Dubsdread: Golf at Cog Hill in Lemont, Illinois

Course No. 4 – Dubsdread sits at 12294 Archer Avenue in Lemont, an address the operator's own site gives on both its homepage and its contact page and one the US Census geocoder matches exactly. The geocoder places that address in Cook County, in Lemont township, and returns no incorporated place for it — the course is in unincorporated Cook County, not inside a city or village's corporate limits. Cog Hill's own contact page carries no airport or mileage information; by the public OSRM routing engine, Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) is about 18 miles from the course and Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) is about 26 miles from the course. Both figures are OSRM's, not the operator's, and are node-dependent by roughly a mile, so they are approximate rather than exact.

Golf Digest's own page opens, "Below you'll find our 2025-'26 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in Illinois," and adds, "Of the 35 courses in this year's Best in State ranking, 33 are in or near the Windy City." The countdown runs from #35 down to #1, and every one of the thirteen positions above Dubsdread's #14 carries the literal label "Private": Chicago Golf Club (Wheaton), Shoreacres Golf Club (Lake Bluff), Medinah Country Club: No. 3 (Medinah), Canyata Golf Club (Marshall), Butler National Golf Club (Oak Brook), Olympia Fields Country Club: North (Olympia Fields), Rich Harvest Farms (Sugar Grove), Old Elm Club (Highland Park), Conway Farms Golf Club (Lake Forest), Beverly Country Club (Chicago), Skokie Country Club (Glencoe), Black Sheep Golf Club: 1st/2nd Nines (Sugar Grove), and Olympia Fields Country Club: South (Olympia Fields). Dubsdread, labelled "Public," is the first course on the list that a member of the public can book. Separately, Golf Digest's own "America's 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses" page ranks Cog Hill Golf & Country Club: Dubsdread (Course #4) at #76 nationally, also labelled "Public," city Lemont, IL.

Course No. 4 was designed and built by Dick Wilson and Joseph L. Lee and completed in 1964, a year after Cog Hill's Course No. 3; Rees Jones renovated it in 2007–2008, per the club's Wikipedia article, corroborated by the operator's own architect credits on its course page. It hosted the PGA Tour's Western Open from 1991 to 2006 and the BMW Championship in 2007 and 2009 through 2011. Dubsdread's greens are aerified twice a year. Cog Hill's published 2026 schedule sets aside April 14–17 in spring and, tentatively, October 20–23 in autumn for Course No. 4, with at least fourteen days of recovery expected afterwards; all dates are weather permitting and subject to change. Check with the golf shop on 866-264-4455 before booking around them. The 2026 green fee ranges $149–225, with a twilight rate starting at $110 and a junior (17 and under) rate of $108; green fees include cart, tax and a warm-up range basket.

Cog Hill is a daily-fee public facility: the words "member" and "membership" are absent from its rates page, and "resident" is absent too, so Dubsdread carries a single public rate schedule rather than municipal resident/non-resident tiering. The rates page states plainly, "Course No. 4 Dubsdread - online tee times can be reserved up to 60 days in advance," and separately, "your credit card will be charged for all bookings on Course No. 4 - Dubsdread and Friday-Sunday on Course No. 1/2/3." Book online through the operator's ForeUp portal or by phone on 866-264-4455.

White Fence Farm, a fried-chicken restaurant and family attraction in Romeoville, Will County, operating by its own account "since its beginning in the early 1920s," is about 8.9 miles by road from Cog Hill. Its own site notes: "NO SPLIT CHECKS. 1 check per party." Best Western Bolingbrook, at 520 South Bolingbrook Drive in Bolingbrook, Will County, is 9.1 road miles from Cog Hill; its own site returned HTTP 403 to verification, so this guide names it only as a hotel at that address, with no claim about whether it is currently trading. Cog Hill itself was bought in 1951 by Joe Jemsek, who was known as the "Patriarch of Public Golf" — an epithet attached to the man, not to the club's own branding.

Cantigny Golf in Wheaton, DuPage County, ranked #35 and labelled "Public" on the same Golf Digest list, is about 24 miles from Cog Hill. It is partway through a multi-year renovation: the Woodside nine closed for construction in June 2026 and is projected to reopen in June 2027, and Cantigny keeps 18 holes open for play throughout. Book through the club's own site or on 630.668.8463.