from today's Chicago Tribune:
Kemper Lakes to turn private
Will remain open to public until '05
By Ed Sherman
Tribune golf reporter
February 26, 2003
One of the Chicago area's top public golf courses is going private.
The new owners of Kemper Lakes Golf Course in Hawthorne Woods say they are bowing to economics and demand. The market for upscale public courses, they say, is declining.
But golfers who want to play the course that hosted the 1989 PGA Championship still have some time. Kemper Lakes is expected to remain open to the public until at least the 2005 golf season.
Once it goes private, the club will not have exclusionary membership policies, officials said. Initiation fees are expected to be in the $40,000 range.
The private Kemper Lakes will be a "golf club, not a country club," according to general manager Janet Dobson. There are no plans to install country club amenities such as a pool and tennis courts. There also won't be any food and beverage minimums.
"The emphasis will be on golf," said Scott Flynn, president of Crown Golf, whose firm manages the course and is a part owner. "We feel like there is a niche for this kind of pure golf club [in the northwest suburbs]."
Flynn expects many Kemper Lakes regulars to stay with the club. Last year, daily-fee players paid $135 per round to play the course.
The new owners had a concern about the club's profitability if it remained public. They paid $18.5 million to buy it.
"We feel the market for upscale courses has peaked, if not flattened out," Flynn said. "The combination of economics and the receptive market make this the appropriate time to do this."
Flynn knows there will be some public course players who will be upset with the move. But he argues many regulars who have paid top dollar for years actually will wind up saving money in the long run.
"People have said for as long as I've been here (more than 20 years), 'When are you going to go private?'" Dobson said. "We've talked to a number of our permanent tee time golfers and they think this is the way to go."
Flynn said the club expects to sign up 275 members.