The 2026 Chicago golf season got off with a bigger bang than most years. The Polar Bear Open on Jan. 4 marked the start of the centennial festivities at St. Andrews Golf & Country Club in West Chicago. It’ll be a commemoration that continues throughout the year, as well it should. This isn’t your usual centennial celebration.
St. Andrews is the oldest continuously owned and operated family golf course in Illinois and one of the oldest in the U.S. The bagpipe preliminaries to the Polar Bear Open winter outing won’t end the St. Andrews celebration. Far from it.
“There’ll be something every single month of the year,” said Jerry Hinckley, part of the five generations of the Jemsek-Hinckley family that has operated the facility since its opening in 1926.
St. Andrews is one of the few public courses that stays open year-round, and as such there will be drawings for new drivers in each of the first three months of 2026. In April through July, a monthly hole-in-one contest will be held on a to-be-determined weekend date where golfers can win a car and travel trips. In the fall, there will be drawings for irons and some free golf opportunities in the last three months of the year.
St. Andrews opened with an 18-hole course designed by John McGregor. One of the investors was Frank Hough, the father-in-law to Joe Jemsek, who became the St. Andrews owner in 1939. Hough died in 1936, when Jemsek was the golf professional there. He married Hough’s daughter, Grace.
Three years after St. Andrews’ opening, a second 18-holer — called Lakewood and designed by E.B. Dearie — was added. That course was eventually renamed the Joe Jemsek Course.
Jemsek was the World Long Drive Champion in 1933, founded the first golf TV show (called “Pars Birdies Eagles’’) and “All-Star Golf,” which grew into the “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf” TV series.
Under Joe Jemsek’s guidance, St. Andrews became the first public course to host a U.S. Open qualifier in 1947 and the first to offer air-conditioning and to allow metal spikes in the clubhouse.
Jemsek also brought in Patty Berg, a World Golf Hall of Fame player who was St. Andrews’ head professional for 50 years. Raymond Floyd, who had wins in the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA Championship, also represented St. Andrews as his home course early in his career.
Joe Jemsek, who passed on in 2002, moved on to operate other Chicago public facilities at Cog Hill, in Lemont, and Pine Meadow, in Mundelein, and became the first PGA professional to serve on the USGA Executive Committee. His son Frank has long been in charge at Cog Hill.
Frank Jemsek’s sister and Frank Hough’s granddaughter, Marianne Jemsek Hinckley, is the chairperson at St. Andrews.
St. Andrews added a Joe Lee-designed 80-station, 32-acre practice center in 1990 and now encompasses a full pro shop and four banquet rooms. An estimated 6 million rounds have been played at the facility since its opening.
With five generations of the Jemsek-Hinckley clan involved, the family has received numerous awards for its dedication to the golf industry. Among them are the National Golf Foundation’s Jack Nicklaus Golf Family of the Year and the Loyola University Family Business of the Year. In 2024, the Daily Herald Readers’ Choice Award for Best Public Golf Course and Driving Range was added to that list.
St. Andrews has thrived with a variety of long-term employees. Current head professional Dave Erickson has worked at Jemsek properties since 1990 and followed his dad, Howard, who began in 1950. Michelle Bockrath, the pro shop and marketing manager, has worked there since 1984 along with her mother Jackie, who ran the halfway house. Butch Hanson, a starter now, began as a caddie in 1952 and head ranger Dennis Maher started as a forecaddie in 1964. The York and Baker families also have had multiple generations of employees.
—Len Ziehm
