Clubhouse

Past

Back in 1870, the land on which Cardinal Creek rests was known as Highland Stock Farm where Timothy Miller, Beecher's founder, raised prize Hereford cattle, as mentioned in the James A. Michener book Centennial.In 1908, the property was sold to Dr. D.D. VanVoorhis who renamed it "Shady Lawn" with high hopes for a bundle of young new trees he planted. Many of the trees planted by the doctor still remain today, and shade areas of the course.

In 1929, the doctor opened a nine hole golf course, and a second in 1931. Back then, golfers didn't have the luxury of club cars, but instead met at the C&EI depot in Beecher, where they were then transported by hayrack for a day of golf and all the chicken they could eat. The club manager was a gentleman by the name of C. Matt Melville from Southmoor Country Club, who not only managed the club's operations during that time, but was a golf course architect who designed the layout of the 1929 and 1931 courses.

An original clubhouse was built around this time of salvaged lumber from the old barn on the property. Many additions were made over the next 30 years until the clubhouse was rebuilt in 1964 with brick, and still stands today. The final course was added in 1987.

Present

Cardinal Creek has been under new management since 2007 and many changes have already been made to enhance the course. Most notably, the addition of a half-million dollar investment in state of the art greenskeeping machinery and Reynaldo Tijerina, superintendent, with years of experience at Medinah Country Club.  We have also added GPS to our fleet of golf carts and Golf Digest had rated Cardinal Creek one of the "Best Places to Play" for the 2008 - 2009 season.

Future

Cardinal Creek goal to work hard to be the best every year, we know that we are on track to be one of the best public courses in the Chicagoland area. "We are serious about your business".