Chicago Area Golf News

September 3, 2024
Facility featuring four golf domes proposed in Oswego
Linda Girardi, Beacon-News

The Oswego Planning and Zoning Commission Thursday will review concept plans to develop 100 acres into a golf center featuring four golf domes, a clubhouse and outlots reserved for future development, village officials said.

The site is west of Route 30 and north of Rance Road and is currently in unincorporated Will County. The land is currently use for agriculture, Oswego Assistant Development Services Director Rachel Riemenschneider said in a report to the commission.

Canada-based Megalodome Golf is proposing to build four golf domes each comprised of 270,000 square feet at the site. The first three domes would contain a nine-hole golf course, whole the fourth dome would be a practice facility, according to Riemenschneider.

September 3, 2024
Massive new pickleball, golf ‘social club' and lounge opening in Highland Park
Francie Swidler, NBC Chicago

DINX Social Club, a "luxe pickleball and golf-focused experience," has signed a lease at 1931 Skokie Valley Road near Highway 41 in Highland Park, according to a release from real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.

According to the release, the 23,000-square-foot venue is set to open in winter of 2024. It will occupy the space recently occupied by home office store Staples, which closed last month.

“With DINX Social Club, well create an unparalleled sport and social experience driven by attentive service, innovative technology and luxe environs," DINX Social Club founder David Sloane said in the release, adding that the club "specifically targeted" Highland Park for the concept.

September 4, 2024
PGA Tour Pro Hardy To Hold Clinic At Northbrook Golf Course

• Learn more about Anetsberger Golf Course

Eric DeGrechie, Patch

Last year, Northbrook native Nick Hardy won his first event on the PGA Tour at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The 28-year-old, who graduated from Glenbrook North in 2014, owes some of his success to playing golf locally.

Through the Northbrook Park District, Hardy is set to hold a clinic for young golfers on Sunday at Anetsberger Golf Course.

"I grew up playing at Anetsberger. My dad first took me there when I was 3 or 4," Hardy, who holds the course record at Anetsberger, told the NPD. "I have so many good memories of playing with my dad, playing with my buddies or my next-door neighbors. Every summer, I'd ride my bike there, with my bag and my clubs on my back."

September 6, 2024
Suburban Chicago golf club encourages Black women to take up the sport

• Learn more about Joe Louis “The Champ” Golf Course

Jim Williams, Edie Kasten, CBS Chicago

Golf can seem intimidating to people who have never tried it, but one group in the south suburbs is trying to convince women to not be afraid and go pick up a club.

On a beautiful, sunny Monday morning at Joe Louis "The Champ" Golf Club in Riverdale, the ladies were ready to play.

"Golf is a great sport. It's great physically," said Tracy Raoul, president of Ebony Ladies Golf League. "It's a mental game. You have to know how to let go of that bad stroke and move on to the next one."

The Ebony Ladies Golf League just marked its 50th anniversary recently with a very glitzy gala, and the ladies have a lot to celebrate. Raoul has been president since 2021 and has been on a mission to bring in more members.

September 9, 2024
Oswego panel recommends proposal for indoor golf course
Linda Girardi, Beacon-News

The Oswego Planning and Zoning Commission recently forwarded a favorable recommendation to the Village Board for concept plans to develop 100 acres into an indoor public golf course and clubhouse.

The Oswego Village Board still needs to vote on the plans.

The site west of Route 30 and north of Rance Road is currently in unincorporated Will County and would have to be annexed into Oswego and rezoned from agriculture to a regional business district, according to the proposal.

Canada-based Megalodome Golf is proposing to build four 270,000-square-foot golf domes at the site. Three domes would contain a nine-hole golf course, while the fourth dome would be a practice facility, according to the plan.

September 10, 2024
LIV Golf 3-day tournament coming to Bolingbrook Golf Club this weekend

• Learn more about Bolingbrook Golf Club

ABC7 Team, ABC Chicago

The LIV Golf tour's 2024 Individual Championship is happening this coming weekend at the Bolingbrook Golf Club in the southwest suburbs.

