R.I.P. Evergreen Golf Club

I had heard the rumors, but it wasn't until I took a road trip to one of my favorite Windy City landmarks, Rainbow Cones, that I knew it was true - Evergreen Golf Club was no more.

I grew up in Oak Lawn, and along with Marquette Park, Westgate, Hickory Hills and Silver Lakes, Evergreen was one of the courses that I learned to play in my youth back in the 70's.  Sitting on an unusually hilly piece of urban land on the border of Chicago and Evergreen Park along Western Avenue since the mid 1920's, Evergreen was legendary in southside public golfing circles.  How many courses had train tracks dissecting the middle, where a frequent freight passing through could hold up play?  How about a couple of outrageously narrow fairways with steeply elevated greens between enormous, 100 year old hardwoods?  And what courses can include "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, one of Al Capone's henchmen, as a club pro?

But no visit to Evergreen would be complete without an encounter with Anna "Babe" Ahern, the often cantankerous owner.  Babe was a fixture at the course, living on the property and often managing the register in the musty old clubhouse that was filled with her collection of "stuff" that she accumulated over the years.  I always thought I wasn't doing Babe a favor by playing at Evergreen, she was doing me a favor by allowing me to play there!

 Evergreen's acclaimed neighbor, Beverly Country Club, is just north across 91st Street, but no one would ever confuse the two as Evergreen's conditioning was notoriously lax at times.  But this was all part of the charm of playing here, a rugged track full of character right in the middle of a densely inhabited section of the Windy City.   

As I migrated away from the city to the southwest suburbs, Evergreen disappeared from my golf radar, but I did hear that Babe had recently sold the family land shortly before she passed on at over 100 years of age.  So as I stood in front of Rainbow Cones looking at the Menards that was being constructed across the street, all I could think of were the hundreds of stately trees that had to be cut to make way for retail progress.  I find some solace in that the west side of the tracks was sold to the village and will be used as recreational and open space, but I still wonder if with a little TLC Evergreen couldn't have been resuscitated as a viable course; I guess that question will have to remain unanswered.  So here's to the memory of Evergreen Golf Club, may it rest in peace in southside golfing history...