The First Families of Golf in Chicagoland

In the first of a series of stories, we examine the clans that have helped to make the area golf scene what it is today

For some families in the Chicago area, golf is more than a game—it’s a legacy passed down either in deed or DNA from one generation to the next. From those who hold title to some of the area’s top courses to those who hit Titleists up and down their meticulously maintained fairways, the list of local surnames that have become synonymous with golf has grown along with the sport’s popularity.

This article is the first in what will become an ongoing series to highlight the many “first families” of Chicago area golf. As a starting point, there is likely no family more closely tied to the sport on a local (or perhaps even national) scale than the Jemseks. The family patriarch, Joe Jemsek—who is also widely regarded as the father of public golf itself—is a local legend. Born and raised in the south suburbs, Jemsek was a caddie, a pro and a showman (he was a long-drive champion at the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago). In 1939, he purchased St. Andrews in West Chicago after marrying Grace Hough, the daughter of the course’s original owner,
Frank Hough, who opened the club in 1926.

He went on to purchase what would become the family’s crown jewel, Cog Hill, in 1951 and Pine Meadow in Mundelein in 1985, bringing world-class amenities and competition (such as the BMW Championship and, hopefully, the U.S. Open) to his courses. His son, Frank—also a member of the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame—carried on that tradition during his storied tenure at the helm of Cog Hill. Today, Frank’s daughter, Katherine Jemsek, now serves as the third-generation president of Cog Hill with ambitions of realizing the dream of bringing the U.S. Open to Dubsdread [see our Q&A with Jemsek in this issue].

Of course, Cog Hill was a family business long before the Jemsek family bought the course. It was constructed in 1925 by brothers Jack, Bert and Martin Coghill. They were a trio of electricians who decided to buy land in Lemont to build their own course after instantly falling in love with the game following a union golf outing at Oak Hills Country Club in Palos Heights.
“The deal was, whoever lived the longest got the place,” says Bert Coghill, grandson of Cog Hill cofounder Jack Coghill. Shortly after Jack and Bert died several months apart in 1950, Martin sold the course to Jemsek (who kept the name).

But years before his death, in 1937, Jack Coghill purchased another public course, Silver Lake Country Club in Orland Park, as a means of ensuring that a piece of the family business would eventually be passed along to his sons, John and Dee. In 1939, Jack also acquired Euclid Hills, a private club adjacent to Silver Lake, and eventually consolidated them into the course’s current configuration.

When Dee Coghill (who had no children) died of injuries sustained on the battlefield during World War II, sole ownership of the course fell to John, whose three sons essentially grew up on the course.

“It was great fun,” says Bert Coghill, who serves as Silver Lake’s director of golf operations and is preparing the fourth generation of Coghills to take over course operations some day. “We would actually play baseball on the 17th fairway. It wasn’t that busy back in the late ’50s early ’60s—not until Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus arrived—so when a group would come along, we would just step aside, watch them hit the ball and then keep playing. It wasn’t very often that people would come around.”

While Coghill says kids playing ball on the fairway these days would be out of bounds, he notes that many of the same business principles his father instilled in him remain in play at Silver Lake.

“My dad was a military man,” says Coghill. “So we keep the place really clean and make it fun for people. Playing golf is not like going to the dentist. People are coming here expecting to have a good time, and unless you really work at it, it’s pretty difficult to make them have a bad time.”

Family Tradition
Amid the high price of land and increasing property taxes, the notion of building a golf course from scratch today is reserved primarily for billionaire developers. The vast majority of golf legacies are found among families more likely to swing a club than own one.

Case in point: Anyone who has followed high school golf for the better part of the past decade has been witness to Hinsdale Central High School’s Lederhausen dynasty. The family has been a fixture at the state championship tournament since 2003 when Rebecca Lederhausen, then a freshman, made the first of her four appearances. Her sister Alex would continue the tradition a year later—winning the state title as a junior in 2006—and eventually follow her sister to the Northwestern University women’s golf squad.

