Why DuPage forest preserve district wants to upgrade Maple Meadows Golf Course

Two years after opening a new clubhouse at The Preserve at Oak Meadows, DuPage County forest preserve officials are developing plans for a multimillion-dollar renovation of its sister course in Wood Dale.

Originally known as Brookwood Country Club, Maple Meadows Golf Club has been managed by the forest preserve district since 1998. It's an affordable option, but Maple Meadows has tiny greens, a lot of bunkers – 78 in fact – and pace of play issues.

After a July rainstorm, one of those bunkers looked “more like a swimming pool,” said Ed Stevenson, the district's executive advisor and business enterprise director.

At a planning session on Tuesday, forest preserve commissioners discussed a project that would modernize and reconfigure the 18-hole course. District officials are looking to improve irrigation, control maintenance costs and update the hole designs to give golfers more of a strategic test.

“It was really last rebuilt and redesigned in the mid-90s,” Stevenson said.

Traditionally, suburban golf courses have been perfectly groomed, resource-intensive, water-guzzling operations. But following a trend of “greener” golf courses, the district aims to make Maple Meadows more environmentally responsible by creating larger blocks of natural areas. The project also would protect and enhance wetlands on the property.

“Certainly, there's an opportunity at Maple Meadows to improve the ecological function and improve the natural areas so that property not just provides recreation, but better aligns with our vision,” Stevenson said.

Across the street, Oak Meadows offers a more challenging and scenic tour of the northern Illinois landscape, with savannas, woodlands and prairie. The Addison course welcomed back golfers in 2017 after a two-year $16.8 million project to reduce flooding and restore a stretch of Salt Creek through the property. The district hired architect Greg Martin to convert the 27-hole complex into an 18-hole course.

Martin is now leading the master planning process for Maple Meadows.

“First and foremost, we learned and put into place some very important lessons when we redid The Preserve at Oak Meadows,” Stevenson said. “…These are no longer just golf courses, but these are golf preserves, and they function ecologically like any of our other 60 preserves.”

True to its name, The Preserve at Oak Meadows sits on 288 acres – only 15% of which is dedicated to fairways, greens and tees. At Maple Meadows, the goal is to increase the amount of native or natural areas by about 25%.

“We've heard from our natural resources team that anytime that you can have areas of habitat that are more consolidated and continuous, they're of higher value,” Stevenson said.

As far as the golfing experience, there are some challenges walking the course. After the third hole, golfers must go south, across Dominion Drive, past the clubhouse and around the parking lot to get to the fourth tee.

By rerouting the course, golfers would only have to cross Dominion Drive once instead of three times during their round. Simplifying the route from greens to tee would improve walkability and speed up the pace of play. And as the game evolves and equipment becomes more high-tech, the idea is to provide more variety off the tee.

“Good golf architecture will make the experience more fun for less skilled golfers and yet also simultaneously make it more challenging for better-skilled golfers,” Stevenson said.

Officials have met with neighbors to gather feedback on the proposed upgrades. The district will seek more input at an open house at the clubhouse on Oct. 25.

“This is a critical process to make sure that we get it right and to set us up for the next few decades,” forest preserve President Daniel Hebreard said.

If commissioners agree to pursue the project, the district will have to figure out how to pay for it. According to a preliminary estimate, the course improvements would cost roughly $9.85 million, not including professional fees, permitting and other “soft” costs.

Replacing the irrigation system alone would cost $2.85 million.

Maple Meadows does not have a driving range, and officials are not recommending one.

But conceptual plans call for an expanded short-game practice area.

“Adding a practice area would have in fact reduced the amount of space we could commit to native and naturalized areas,” Stevenson explained.

Officials are expected to reveal the final plan by the end of the year.