Talk of gravel mine would be pits.

The Dundee Township Park District has been talking about the future of the Bonnie Dundee Golf Course in Carpentersville for years. Those talks have included turning the 105-acre, 18-hole golf course into a regional park, a multiuse facility including a driving range, 9-hole course and other amenities, or a gravel pit.

But before you start calling the park district to relay your disgust at the proposition of turning the area into a mine, know that the suggestion is still merely an idea.

There have been no test holes drilled to determine the viability of mining the area. Though given that a nearby parcel is a former gravel pit, there's a good chance that a valuable resource is located beneath the bunkers and greens.

The park district commissioners have given the go ahead to start researching the possibility of testing the area for gravel. Dundee Township Park District Executive Director Tom Mammoser said that basically means the board gave permission to look into conducting soil samples and other tests on the area.

Mammoser said the board has not considered mining the site as a top alternative use for the course, built in 1924, because previous boards have shunned the idea.

In a 1991 referendum, voters told the district to protect the land from potential development. That referendum resulted in the park district purchasing the course from the estate of Bonnie Dundee, Mammoser said.

Park District Board President Frank Scarpelli, who originally floated the idea during last year's strategic planning sessions, said the tests are needed if the park district is considering a different use of the park.

"If we are going to start putting shovels in the ground to put soccer fields in, we need to know what the subsurface contains," Scarpelli said. "The ground borings are for us to see what the property consists of."

Scarpelli added that the samples, if the park district opts to take that particular avenue, would be for research purposes only and not an indication that the area would be mined.

"I don't even know how they are going to do that, or how they are going to go about it," Scarpelli said. "Nothing has been determined about that. But this is nothing more than research."

Discussions of turning the golf course into another amenity have escalated in recent years as the district struggles to overcome rising gas prices and a declining number of rounds played.

Mammoser said the number of rounds played during the period of April through June has declined 20 percent this year, compared to last year.

Figures from the districts other golf course, Randall Oaks, are not so dire. Randall Oaks' numbers have dipped about 5 percent.

Petroleum prices affect the golf industry because fertilizers used on greens and fairways are petroleum-based, and pushing a mower across 105-acres is unrealistic. Filling up golf carts and ride-on lawn mowers starts to add up.

For now - and at least through next season - golf will be the primary use of the Bonnie Dundee Golf Club, located at 270 Kennedy Drive in Carpentersville.