Butler National Golf Club is a private

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

club located in

Oak Brook, Illinois Oak Brook is a village (Illinois), village in DuPage County, Illinois, with a very small portion in Cook County, Illinois, Cook County. The population was 8,163 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. A suburb of Chicago, it contains th ...

History

Butler National was the creation of Paul Butler, an affluent entrepreneur, philanthropist, and sportsman who was also the founder of the village of

. In 1972, renowned golf course architect George Fazio designed Butler on what was previously York Country Club. It was built and seeded in the relatively short span of two years, and the construction was completed under the supervision of Fazio's nephew Tom Fazio, an internationally acclaimed architect in his own right. This club was home to the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

Western Open The Western Open was a professional golf tournament in the United States, for most of its history an event on the PGA Tour. The tournament's founding in 1899 actually pre-dated the start of the Tour, which is generally dated from 1916, the ye ...

from 1974 to 1990. The course policy of not allowing female members caused the club to lose the Western Open. In May 2007, ''

Golf Digest ''Golf Digest'' is a monthly golf magazine published by Warner Bros. Discovery through its TNT Sports unit. It is a generalist golf publication covering recreational golf and men's and women's competitive golf. The magazine started by John F. ...

'' rated Butler 21st of "America's 100 Greatest Courses."

Course

Butler National is a relatively flat, tree-lined course, requiring solid golf shots to shoot a good score. The Fazio design is penal and rewards successful positioning and shot shaping. A right to left ball flight is preferable as there are more dog leg lefts than rights. Water hazards will frequently come into play as do the deep faced bunkers. There are approximately 40 sand bunkers. The Butler (back) tees play , with a course rating of 78.1 and slope rating of 155. In the fall of 2004, all of the greens were converted to an A-1 Bent grass and the sand to tour grade signature. The greens are fast, but the difficulty comes in reading the greens as they are very subtle.

Membership policy

Butler National Golf Club is one of four all-male golf courses in the Chicago area, which is subject to criticism. Butler has not hosted a PGA or USGA tournament since 1990 due to their admissions policy, most notably missing the opportunity to host the US Open.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1972 establishments in Illinois Golf clubs and courses in Illinois Oak Brook, Illinois Sports venues completed in 1972