Aldeen Golf Club

This course has long been on my list.
Worth the drive. A great choice for a day trip
from Chicago or Southern Wisconsin.
Turf in good shape. Plenty of sand in bunkers.

Based on Golf Advisor ratings, we made a weekend trip of golf courses around Rockford, IL. Aldeen may have been our favorite from this trip.

CONDITIONS: Despite the drought going on in Summer 2023, the course was in great shape. The greens didn’t run fast, but were fair and consistent. The fairways and tee boxes were in good shape, as were the bunkers. As with most (all) courses at this point, a couple of days of rain should help with conditions.

VALUE: For a Saturday afternoon tee time, $37 to walk seemed a tad high.

LAYOUT: The course is an enjoyable walk, and you will get to use most of the clubs in your bag. Water comes into play on 11 holes (including three of the four par 3s), so bring some extra balls. Hole #1 is listed as handicap 3, but it should really be handicap 1 (so much for a “warm handshake” opening hole). The par 4s didn’t feel like they varied much in length (played the Aldeen tees), but did feel like they varied in terms of how tight or demanding your tee shot needs to be. Hole #18 is a great finishing hole. This is a very walkable course, and if there was enough sun left that day I might have tried to walk 36.

STAFF: Got us paid and out on the course.

PACE: We had a 2some two holes ahead of us, and a foursome 2 holes behind us. Never caught, or was caught, and played in just over 3 hours. Great round!

Aldeen played like tree-lined/water hazards/well-placed green side bunkers traditional-style golf… in a fun and fair way.

It maybe expensive but the upkeep is great. Go early in the morning for a beautiful quote morning

Aldeen used to be the nicest public course in the area and they let it go. The tee boxes are all tore up, the course is all brown and dead, and the sand has rocks (some bigger than your club head) Inside them. All water as algae everywhere and hole 18 smells bad. This used to be a beautiful course but they let it go. Played Ledges yesterday and no brown grass and well kept. So I know if the effort is put in, it would look great. For $35 with cart, I believe you can play at a nicer course.

Great experience at Aldeen. Relatively flat piece of land where creative use of water and gentle mounding has created an outstanding and reasonably priced public golf course. Few holes stand out as exceptional (par 5 #1, par 3 #8 and par 5 #18 are the most memorable), but there wasn’t a weak hole in the routing. Easily walkable for those so inclined. Conditions were excellent, except the bunkers were a bit wet and played a little muddy (pretty much everywhere since Covid, bunkers are courses’ weakest component). The greens were smooth, reasonably paced and use subtle breaks for the most part to confound the player. Great example of what public golf should be.

Play this course 2 to 3 times a year. 100 mile drive to get there but well worth it. Even the driving range is excellent.
Rough is tough, keep it in play. A challenging course to play in all conditions. When you finish you can not stop talking about the course. Well worth the drive, and all I have played with enjoyed the course

We really enjoy the course. Good vlue for the quality of the course and facility.

Nice layout, challenging and well maintained for a public course

Aldeen Golf Club has to be one of the finest public courses in the area. The area had a large rain a couple of evenings prior to the day we played so there were a few wet spots in the fairways.. Other than that the course was in great shape. It is a beautiful course with a variety of trees, a wandering brook and beautiful landscape views.
We really enjoyed our round.
Clubhouse has great food and is a fine facility.

Their coolers for the carts are absolutely ridiculous!!! Ice melts in minutes, and they leak horribly!! Club covers and leather goods ruined!!! Not happy!!!!!!

Loved this course! We had seen the advertisements over the years on the golf channel but never made it out even though it's less than an hour from our home in the western suburbs of Illinois. It was a mistake to miss it over the years! Course was wet from two inches of overnight rain at our 7:30 am arrival and cart path only so we decided to walk - great decision! The course layout and condition except for some wet areas from the short time they had to drain but that did not impact the overall experience. Staff was friendly - let us go out before our tee time as there was an earlier open time. Loved the layout and the greens were smooth and fast even after the rain. One of the top courses you can play in Chicagoland and especially for under $50 - worth the drive!

Reminds of medinah 3 on both good and slightly negative ways. The good: the holes are well framed by trees and for the most part there are no houses in view during the round. On the negative side, like medina, there is a sameness to every hole. I played the tips and most of the par 4's are just longish straight ahead holes. I think 14 9f the holes run north-south. That said, it's a great public track.

The tee boxes were fantastic, the greens were firm and fast. Fairways were in wonderful condition. I really enjoyed this round, however piece of play was glacial. Had to wait wait too long for almost every shot due to slow groups in front of me. There was no starter at the first hole, and I never saw a Ranger on the course. It might’ve been nice to have a Ranger out there to speed things up.

Fair way, green condition is okey.
Nice design.
We try eat hamburgers but they closed at 3:00

City course on rockford's east side .Only a short drive from the interstate.Perfect conditions Walkable if you wish.Has water and a lot of sand(I felt like Lawrence of Arabia).No real signature holes,but the conditions are great.They have the best practice center I have ever seen.You could easily spend a full day here.

We visit Aldeen once a y ear - I now might have to make it twice or more. They were doing a lot of landscaping work (2 days before the ProAm). Thank you for taking down the bushes on 10 - red wing black birds were constantly attacking us. Landscaping is beautiful. Staff is ALWAYS super friendly. We booked on GolfNow and got a great rate. Even if we hadn't - we still would have played there. Looking to play again this summer and in the fall. Keep Aldeen just the way it is.

In my opinion this is the premier golf course in the rockford area, period!

I've played Aldeen a few times each year for the past 11 years. This time, the course was in the best shape I've seen it. Had a nice conversation with Duncan Geddes, the head pro, on the fifth hole. Looking forward to the Rockford Pro-Am.

every thing really good except the sand traps need more sand in the traps