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History of Pickwick Golf Club
The Pickwick Golf Club is rich in history and in 2021 will be entering into its 63rd year as a chartered golf club in Glenview, Illinois.  Throughout most of these years the home course for the club had been at the former Glenview Naval Air Station.
​The story began soon after the end of World War I when a cluster of golf courses was built in an area surrounding the village of Glenview.  This included the Ouillmette Club (now North Shore Country Club), the Glen View Club, and public courses of Pickwick and Chesterfield (now Glenview Park District Course). 
 
In 1929, the Curtiss-Reynolds Airfield was built by the
Curtiss Flying club, a subsidiary of the Curtiss Corporation
and establishedby aviation pioneer Glen Curtiss.  In 1942, it was recommended that the Naval Reserve Aviation Base, Great Lakes,
be moved to the Curtiss-Reynolds Airport.  The Navy petitioned for condemnation of the 319 acre tract for $530,000.  With the outbreak of World War II, the Navy acquired another 570 acres adjacent to the air field which included the 36 hole Pickwick golf course.  In 1943, these lands were designated a Naval Air Station located in Glenview, Illinois.
In 1958, a group of military personnel, consisting of both officers and enlisted men, active and inactive, retired and resigned, decided to start a golf club.  By this time only 18 of the original 36 holes remained.  They appropriately selected the Pickwick Golf Club for its name, and within a year had developed a constitution and by-laws and elected Leslie Burton as their first President in 1959.
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In September 1995, the Naval Air Station Chicago was decommissioned.  The Pickwick Golf Club continued to play at the then Station Links, as it became appropriately named, through 1998 after which the course was permanently closed.  Remaining close to its roots, the Pickwick Golf Club opted to adopt the Willow Glen Golf Club, (now Veterans Memorial Golf Course) at Great Lakes as its new home course in 2000.
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