Dan,
This is a wonderful tutorial.
If I may be so bold as to question if K&N did the newer version?
I concur with you that if the principles and landforms were re-instated the course would be exponentially better. The DOG is fortunate to have you showing him the value of treating his course like a work of art. It can only add to the long term value.
I'm no Royko expert....TLBO? please.
Adam,
"The Land Beyone O'Hare" I grew up there, in Arlington Heights, which as noted by Shivas probably developed before Shaumberg, since it was on a CNW rail line. However, the western burbs also had a CNW line and a Milwaukee Road line. I always thought the NW was developed by OHare and the west by Woodfield Mall and a better highway system.
KN split up in 83, and we hadn't done any work there. If it was done in 89, as Dan suggest, then it was Nugent, Killian, or Lohman, with my guess being the latter based on the newly posted photo. As always, I could be wrong, but Nugent at least had moved to some more interesting things (Jim Engh worked with him in this time frame, I think) than what I see and Ken was trying to move to California market. The ground level shot resembles Lohmann bunkers I have seen, and Bob stayed with pretty simple bunker patterns, sometimes as a result of the general tightness of the property on the old courses.
Dan,
Thanks for these photos, each of which I save. As a kid interested in Golf Architecture, I played Golden Acres and saw little architectural merit at the time. I wasn't as keyed in to Langford and Moreau at the time, but I recall most of the bunkers being gone at that point. I should have recogized the lake in the middle.
All should note the french drain tile pattern in the valley below the lake in the BW photo. Obviously, bad dam construction or they left an existing lake in. Also note that due to modern irrigation (and probably a perpetually wet fw) later gca's decided to add to the lake surface for irrigation storage and drainage.
It appears the west nine (if the photo is oriented NS) was either under construction or abandoned in the 39 aerial, which would be interesting to know.
Lastly, in comparing the photo to the routing, its clear that many bunkers were changed in the field. Some were split into two, and almost all have a smaller scale than depicted on the LM routing plan, where they are not depicted as narrow "reef" bunkers at all. Others were moved around.
I notice that every single boundary hole slices OB. I wonder if LM were tweaking McDonald, or just using the land. And I wonder if they knew TLBO would put houses adjacent so tightly, if they (or any subsequent gca) would have been tempted to route the other direction!
Just a lesson in using aerial photos over plans if you are restoring courses.