Golf in University Park

University Park is a Will County planned community developed in the 1970s adjacent to Governors State University, conceived as an integrated educational and residential community on the flat prairie south of Chicago Heights. The community's planned character gives it a distinctive relationship between green space, residential development, and institutional use. University Golf Club and Deer Creek Golf Course both serve a population shaped by the university's presence and by the community's intentional design as an alternative to conventional suburban sprawl. Illinois' position as a crossroads state — linking the Great Lakes to the Mississippi, the industrial north to the agricultural south — creates diverse communities where golf serves as common ground across the state's varied economic landscapes.