Pine Meadow Golf Club — Local services in Mundelein

I don’t even know where to begin. I am still shocked someone can treat customers this way. Me and my friends golf all over and go to many golf clubs and never got treated and talked to in such a disrespectful way before. Now when we first got there, the gentlemen working to front counter did say to have the carts in at 7:45pm. We understand that and we did come back at that time. However when we did arrive at that time the doors were locked and nobody in sight. We thought everybody had left. Now one of my friends had lost a club and even gave his number to the gentlemen working the front just in case they find it the next day but when we saw nobody there when we first pulled up, we assumed we would be able to go out and just look to find our friends club, I mean come on. Everyone who golfs knows, loosing a club sucks and it’s expensive. if we have the chance to go find it now then your damn right we are going to try and find it. Well, we went out to hole 6 were my friend thought he lost his club and hoorayyyy we found it. Now we were all very excited and happy and glad he found it. Had a great time playing the course too, but now the fun starts. On out way back to the club house we see the gentlemen who was working the front just standing outside with a stern look on his face and arms crossed. We pull up at 8:00-8:05. Again we understand he said 745 but there was a reason we went back out. We weren’t just out there goofing around and being stupid. Now. Instead of coming up to us and talking to us like men. This coward just started yelling at us! I TOLD YOU 7:45!!! RIGHT!???? My friend replied- Yes, we just went to look for my club. Before my friend could even finish his sentence he just shouted at us. NO! NO! NO!! YOU MADE YOUR DECISION! I mean again, we’ve golfed all over the place and yea sometimes you come in a later then what they say and I’ve never had that type of encounter with somebody before. Again, I understand the whole timing of the citation but let’s be honest we are paying customers. I myself own a business, a restaurant in fact and guess what. We close at 10pm and if someone comes in at 9:59 and they want to eat we serve them and we’re happy too and we’re happy they came and we make sure there happy when they leave. Yeah we close at 10 but sometimes I don’t get out of there until 11. I don’t get mad at my customer for keeping me past closing. I get happy that I have a customer past closing. Bad attitude for the gentlemen working there, clearly he needs to handle some other position, because dealing with customers isn’t his...

Pine Meadows Golf Club is located in Mundelien, IL and built on a beautiful piece of property owned by the Catholic Church (Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary) and has been leased to the Jemsek family for many years (Cog Hill, St. Andrews). I am updating my review from last year to downgrade my rating because the course has become much more unplayable due to wrangly rough grass and very slow greens. As a senior I payed $88 for 18 holes and a cart on Monday morning at 10 AM, which is a ridiculous amount to pay for this course. The course is under construction on the third hole, with abbreviated tees, but they don’t tell you that before the round. The bunkers were under water and the rough is almost unplayable, not because it’s long but because the grass is too thick and firm. The greens are so slow that my group started to get pissed after several 3-putts that were hit firmly and pure but stopped before the cup. The course maintains a “keep pace” policy that they take seriously and a ranger will follow you on the course to police your pace. We always play fast but the ranger haunted us nonetheless. It was originally 9-holes designed by Cardinal Mundelien in 1927 who played in his black frock and fedora. It went to 18-holes in 1929 and that course was designed by William Flynn of Toomey and Flynn in Philadelphia. Pine Meadows has won many accolades over the years, but nothing in the last 10 years. I’m not surprised. The course is going downhill while the price is going up. There are plenty of other really nice courses for less money and a better maintenance track record. There are some pretty holes on this course but the overall value and quality of play have suffered a...

To be clear, the poor rating is more so about the scramble we played in yesterday than the course itself.

The course was in decent shape, but the scramble was almost $120/person to enter, which is pretty steep. We had never played the course so we wanted to check it out anyway so overpaid their price. Ended up being cart path only, so we had to run around the entire course picking up all the other balls… not what I expect to do when paying $120 to play!

Turns out the high price was a result of baking in prize money to the winners, which they mentioned would be flighted (which we thought great, flights are always a good idea since we played with 2 older guys who are well past their prime but still like to play- this levels the playing field).

Well, turns out the course doesn’t understand how to properly make flights. As opposed to making the flights at the end like most courses (so you can base the flights on score so the lower skilled teams have a chance), or basing the flights on handicap (again, to level the playing field), they just made divisions and divided the teams before the scramble. Obviously, this resulted in the only teams taking home money being the best (who should have all been in a flight together if they knew what they were doing).

Just left a sour taste. Definitely won’t be playing a scramble there again. I advise against it unless you have 4...