Beverly Country Club’s golf course began in 1908 when the new club asked its first professional, George O’Neil, to lay out the original 18, reportedly with assistance from Tom Bendelow. A decade later the club turned to Donald Ross “to create a master plan to renovate the course and bring it back up to major championship standards.” Club history emphasizes that Ross’s plan was adopted over nearly a decade, establishing the basis of the course recognizable today.
The surviving documentary trail places Ross’s planning in 1918 (the club’s account) with implementation continuing through the 1920s; board minutes in 1922 authorized the Grounds Committee “to complete its reconstruction of the course under the Ross Plan,” confirming active execution in that year. The only material routing alteration unrelated to Ross’s plan occurred in 1932, when the first and ninth were modified to accommodate the widening of 87th Street.
The club attributes specific design intent to Ross’s response to site constraints: on a rectangular property bordered by three arterial streets and a railroad, he produced a routing in which no two consecutive holes run in the same direction. He also keyed the scheme to the property’s dominant landforms—a ridge that runs “from behind the fifth green eastward through the promontory above the second fairway,” and remnant dunes on the back nine formed by the ancient shoreline of prehistoric Lake Chicago. These elements still organize how the course plays today.
Ross’s built work at Beverly thus consisted of a comprehensive renovation/re-routing of an existing course, phased through the early 1920s, rather than a single-season rebuild. The club does not publish surviving original Ross drawings (the GCA history notes that the plan was likely lost in early clubhouse fires), but the 1922 minutes and subsequent adoption record his authorship.
Unique design characteristics
Several present holes display the live strategies of Ross’s Beverly work as restored: No. 11 (par 5) begins blind and then traverses rolling ground; the green carries a pronounced interior spine, demanding that the approach find the correct section for two-putt chances. No. 12 (short par 3), re-worked from a compromised late-20th-century version, now presents tucked pins near aggressive bunkering and quick fall-offs, reintroducing a delicate, exacting one-shotter on the back nine’s dune ground. No. 14 (par 4) deploys a chain of left-side bunkers along a runnable fairway; while longer players can attack, recoveries from around the green are made difficult by a strong back-to-front tilt of the putting surface. No. 17 (long par 3) features one of the sternest back-to-front cants on the course, rewarding a short-side, uphill chip over misses long or pin-high. Together these holes show how Beverly’s restored hazards and green contours accentuate the property’s vertical movement rather than fight it.
On the front nine, Ross routed across and around the lake ridge to vary stances and approach heights. The 2nd plays dramatically downhill from the ridge toward the former lakebed; the 5th climbs back, beginning a run of up-and-down asks that culminates at the 8th, whose 60-yard green is among the most audacious surfaces in the city—long enough to change club selection within the same hole and to magnify the premium on leaving the ball below the correct tier. The 9th, once a tee shot played over 87th Street to a green beyond the road, was reconfigured after the street widened; its present awkward dogleg, boundary pressure, and small target continue to exact errors before the turn.
Ross’s directional variety—documented by the club’s claim that no two consecutive holes point the same way—remains a Beverly hallmark. The back nine, routed across the relict dunes, highlights this most vividly at the 13th with a blind drive over a dune and an approach from an upslope toward a target that plays with out-of-bounds beyond, and at 16, where the green is benched sideways into a knoll, creating feed-in and kick-away angles depending on one’s line from the fairway.
Historical significance
Beverly occupies a central place in Ross’s Chicago-area record as a city-limits renovation that achieved national-event status quickly after its adoption. The U.S. Amateur in 1931 (won by Francis Ouimet over Jack Westland) showcased the new championship course, and the club’s ledger of professional and elite amateur events underscores the enduring adequacy of Ross’s playing corridors: Western Open in 1910 (pre-Ross routing) and again in 1963 (Arnold Palmer), 1967 (Jack Nicklaus), and 1970 (Hugh Royer); the Chicago Victory National Open in 1943 (a wartime substitute for the U.S. Open); and Western Golf Association events including the Western Amateur (1930, 2014) and Western Junior (2011). These tournaments anchor Beverly’s reputation in contemporary assessments as one of Chicago’s leading Golden-Age tests.
While O’Neil’s original 1908 routing gave Beverly its footprint, the club and outside analysts consistently credit Ross’s 1918 master plan—implemented through the 1920s—for the elegant routing across ridge and dunes that remains the course’s identity. That combination of an early professional’s site finding with a Ross championship renovation explains why Beverly is frequently cited among the region’s top “classic” courses.
