Flooding drives changes at Traditions

WHEELING, Ill. - Up on the northwestern side of Chicago an expansive clubhouse arose next to a placid golf course in the roaring ’20s that became a place where memories were made. The Tudor-style building along Milwaukee Avenue became a popular nightspot over the decades as a dance hall, a gambling emporium, and a well-known speakeasy during the prohibition era. The memories and rumors around the clubhouse have grown into legends as stories of crime kingpins like Al Capone frequenting the establishment during Chicago’s notorious crime era grew.

While the clubhouse spawns reminiscing about past entertaining evenings the golf course, known as Chevy Chase Country Club, didn’t inspire such fond memories. In fact what many remember is a golf course on a low-lying patch of land that fell victim to flooding whenever the springs rains began.

The course was built in 1923 by the Chicago Knights of Columbus and was originally named Columbian Garden Golf Club. Tom Bendelow, the designer of Medinah County Club in Chicago, designed the course and the club soon became a spot for a day trip for the Chicago natives. Through the years the property changed hands, and names, as it was Called Bon Aire Golf Club for and then renamed Chevy Chase Country Club by owner Joe Johnson in the ’50s.

When the Johnson family let the property go, Wheeling Township decided to purchase the property in 1977 and renovate both the clubhouse and golf course as an amenity for the district. The district’s first priority was to bring the clubhouse back for weddings and dining and then develop a plan to salvage the suffering course.

“A tributary of the Des Plains River cuts right through the golf course and the flat site made it tough for the course to drain. The saying around here was that this course would be lost from Mother’s Day to Father’s day. Several times the over the past decades the course was closed for more than two months. It was clear that we had to come up with a solution,” said superintendent Tom MacDonald.

Lohmann Golf Designs, based in Marengo, Ill., was brought in to develop a plan. The design team began by assessing the attributes of the old course that should be kept and then develop a series of retention ponds and collection areas for controlling water movement across the property. The course layout was well-defined by mature trees that lined the fairways, so it became clear that the creek would need to be rerouted to take it around a few greens and tee complexes.

Special attention was given to obtaining permits through the Army Corps of Engineers and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to deal with the creek. The idea was to capture the water from the creek and divert its path. At the same time, five retention ponds were constructed to increase storage capacity.

A complex drainage system from these retention ponds helped to gather water and direct it toward a more defined exit area from the property. To enhance the effectiveness of the retention ponds, numerous swales and diversion mounds were created throughout the course to help direct the water flow. Lohmann worked carefully with the Bruce Company of Madison, Wis., to blend these mounds into the site so that they would not look forced or out of place.

“We moved 60,000 cubic yards of dirt from the retention ponds and balanced out the site with that material. As we started to grade for the ponds we realized that we needed to create more storage area. We found some areas the fringes of the course that we could use to handle the predicted water flows,” said Todd Quinto of Lohmann Design. The mounds brought needed character to the flat site and the addition of flat sand bunkers with rolled grass bunker faces also helped to give the course a very traditional look.

Work on the project began in February 2002 and MacDonald’s crews were able to replant fairways by that August. As the project got rolling in full force, Lohmann convinced the township to rebuild all 18 greens to USGA specs in order to ensure a quality product in the end. The construction project also included the installation of the golf course’s first irrigation system to replace the use of hoses around the old course.

As with any golf construction project, the fickle weather turned out to be the most daunting challenge. Planting of the course began in earnest in August but a five-inch rain hit the project at an inopportune time.

“We lost a lot of topsoil from the rain, which set us back somewhat. But the rains gave us an opportunity to see the drainage system tested under storm conditions and it performed as expected, which was encouraging,” MacDonald said.

Despite a tough winter the golf course has pulled through and will be ready to handle golfers by mid July, which is exciting for general manager Margie Arnold.

“This will be an exciting time here to have this course come back in such magnificent condition. This will be a true added value facility and our greens fees will increase to $32 for residents during the week. We hope to do 30,000 to 33,000 rounds annually and the improved course will compliment our efforts in restoring the clubhouse. This is why we changed the name of the club, again, to the Traditions at Chevy Chase,” Arnold said.

For Bob Lohmann, the most satisfying part of the project was seeing it this spring grown in.

“The mixture of the mounds, the grass faced bunkers, the small greens, and the mature trees all blend together to give this course a true old style look. It looks as though the course has been there for years and the name of the Traditions really captures the nature of this renovation project,” Lohmann said.