Turnberry Country Club

Turnberry Country Club sits in Crystal Lake, a northwest suburb of Chicago in the rolling terrain of McHenry County. Larry Packard designed the course, which opened in the mid-1980s as part of a residential community development. Packard, a prolific architect active primarily in the Midwest and Southeast during the 1970s and 1980s, typically routed courses that worked with existing land contours and incorporated water features where natural or constructed lakes were present. The layout at Turnberry reflects the glacial topography common to this part of Illinois, with moderate elevation changes and mature tree corridors framing fairways. Water comes into play on several holes, a characteristic element in Packard's designs and a practical feature in residential golf communities of this era. The course serves a private membership drawn largely from the Crystal Lake area and surrounding communities in the Fox River Valley region. Turnberry functions as a traditional country club with golf as the central amenity, complemented by social and dining facilities typical of suburban Chicago private clubs. The course provides a parkland setting within a residential context, balancing playability for members of varying skill levels with enough length and strategic interest to host club competitions. It represents the kind of community-oriented private club that became common in Chicago's outer suburbs during the latter decades of the twentieth century.