In 1892 a small golf club was started for the first time round about Lake Forest, but the promoters had only about sixteen acres of ground. In the following year, when the World's Fair was held, a number of foreign visitors were in Chicago and asked for golf, as travellers will do, though the great golf boom had not yet then set in. Mr. Charles B. Macdonald came in with the movement, ground was searched for, and the Chicago Golf Club was organised at Belmont, some twenty-two miles out of the city. When the Fair was over in the following spring, only about twenty members were left to the club, and the outlook did not seem splendid. But once begun, in either place or man, golf is a very hard thing to kill. The twenty die-hards asked their friends to come and see the place and try the game. They did so, and those men of Chicago knew at once that they had discovered the real thing. A hundred and thirty members were quickly obtained. The inevitable result followed. They wanted more and better golf, and they wanted it to belong to them and not to be on leased ground, so in 1894 the club met and authorised the purchase of two hundred acres at Wheaton, twenty-four miles out from the city, a fine course was laid out, a splendid club-house was built, and a really great club was established. Here and now we may gain a very fair idea of the difference in cost to the player between American golf and British. No better club could be selected for the purpose of exemplification than this one. It so happened that a few days before I arrived there, its club-house was burnt down, with all its contents and appurtenances, and from the wreck only a single one of the club-books of rules and regulations was rescued. I took possession of it while I made some notes upon the terrace of the only part of the building that was saved.
The first paragraph in the book, being Section 1 of Article 1 of the bye-laws, states that "this club is incorporated under the laws of Illinois as Chicago Golf Club, and its corporate seal is a circular disc bearing the words, 'Chicago Golf Club,' the figure of a golf player, and the motto, 'Far and Sure.'" To become a member of the club the applicant must be over eighteen years of age; he must have not more than one adverse vote cast against him by the governing body; and he must pay an entrance fee of not less than a hundred dollars or £20. The resident (or full) membership of the club is limited to 225, and the annual subscription is 75 dollars or £15, half of which is payable at the beginning of the year and half at midsummer. Now this subscription is much higher than that of any golf club in Great Britain, and the fact is only partly attributable to the circumstance that everything in America is more expensive than it is in England. The higher subscription is necessitated because the membership is kept down so low as 225, and that is done in order that there may be no overcrowding of the course. In England such a club, being situated within thirty miles of a great city and having the best course round about, would probably admit at least five or six hundred members, with the result that on the fine and busy week-end days the course would be hopelessly blocked and there would be no pleasure for anybody. This is certainly so in the case of two or three of the most popular clubs in the outer London golfing area, and one may come to a speedy decision that in this matter the American way is by far the better. Ladies who are over sixteen years of age and the immediate relatives of a member are permitted to have the privileges of the course, subject to the rules of the Green Committee, on payment of ten dollars a year. There is another class, "summer members," who are not to exceed fifteen in number, and who pay 150 dollars for one summer season's play. There is practically no play in the winter, the climatic conditions being too severe. The other rules as to membership are much the same as those which obtain in the case of British golf clubs.