Photo Credit: St. Charles Park District
Situated on an actual island in the Fox River, the third hole at the Pottawatomie Golf Course in St. Charles, Ill., “looks simple, but it is not,” writes Ron Whitten, architecture editor for Golf World Magazine. A row of trees impedes a golfer’s tee shot, aerial approaches are compromised by overhanging branches, and a small pond provides a further challenge.
The island also contains the course’s fourth hole, which Whitten considers “more intimidating” due to the long stretch of the Fox River that lies just beyond the hole’s back fringe.
The course, completed as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project in 1939, marks the first time golf-course designer Robert Trent Jones Sr. used an island green in his plans.