Chicagoland Public Golf Course Hot Dog Ratings

Certain things in life are inseparable: Copy and paste. Adam Scott and beige. The Phoenix Open and cup stacking. Hot dogs and golf also fall into this category. There’s something incredible about encased meats at the turn that refuel and propel the spirit, particularly when my swing is failing me and I forgot my short game back at the house. In my book, golf courses need to take hot dogs seriously, and luckily some of them do. Unfortunately, they’re also an afterthought at many clubs.

Here's the process. I get a hot dog from the grill, restaurant, or clubhouse -- never from the drink cart. To get a consistent apples-to-apples comparison, I don't add any condiments. They're rated from 1-5 on overall appearance, size, snap, flavor, juiciness, and bun quality. Those scores are averaged together to create a Rating, in which a theoretical 5 is the highest score. The Price is listed too, which is used to calculate the Value. Obviously, higher rated dogs that cost less money will have better value than the opposite. Value is rated from $ (terrible) to $$$$$ (great). $ Rank shows how expensive the dog was overall on the list, with rank 1 the cheapest.

Hot dogs are shown from best to worst rating. But please take these ratings with a grain of salt. Keep in mind, these courses serve hundreds of hot dogs a day, and I’m rating them on a single hot dog I tried. Not exactly a scientifically rigorous USDA double-blind study here. Regardless, I do want clubs to strive for hot dog nirvana, and that starts with taking a close look at these franks!