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The General at Eagle Ridge Resort is
the best of its four golf courses.
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About three hours northwest of Chicago, where the PGA Tour's top-70 players (in FedEx Cup points) are contesting this week's BMW Championship, lies Galena, Ill., and the Eagle Ridge Resort & Spa.
The name might be unfamiliar to anyone outside the Midwest, but this grand golf vacation destination is an Illinois institution.
There are four golf courses at the Eagle Ridge Resort & Spa: The General, the North Course, the South Course, and the East Course. The General, as its name might suggest, is the best one to play.
This Roger Packard/Andy North design is serious business and worth a trip to Galena all by itself. Soaring ridges, limestone rock outcroppings, gaping ravines, dense woods with gorgeous trees, prolific wildflowers, and picturesque water forms and wetlands define a green grass battlefield that is positively lustrous. Dramatic elevation changes add thrill to the game, and most tee shots on the back nine are launched majestically downhill.
Measuring between 5,335 and 6,820 yards from its four sets of tees (designated by one, two, three, or four stars), The General generally rewards accuracy over length. But if it's challenge you're after on your golf vacation, just play the four-star tips. They command a 73.7 par rating and a slope of 141.
Former visitors to Eagle Ridge Resort & Spa will be pleased to know that it abandoned its cart-path-only policy several seasons ago. Because of The General's ups, downs, and sometimes severe sidehill fairways, play is now markedly less taxing and it moves along at a much quicker pace.
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