The venue is a new stop for the LIV tour. Some of the world's top players will be on the course to compete for their final positions in the LIV Golf League's final 2024 standings.

September 10, 2024
Nonprofit First Tee launches youth campus for accessible golf at Canal Shores

• Learn more about Canal Shores Golf Course

Benjamin Cummings, Evanston Roundtable

On a breezy Sunday afternoon along the north canal shores, competition was fierce.

Adrian was only a few shots above par to qualify for a prize. He would get school supplies if he could hit the plastic golf ball into the mouth of the inflatable “Golfopotamus,” nicknamed “Derf.”

“I had never picked up a golf club seriously until this little guy,” said Lorenzo Garcia-Garth, Adrian’s father who came from Hyde Park with his family for the First Tee Greater Chicago event. “I never even thought about going to a golf course until Adrian.”

September 13, 2024
How LIV Golf landed at this little-known Chicago muni: ‘They liked us’

• Learn more about Bolingbrook Golf Club

Josh Sens, Golf Magazine

LIV Golf, the extravagantly funded breakaway circuit, is known for spending lavishly on player contracts, purses and promotions. But it casts itself as a populist’s tour: golf for the masses.

Those apparent contradictions will find common ground this week in the Chicago suburbs, when, for the first time, the big-money league brings its show to a muni.

Bolingbrook Golf Club, where the final leg of LIV’s individual championship gets underway Friday, is a tax-payer owned track in the village of Bolingbrook, a bedroom community of some 73,000 people, roughly 30 miles south of O’Hare International Airport.

September 15, 2024
Jon Rahm holds on to win the LIV Golf event in Bolingbrook

• Learn more about Bolingbrook Golf Club

AP, Chicago Tribune

Jon Rahm ended his first year in the LIV Golf league by closing with a 4-under 66 to win the final individual event Sunday and the season points title with its $18 million bonus.

Rahm missed a pair of short birdie putts on the back nine that kept Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia in the mix. But he holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole that gave him a three-shot lead going to the last hole at Bolingbrook Golf Course.

Rahm won for the second time in the Saudi-funded league, adding to his title in England last month. In between those wins, he lost in a playoff to Brooks Koepka.

September 19, 2024
Proposed golf dome get thumbs up from Oswego village trustees
Eric Schelkopf, Shaw Local

Plans to build a 9-hole domed golf course near Route 30 and a proposed 600-plus unit subdivision in Oswego continue to move forward.

At the Sept. 17 Oswego Village Board meeting, village trustees unanimously approved the concept plans of Canada-based Megalodome Golf to construct four 270,000 square foot golf domes that would house the 9-hole golf course along with a practice facility. An 8,000 square-foot clubhouse also is proposed.

The applicant’s website refers to the project as the world’s first indoor golf experience that replicates a real golf course. The project is proposed for 100 acres west of Route 30 and north of Rance Road.

September 20, 2024
New golf practice facility honors longtime Naperville Park Board commissioner

• Learn more about Naperbrook Golf Course

Patrick Codo & Kim Pirc, NCTV17

Official opening of Marie Todd Practice Facility:

The Naperville Park District held a ceremony to unveil the Marie Todd Practice Facility at the course at 22204 W. 111th St./Hassert Blvd. in Plainfield.

The practice facility was named for Marie Todd, in recognition of her 18 years of service on the park board, part of which was spent as board president and vice president.

September 27, 2024
Lake Forest seeks to extend Kemper's Deerpath GC contract for 5 years

• Learn more about Deerpath Golf Course

Staff Report, Lake County Gazette

Parks and Recreation Director Michael Wick is seeking approval from the Lake Forest City Council to extend a contract with Kemper Sports Management for the operations and maintenance of Deerpath Golf Course until December 31, 2029. The council will consider this request at its meeting on September 16.