined with push-up greens built in the field by Ross. That authorship has guided every subsequent attempt to restore intent. A century later, beginning around 2010, the club engaged architect J. Drew Rogers to study surviving Colt documents and period comparables, reopen tree-crowded corridors, expand fairway and green mowing lines, and reimagine bunkers with the scale and roughened “ripped” edges Colt favored. Rogers enlisted David Zinkand—a veteran Coore & Crenshaw associate—to help with bunker and green detailing. In 2025, the club announced completion of a multi-year phase under Zinkand Golf Design, including a comprehensive regrassing, a full bunker restoration, and subtle contour modifications on six greens (explicitly including the Redan-seventeenth), adjustments intended to preserve hole locations at contemporary speeds while respecting Ross’s surfaces.
Unique Design Characteristics
Old Elm’s width is not incidental; under Colt it was the primary tool for creating choice. With tree removal and mowing-line recapture over the last decade, that width again forces players to choose lines that open or close preferred angles. The second hole—a stern, uphill par four to a crowned target with virtually no greenside sand—shows how Colt’s corridors and Ross’s green building jointly punish imprecision: even a slightly offline approach runs off the shoulders into short-grass trouble, making recovery far harder than the carded yardage suggests. The ninth (a compact par four at the turn) is notorious for a sharply contoured, fast surface that sits in full view of the clubhouse and reveals how ruthless Ross’s push-up pads can be when kept firm.
The most distinctive ensemble is the double green shared by the par-5 sixth and the par-3 seventeenth. The seventeenth plays as a Redan, its canted back-left target accepting a running approach; between the two pinning zones lies a Biarritz-like swale, deep enough to create two platforms but continuous enough to function as a single complex. It is an uncommon configuration in the United States and reads, stylistically, as Colt’s strategy married to Ross’s on-site shaping. Elsewhere, centerline bunkers and diagonal hazards reintroduced during restoration reestablish Colt’s habit of placing sand where it interrogates choices rather than only where it frames greens. The tenth, now a long par four (converted from a par five), leverages those concepts: the safest tee lines yield a poorly angled, long iron into a firm target, whereas the bold drive to the preferred side brings hazards into play. Short par fours at twelve and fifteen emphasize approach precision into intricate targets (fifteen’s near-square pad is ringed by bunkers), a microcosm of how the course rewards discipline more than power.
Historical Significance
Within Ross’s career, Old Elm is important not simply for geography (his Chicago-area work was otherwise independent) but for the documented collaboration with Colt, representing the rare moment when the two leading figures of their respective traditions worked on the same course and, according to multiple accounts, spent several days together on site. In the city’s architectural history, Old Elm also stands apart as a golf-only, male-only club that maintained low membership and limited play—conditions that inadvertently helped preserve corridors and keep green locations close to their original pads even as vegetation grew in mid-century. In national reputational terms, the course re-entered the Golf Digest America’s Second 100 Greatest list in 2023 and rose to No. 149 in the 2025–26 cycle while holding Top-10 in Illinois—recognition that coincided with the restoration’s maturation and the club’s shift toward short-grass, firm-fast presentation under superintendent Curtis James. Recent national coverage has foregrounded Old Elm’s pedigree (Colt’s routing with Ross’s greens) as the course’s calling card, not least because it is essentially unique in the U.S.
Current Condition / Integrity
Routing and corridors. The routing that Colt laid out in 1913 remains intact. Over the last 10–15 years, tree removal and fairway expansion have restored width consistent with Colt’s plans and with his peer work of the period. That change, more than any alteration of hole par or length, has had the most influence on how Old Elm now plays.
Greens. Club-facing materials and architect reports consistently assert that Old Elm still plays to Ross’s original push-up surfaces, though their perimeters had shrunk and rounded over time. Rogers and Zinkand recaptured oblong forms and lost hole locations; in 2025, six greens—including the Redan-17th—received subtle contour modifications to sustain pinning variety at modern speeds. These were not wholesale rebuilds; they were surgical corrections aimed at preserving Ross’s interior character while regaining edge function.
Bunkers. The current hazards are intentionally Colt-like: large scale, torn-edge faces that look ripped from natural upslopes, with less emphasis on prescriptive yardage positioning than on landform fit. This aesthetic and strategic reset is the signature of the recent restoration phases (Rogers’s master planning and Zinkand’s detailing), and it notably altered the course’s visual identity back toward Colt’s pre-war idiom.
Set-up and yardage. The CDGA rates a championship “Buzz” tee at 7,213 yards / par 72. Public scorecards sometimes show ~6,950–6,960 yards (par 72) for a back set labeled differently; those differences reflect tee naming and ongoing refinement of decks during restoration. Reviews by national panels also note the tenth’s conversion from par five to par four in the modern set-up, reinforcing that integrity here has been pursued through width, mowing lines, and hazard form rather than dramatic re-routing.
Attribution details. All sources consulted agree Colt routed and specified features in 1913 and that Ross supervised construction and built the greens thereafter; however, the precise division of authorship for specific green contours hole-by-hole remains based on tradition and professional testimony rather than digitized plan sets.
Dates of on-site overlap. Several sources state Colt and Ross spent about a week together on the property. The exact dates are not reproduced in the public domain articles cited here; they likely derive from club minutes or correspondence.
Pay-rate anecdote. One widely repeated note lists Colt at $100/day and Ross at $20/day; because the figure is published via a secondary directory, it should be treated as unverified until corroborated against club ledgers.
Sources & Notes
Golf Course Architecture (Adam Lawrence), “A legendary collaboration at Chicago’s Old Elm Club,” Dec. 10, 2015. Background on Colt’s 1913 visit, Ross’s construction role, restoration aims, and interviews with J. Drew Rogers and David Zinkand.
Chicago District Golf Association (CDGA) club listing: “Old Elm Club,” accessed Sept. 2025. Official yardages/ratings by tee (Buzz 7,213 yards/par 72), club contacts, founding year, architect credit “Harry Colt & Donald Ross.”
Golf Digest course page: “Old Elm Club,” updated 2025–26 cycle. Notes male-only status; outlines Colt-Ross collaboration; summarizes 2010s–2020s restoration (Rogers/Zinkand) and lists national/state ranking positions; panelist comments describing double green (6 & 17), crowned #2, short 12/15, centerline bunkering, and 10th’s conversion to par 4.
J. Drew Rogers, project notes: “Old Elm Club – Chicago,” firm website. States that Ross’s original push-up greens survive; explains green-shape recapture and recovery of strategic cupping areas; documents restoration objectives.
Top100 Golf Courses (Old Elm Club), editorial and review aggregation. Provides historical overview; includes (secondary) pay-rate anecdote; carries practitioner comment from Rogers regarding original push-up greens and recaptured shapes.
GOLF.com features, “How two design titans built this Chicago-area gem,” Nov. 24, 2024. National profile emphasizing Colt’s routing, Ross’s additions, superintendent Curtis James’s firm-and-fast presentation, and notes on the double-green complex.
Zinkand Golf Design releases (First Call, Golf Course Architecture news, Golf Course Industry), Feb. 24–26, 2025. Announce completion of bunker restoration, full regrassing, and subtle modifications on six greens (including the Redan-17th); identify Zinkand as firm of record following Rogers’s master planning.