David Esler

Mount Prospect, IL

Mt. Prospect Golf Club sits in the Mt. Prospect Park District about 35 miles northwest of Chicago. Golf started here in 1926 as a nine-hole course, and the property expanded to 18 holes in 1929. It has been community golf ever since, and 2026 marks the club's 100th year. The course golfers play today came out of a $9 million rebuild that reopened in 2015 under Chicago-area architect David Esler. Rather than modernize the layout, Esler pushed it back toward its Golden Age roots, drawing on the design ideas of Seth Raynor, C.B. Macdonald and Donald Ross. That influence shows in the details: low square tee boxes, cross bunkers set in the driving zones, and plateau greens with sharp fall-offs. The Raynor and Macdonald lineage is clearest in the template holes, rare on a municipal course — a Redan, an Eden, and a Punchbowl with a large gathering green. The par-3 16th plays to a Biarritz green split by a deep swale. From the back tees the card measures 6,070 yards to a par of 70, rated 70.6 with a slope of 137, and the walk is short and flat enough that most players carry.