1930 Membership Certificate - Olympia Fields Country Club in Chicago, Illinois For Sale

Authentic red serial-numbered xxxx membership certificate to the Olympia Fields Country Club, at one time considered among America's crown jewels for golf. Certificate has browm border with a plain banner displaying Club's name at the top. Bottom left of document contains a large plum-red embossed seal containing Club's name, and bottom-center contains a red pinwheel underprint again displaying Club's name. Both the Club's secretary and its president hand-sign the document, which was produced by the Fred J. Ringley Co. of Chicago.
Conceived in xxxx, this gargantuan retreat in the woods fifteen miles south of Chicago was endearingly completed in xxxx as the first Club to offer members seventy-two holes of golf on four 18-hole courses anchored by the largest private clubhouse in the world with an 80-foot, four-faced clock tower visible to golfers from all four first tees. The English Tudor clubhouse contained a dining room that seated eight hundred, a cafe seating six hundred, only one outdoor dancing pavilion but five hundred feet of veranda. Over a thousand caddies were enlisted. The Club operated its own ice-making plant and its own hospital. One hundred families owned cottages in the dells of the club's 692 acres.
The grandeur of Olympia Fields was remarkable even to Herbert Warren Wind, America's leading golf historian, who, in his landmark work, the Story of American Golf, marveled at this unparalleled expression of the spirit of the Golden Age, an age which also gave birth to Baltusrol and Winged Foot, Seminole and Oakland Hills, Cyprus Point and Medinah, but Olympia Fields was granddaddy of them all.
Today, the Club's acreage and membership - including the number of private cottages - have adjusted to more contemporary proportions. Although the men's grill retains the name "73rd Hole," golf is now played over two nationally-ranked masterpieces - the North Course (Willie Park Jr.) and the South Course (Tom Bendelow) - whose championship traditions place Olympia Fields in a small coterie of the nation's leading golf clubs. In xxxx, Olympia Fields hosted the 63rd U.S. Girls' Junior Championship and in xxxx, the tradition will continue with the playing of the 115th U.S. Amateur Championship, after which Olympia Fields will join only eight other American clubs - including Winged Foot, Oakland Hills and Cherry Hills - that have hosted the U.S. Open Championship (xxxx, xxxx), the U.S. Senior Open Championship (xxxx), the PGA Championship (xxxx, xxxx) and the U.S. Amateur Championship (xxxx).
Document is in Excellent condition, but contains two small hole punches at the top border. Also a very small flek has flaked off of the plum-red embossed seal at bottom left. Measures 8 1/16 X 10 7/8 inches.