Not to be outdone, brother Theo also made it to the state tournament as a freshman in 2006, eventually placing fourth as a senior in 2010, He now plays golf for Harvard University. The youngest of the Lederhausen siblings, Rosana, is currently a junior at Hinsdale Central and preparing for her third straight trip to the state tournament.
If it seems like the fearsome Lederhausen foursome simply has championship-caliber golf in its blood, that’s because they do. Jessica Lederhausen, the family’s mother, played for the Swedish national team in the 1980s.

Another area family with golf-encoded DNA is Hampshire’s Ellett clan. Though the Elletts have long been linked with football—Ron Ellett coached Hampshire High School to a pair of state championships and one runner-up during a four-year span from 1976–79—Connie and Taylor Ellett (Ron’s granddaughters) have led the school’s golf program since its inception five years ago.

Connie, a high school senior, and her older sister Taylor, a freshman on the Northern Illinois University team, first picked up clubs when they were seven or eight years old.

“My husband and I would spend a ton of time at the golf course, and they came with us,” says Sue Ellett, who is also the Hampshire golf coach. “We started them on the green and worked our way backward. They learned how to putt and chip, and once they could play, we would start them 150 yards out. From there, if they could get in at four or five shots, they would get pars or bogeys. Early on, probably the most fun they had was driving the cart around.”

Sue was also a standout golfer who made two trips to the state tournament during her junior and senior years while competing as the lone girl on the Dundee-Crown High School boys team in the 1980s. She later played for NIU.

“Golf has changed a lot since I played,” she says. “I can’t even play with either one of my kids—they’re a lot better than I was in high school.”

Though their dad, Doug, also a teacher and coach, didn’t have a golf team in high school, he says he played virtually every day in the summers, and competed in several tournaments, including the Insurance Youth Classic, before joining the golf team at Elmhurst College.
“Dad was a football coach, so there was never any talk of playing high school golf even if there had been a team,” Doug Ellett says. “But he got us playing young, and it’s been handed down from generation to generation. If we weren’t playing football, baseball or basketball, we were playing golf. I probably played every day in the summer with Dad out at Marengo Ridge.”
“If my parents didn’t play, I probably wouldn’t,” says Connie. “They’re definitely a big part of our success.”

Teach Your Children Well
Of course, there is also a generation of young golfers that has benefited from learning the game from some of Chicagoland’s top golf instructors. Recent years have seen a number of area golf pros watch their own children rise through the ranks to make names for themselves on the links.

Bob Koschmann, PGA master professional and head pro at Lake Shore Country Club in Glencoe, saw his daughter, Hailey, place second in the state in 2006 before returning the following year to not only win the state title but crush the IHSA record—for boys and girls—by shooting a 9-under-par 135 for 36 holes. Today she’s a senior on the University of Illinois women’s golf team. Her brother Chad also played collegiate golf at NIU and won the 2007 Chicago District Golf Association Amateur Championship at Lake Shore Country Club.

Likewise, Oak Brook Golf Club’s head pro, Dan Kochevar, has seen his twins, Glenbard West seniors Kyle and Brooke, emerge as two of the top amateurs in the state. Brooke is preparing for her fourth straight trip to the state tournament, while Kyle waived his senior-year eligibility to participate in national invitational tournaments. John Guyton, golf pro at the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, watched his daughter, Hayley, lead the Kaneland High School boys team and place second in state in 2009. She is now a freshman on the Illinois State University women’s team.

And with more kids picking up clubs every day, there are certain to be a lot more first families of Chicago Area Golf to come. CG

Publishers Note: When local golf writer Mike Stokes presented this article we knew that it would be impossible to cover in one story, more likely a novel. Follow up stories to come in future issues. If you have some suggestions, please pass them along. We also like pictures. We are trying to keep the stories to “golf families” and after 1950.