Exmoor at Exmoor Country Club

Exmoor Country Club occupies a wooded property in Highland Park along Chicago's North Shore, where Charles Blair Macdonald designed the original eighteen holes in 1896. This makes Exmoor one of the earliest eighteen-hole courses in the United States, predating Macdonald's more celebrated work at the Chicago Golf Club and his later template designs at the National Golf Links. The course represents Macdonald's formative period as an architect, when he was adapting principles from Scottish links golf to American inland terrain.

The routing moves through mature hardwood forest with moderate elevation changes characteristic of the glacial topography north of Chicago. Macdonald's layout reflects his early understanding of strategic design, though the course has been modified over subsequent decades to accommodate evolving standards of play and maintenance. The tree-lined corridors and parkland character distinguish Exmoor from the more open links-inspired designs Macdonald would later champion.

Exmoor Country Club has maintained a traditional North Shore membership profile since its founding, with the club serving as a social and recreational center for families in the Highland Park area. The course itself remains a functional layout for member play rather than a championship test, offering a window into late nineteenth-century American golf design before the sport's explosive growth in the early twentieth century. Its historical significance lies primarily in its age and association with Macdonald's earliest design work.