Since 1966, Golf Digest has ranked the country's top 100 courses annually. While names like Augusta National, Pinehurst and Pebble Beach are routinely in the top-10, Wheaton's Chicago Golf Club is once again highly ranked, this time at no. 18. In 1893, C.B. Macdonald constructed the original Chicago Golf Club in Downers Grove, the first 18-hole course in America.Three years later the club moved to its present location in Wheaton and has remained one of the country's elite courses since.

The 6,800-yard track is not long by any means, but it's uber-private membership and impeccable design adds to the club's mystique.

I've not had the privilege of playing Chicago Golf Club, however its constant rank among the country's best courses is a testament to the quality of golf in Chicago.