Starboard at Harborside International Golf Center

I read a lot of bad reviews for the course. Most about pricing and pace of play. I booked through GN and played for 58.00. My group finished the round in 4 hours. Never had to wait; however, we did have to look for a few balls.
If you didn’t hit fairway, good chance of losing a ball. If your ball rolls into the rough, it’s findable. Playing out wasn’t too bad if you swing hard. Fairways were in great shape. The greens were very nice and played about a 9.5 stint and rolled true. No issues with any greens on the Starboard course. Not enough players repair their divots in the fairway or green. Overall the course is nice. The views are not that good. Mostly of grain silos and construction cranes from the harbor in the distance. A lot of native fescue. If your ball lands outside of the first cut, the tall fescue os near impossible to play out of. Take a drop of you find your ball. Practice facility was nice and all of the staff I encountered were friendly.

Beautiful course. If you’re visiting Chicago it has a nice view of the city. Top notch close to the city, good test nice conditions.

A challenging course if windy but not too bad

When I arrived at the tee box, the starter informed me that there was a 4 foursome gap in an outing and that we had been placed in that gap. It took almost 5 and a half hours to complete the round. The foursome behind us was also frustrated with the pace of play. I have golfed at Harborside many times and it has never taken over 4 and a half hours. The course should at least inform the golfer of the outing at the time of booking. Disappointed.

Noticed a significant drop off in conditioning since 2019, esp in 3 areas:
Blacktop cart paths badly need replacing on every hole and are not what one expects at a facility that charges $91.
A few of the largest and longest bunkers are full of weeds (not the green side bunkers, which are in good shape). We saw crews that seemed to be working on them so hopefully this is in the process of being fixed.
Fairways are generally great but most have some large spots that seem to have some disease.

Pace was 4 hrs, design/ layout is first class and greens were slow but smooth. Overall a very enjoyable challenge and beautiful setting for the game.,

Staff was unfriendly and unhelpful but playing the course was great.

They don't have a cart path, they have an off-road path. I'd say about 90% needs to be replaced. There are literal potholes everywhere. Some of them they are replacing with asphalt, really. I actually rode on the edge of the course instead of the path about 90% of the time. The course is challenging and beautiful but it's a links style course and the rough is completely over grown. You can easily lose balls in it, I didn't realize that I was paying to attempt to qualify for the US Open. The sand traps at local munis are better maintained, this is both fairway and greenside. The entire course was also very wet and spongy.

All in all this has the potential to be absolutely spectacular but right now, they should be embarrassed to let people play it for what they charge for it.

Big Thanks to Shawn and Matt for all there help and also Cliff and the Staff… This is why l keep coming back to Harborside… Can’t beat the Staff or the Course… THANKS AGAIN,MATT

I wish I liked harborside more but after 3 rounds I just don't see the hype. There was so much clumpy cut grass everywhere. The tees, the rough, right off the green. Id be surprised if the grass below actually survives. The greens on the back were very poorly punched and some had as much sand as the bunkers. The practice greens were ungodly slow but the course was a bit faster. I booked a $35 hot deal, but would never pay the $122 weekend rate theres much better courses for that price.

Enough is Enough. Do something about it. The goose waste on the 18th hole is disgusting!!!! It's unhealthy and unsanitary. How does the Health Department not close the course for unsanitary conditions. There are too many good courses in the area to play through the ever present goose waste.

Don't get me started on the cart paths. For all the money they want to charge, fix the paths already.

Side note, they didn't mow the front 9 of Starboard all week, felt like US Open rough, really killed pace of play.

This is a beautiful course and layout. Very challenging when windy. The course is getting run down. All of the cart paths are destroyed and should have been replaced years ago. The rough was cut and all of the grass clippings were just left to decay. It ruined the look of this beautiful course and made finding balls off the fairway difficult. The groundskeeper is doing a poor job. For close to $100, it should be maintained better.

Realize that we’ve had a lot of rain but there was so many extra grass clippings clumps all over the course and where the grass was cut the rough was three and 4 inches long which made it almost completely unplayable if you were off the fairway. Playing there yesterday was a complete disappointment