Crab Orchard Golf Club

Crab Orchard Golf Club in Carterville, Illinois has one of the more unusual origin stories on the Southern Illinois Trail, Roy Glenn, a 12-year veteran of the professional tour, came to Carterville in 1956 with the idea of establishing a golf course. He purchased the 240-acre Ferrell Farm in 1957, spent two years building out the course largely himself, and opened Crab Orchard for play in 1959. It has operated as a semi-private public-access club ever since. The 18-hole par-70 layout plays 6,420 yards with a 71.2 rating and 127 slope, featuring Myers Zoysia and Westwood Bermuda fairways that give the course a distinctively southern Illinois feel. Water comes into play on half the eighteen holes, and the small greens have subtle breaks that can be difficult to read, making putting a larger percentage of the challenge than raw length. Large oak trees throughout frame the corridors. For the Southern Illinois Trail visitor, Crab Orchard is the 'player built it himself' round, a slice of 1950s American golf-course-building history that remains surprisingly playable today.