Fresh Meadow Golf Club Closed

A century of golf has come to a close at 22nd and Wolf Road. Located 20 minutes from downtown Chicago in the rolling hills of Hillside, Fresh Meadow Golf Club closed for good on October 14, 2024.

Owned by the Archdiocese of Chicago, the land on which Fresh Meadow sits was initially intended as cemetery land. What the property will be used for in the future has not been announced.

Originally known as The Fair Lawn Golf Club, the facility opened on April 16, 1924 with plans to include a limited membership of 250. The initiation fee for the first 110 members would be $110, while the next 140 members would pay $125, which included federal tax and lockers.

Less than three months after the course opened, an advertisement appeared in The Chicago Tribune promoting Fair Lawn Golf Club as a public fee course. Golfers could play the course all day for 50 cents during the week and $1 on Saturday and Sunday.

The course was initially 6,150 yards across 143 acres. Club house facilities included locker rooms for men and women with shower baths.

Fresh Meadow Golf Club

Similar to a popular recent trend in 2024, a 9-hole putting course was authorized by club directors in 1924 to be built on the property. It’s unclear whether the putting course was ever built.

The course name eventually morphed into Fairlawn Golf Club and was purchased by Joe Jemsek in 1953, who also acquired Cog Hill Golf & Country Club two years earlier. Leasing the grounds from the Archdiocese of Chicago, Jemsek made improvements to the layout and renamed the course to Fresh Meadow Golf Club.

Jemsek eventually sold his stake in the course. Fresh Meadow has been managed in recent years by Arcis Golf, which also runs Ruffled Feathers Golf Club in Lemont, Tamarack Golf Club in Naperville and Eagle Brook Country Club in Geneva.

Fresh Meadow was a par 70, 6,276 yard golf course. However, the highlight of the facility was the expansive night-lit learning center which featured a 100-bay covered driving range, chipping and putting greens as well as two practice bunkers.