Exmoor Country Club

Donald Ross designed Exmoor Country Club's modern routing in 1898 — making it one of his earliest American commissions, just two years after he immigrated from Scotland to the United States. The course sits on a piece of Highland Park, Illinois Chicago North Shore land that has been a country club continuously since the late 1800s, and Exmoor's institutional history places it among the oldest golf properties in the Midwest. The original routing has been redesigned multiple times since the late-1800s opening, with significant work through subsequent decades preserving the Ross design framework.

The course plays around 6,800 yards par 71 from the back markers, with bent fairways and a slope in the upper 130s. The yardage is short by modern championship standards, but Ross's green complexes — small, crowned, set on natural rises in the manner he established as his signature throughout his career — defend against modern equipment in ways the back-tee yardage doesn't account for. The mature tree canopy through the property has grown to championship-narrowing dimensions over the club's century-plus history. Exmoor hosted the 1893 Western Open in its early-1890s form (before the modern routing) and various regional championships through the early-1900s.

Exmoor Country Club is private and access is members and accompanied guests only. The membership is regional Chicago North Shore business and professional families with multi-generation ties through the club's late-1800s founding. The Ross early-career architectural pedigree is part of the institutional identity, and the hospitality model is traditional country club.

Chicago North Shore climate gives Exmoor a playing season of April through October. The course closes through Chicago winter and reopens when the soil thaws — typically late April. The mature tree canopy through the property and the autumn color through October are part of the routing's seasonal photographic signature.