Arlington Heights country club where Ray Kroc made business deals turns 100

It was where an Arlington Heights milkshake machine salesman persuaded reluctant businessmen to invest in his budding hamburger restaurant, and the likes of Arnold Palmer swung his clubs. So, too, did many women — just years after getting the right to vote.

Much has changed at Rolling Green Country Club, the Arlington Heights golf course celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and where a members-only black-tie gala was held Saturday night.

Its textured history is detailed in a new 113-page coffee table book by Larry Bruck, a board member and unofficial club historian who spent the last year combing through thousands of articles in the Daily Herald and other newspapers, county records, board meeting notes and genealogy documents at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. Bruck also reached out to a long list of current and past members and employees to gain their insights and recollections.

“The evolution of how people engage with the club tracks with societal change,” said Bruck, who lived across the street from the golf course for years before recently moving to Glenview.

For decades, what happened inside the gated confines at Rand Road and Euclid Avenue fit the country club stereotype as a social epicenter for high society in the growing Northwest suburbs.

“Membership … was not just a privilege; it was a coveted calling card,” Bruck writes. “Beyond the manicured lawns and vibrant clubhouse hummed a world steeped in tradition, exclusivity and social currency. Joining was not for everyone — a rigorous vetting process ensured only those who fit the ‘Rolling Green family’ gained entry.”

That meant “white Gentile” persons, according to the 1947 membership application of Ray Kroc, the club’s most famous member who went on to found the McDonald’s fast food empire.

It’s unclear how long that policy was around, though it probably was one of the quiet requirements common for the times, Bruck said.

McDonald’s founder ‘wasn’t liked’

Some of the hobnobbing and business deals struck at the club are portrayed in “The Founder,” a 2016 bio-drama of Kroc.

Kroc, who lived on nearby Fairview Street, opened his first McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines in 1955, then tried to line up franchisees for other locations. The first place he looked, according to his 1977 autobiography, was in the locker room at Rolling Green.

He got some bites, but most rejected his overtures.

“Most of these locker room acquaintances shared the general opinion that I had taken leave of my senses getting into this fifteen-cent hamburger business,” Kroc wrote.

Club officials named their board room after Kroc, but the framed relics on the walls — including his membership application — don’t whitewash a checkered history.

Kroc had strong opinions and often butted heads with the board of directors — particularly over the club’s slot machines, which eventually were pushed into the clubhouse’s swimming pool and removed in a police raid. No one can confirm how those events were put into action, but suspicions pointed in Kroc’s direction, Bruck wrote.

Kroc, a club member from 1940 to 1961, didn’t engage with people without having a motive, said Patrick Kelly, the current board chairman.

“He wasn’t liked here,” added Tony Rizzo, the club’s general manager.

Charting a course for women

Despite country clubs developing a reputation as a boys’ club, Rolling Green was a trailblazer in catering to female golfers.

More than a century ago, Dr. Charles Oughton and friend H.B. Wheelock built their first nine-hole course — what ultimately became part of Old Orchard Country Club across Rand Road. When Oughton’s health took a turn for the worse, Wheelock and a small group of North Shore businessmen formed a trust to purchase Oughton’s 160-acre farm for $600,000, formally giving birth to Rolling Green in 1924.

Construction of the current 18-hole layout by architect William H. Diddel was complete in 1927, when the original nine-hole course became a women’s course. Men could play only if accompanied by a woman.

Amid financial pressures brought on by the Great Depression, Rolling Green sold that course about a decade later.

Among the first employees were general manager Edward Stiff. When he died in a car accident in 1936, his wife, Minnie, took his place. She remained at the helm for the next 40 years.

From Arnie to MJ

The course today maintains about 90% of Diddel’s original design, but it was lengthened by 500 yards and modified with tighter fairways and smaller greens to attract professional tournaments in the 1960s. That led to Western Open Qualifiers, the Chicago District Golf Association Senior Championship and Illinois PGA Open.

And it attracted some of the best golfers in the world, including Arnold Palmer, who held clinics and played there regularly in the 1960s and 1970s. Palmer had a sponsorship with United Airlines, and several top executives were members.

He once called the 11th hole “the worst par three in the world,” but it’s since been rebuilt, club officials say.

In the 1980s, the Maryville Masters, a star-studded charity event, brought sports legends Michael Jordan, Mike Ditka, Ernie Banks and Evel Knievel to the club.

Changing times

During the recession in the late 2000s, membership dropped to 185. Facing mounting debt and a shrinking membership — and over the vocal objection of traditionalists — 95% of members voted in 2015 to shift from member-owned to corporate hands, as part of an acquisition deal by Dallas-based ClubCorp.

Total membership was 160 at the time of the vote, but has since soared to 360 as the club has attracted younger families. Before, the membership fee was $32,000, but today is $15,000. (Another 200 “social members” who don’t play golf pay even less.)

The club also is open to group and charity golf outings on Mondays, and regularly rents its banquet hall for weddings, showers and special events.

Members particularly are proud of their long-standing partnership with the Western Golf Association’s Evans Scholarship program, which has helped send 78 caddies with good grades and demonstrated financial need to college with full tuition and housing.

Today, members play 30,000 rounds a year.

“In the summer, we’re a busy club,” Rizzo said. “But you’ll always be able to get a tee time or a spot by the pool.”