Midlothian Country Club
Designed by Herbert J. Tweedie
History
Midlothian Country Club traces its founding to 1898, a year when golf was still finding its footing on Chicago’s South Side and the surrounding prairie towns. A group of businessmen and golf enthusiasts organized the club to give themselves and their families a permanent home for the game, part of a broader wave of club formation that swept the region as the sport shed its reputation as an eccentric import and took root in American soil.
The club turned to Herbert J. Tweedie to lay out its grounds, a Scottish-born professional whose credentials carried the weight of the game’s homeland at a time when American clubs prized that pedigree highly. Tweedie had already made his mark at other Chicago-area clubs, and at Midlothian he brought the same grounding in traditional principles, shaping a course that would soon prove itself capable of testing the finest players in the country.
That test came quickly. Midlothian hosted the U.S. Open in 1914, won by Walter Hagen in his first appearance in the championship, and the club later staged the U.S. Amateur in 1924. These championships marked Midlothian as one of the serious grounds of American golf in the sport’s formative decades, a status earned in its earliest years and maintained through the careful stewardship of the membership in the generations since.
Playing Notes
Expect a walk through mature tree lines that pinch driving areas more than the yardage suggests, so club selection off the tee matters as much as swing speed. The greens here tend to sit small and firm, which puts a premium on approach shots that land at the right angle rather than just the right distance — bunkers around these complexes are positioned to catch the shots that miss on the natural miss side, so bring your full complement of wedges and a plan for each hole rather than a one-size-fits-all attack. The terrain rolls gently but consistently, enough that flat lies are the exception rather than the rule, which adds a layer of difficulty to iron play even on holes that look straightforward from the tee. Walking is entirely feasible and arguably the better way to feel the property, though carts are available for those who want to move quickly. Bring a two-way miss plan for the tee shots, extra patience for the greens, and don't expect much room to bail out — the corridors ask you to commit to a line and execute it.