Current condition / integrity
Beverly today measures 7,063 yards, par 71 from its championship tees under the CDGA rating, with multiple tee sets below that. The routing remains the Ross plan with the well-known exceptions at 1 and 9 stemming from the 1932 road work. After decades of corridor narrowing and green/fairway shrinkage, the club pursued a long program with Ron Prichard beginning in 2002, followed by a Master Restoration Project (Aug 2019–June 2020) undertaken with Prichard and Tyler Rae. The project expanded greens, fairways, and bunkers back toward their historical footprints and re-grassed the greens, materially re-presenting Ross’s hazard scale and green-edge interest; the club’s own account and independent course reporting both emphasize the scope of this restoration.
Because the club lacks a publicly available, hole-by-hole Ross plan set, a numerical percentage of surviving Ross features cannot be responsibly published. The evidence supports this qualitative assessment: routing integrity is high (coursewide, save for the 1/9 changes), green and fairway perimeters have been re-expanded to historic pads, and bunker forms have been scaled back up to read as Ross intended. One notable adjustment acknowledged by independent reporting is that No. 12’s green changed massively from the 1990s to the present configuration; the current short par-3 is a restored Golden-Age challenge but not a literal reconstruction of a documented Ross drawing. In contrast, holes such as 11, 14, 16, and 17 show a very close fit between Ross-era intent (using the rolling back-nine ground and interior green movement) and current play.
In 2022–23, the club added a short par-3 course and a Himalayan putting green while enhancing the practice areas; those amenities sit outside the Ross course and do not alter his routing. Beverly’s caddie culture also remains central (the club notes the nation’s largest Evans Scholars program), but those operations updates have no bearing on Ross’s architecture.
Sources & Notes
Beverly Country Club — Club History. Official narrative of O’Neil/Bendelow origins (1908), request to Donald Ross for a master plan (1918), emphasis on no two consecutive holes run in the same direction, use of the ridge and dunes from prehistoric Lake Chicago; notes 2002 Prichard restoration and 2019–2020 Master Restoration with Prichard & Rae; lists major championships (Western Open 1910/1963/1967/1970; U.S. Amateur 1931; Chicago Victory National Open 1943; Western Amateur 1930/2014; Western Junior 2011; U.S. Senior Amateur 2009).
GolfClubAtlas — “Beverly Country Club.” Historical essay referencing 1922 board minutes authorizing reconstruction under the Ross Plan, loss of original Ross drawing in earlier clubhouse fires, and 1932 alterations to 1 and 9 due to 87th Street. Includes period photographs and tournament recaps.
The Fried Egg — “The Beverly Country Club: Course Review & Rating.” Hole-specific observations used here for present-day playing characteristics that align with the Ross plan and recent restoration (e.g., No. 11 spine through green, No. 12 short par-3’s modernized green with tucked pins, No. 14 left-side bunker chain with back-to-front green tilt, No. 17 severe back-to-front slope; No. 8 ~60-yard green; 13 blind tee over dune; 16 green set into knoll). Notes that fairways/greens were expanded and Ross bunker scale restored in 2020.
Top100GolfCourses — “Beverly Country Club.” Summary confirming O’Neil/Bendelow original and Ross redesign ten years later, serving as an independent architectural chronology corroborant.
CDGA Club Page — Beverly Country Club. Official yardage and ratings data (7,063 yards, par 71 from Championship tees) used in the Summary Table and Current Condition.
USGA — U.S. Amateur champions list (1931 Beverly C.C., winner Francis Ouimet). Used for tournament verification.
Where2Golf — Beverly tournament results. Used to confirm Western Open 1910 result (Chick Evans over George Simpson) and other event factoids.
Beverly CC home page. Concise restatement of the club’s Ross plan implementation “over nearly a decade” and the championship-event list, used for cross-checking dates and scope.
Disputed / uncertain points
• Exact year of Ross’s redesign commencement: Club history presents 1918 as the year Ross created the master plan; some directories list 1919. Board minutes confirm work underway in 1922. Given phased adoption, this profile treats 1918 as planning and early-to-mid 1920s as principal construction, with 1932 changes to 1/9 attributed to road works, not Ross.
• Original Ross plan set: The club and GCA history state that the original Ross drawing is not extant (likely lost in fires). Accordingly, this profile ties hole-specific descriptions to current conditions and authoritative reporting rather than to a missing plan.