Bill Daniels' IMO piece on the Jackson Park/South Shore project

[Ran Morrissett]

Bill Daniels, who founded GOLFChicago magazine in 1997, has submitted a thought-provoking In My Opinion piece. Here is the link:

https://golfclubatlas.com/tigers-plans-for-chicago-course-misses-mark/

As GCA has discussed, Chicago is one of America's big cities that has recently evaluated its open spaces and created new priorities. In the case of Jackson Park and South Shore Golf Course, the powers that be considered several options. At one end was a high end, ~$60,000,000 gut job centering around a Tiger Woods Design 18 hole course as an anchor for big events. On the other side of the spectrum was Tom Doak’s proposed sub-6500 yard course, complete with a much more modest price tag.

What typically happens in this country during prosperous times did and the bigger, more ornate path was chosen. That made some people very happy and some not. Bill is a dissenter. Tiger Woods's involvement with the south side of Chicago might prove off-the-charts magical (let's hope so!) but that's not the point of Bill's essay. He is interested in determining what type course will best serve the locals. Tiger could build a 6,200 yard course, for instance.

Does anyone see a resemblance to well-meaning nations/cities bidding for the Olympic games when the victors often find themselves in debt with White Elephants after the event clears town? Tiger’s championship layout might be on television periodically but will it truly touch a lot of lives in greater Chicago? Time will tell. If the course truly costs $30m and the infra-structure another $30m  , can it be afforded? Importantly for the locals, bifurcated fees have been recommended (which I think is an outstanding idea), less than $50 for locals and north of $200 for out-of-towners (I think).


Basically, the proposal is for South Shore and Jackson Park to become one big budget course. Bill questions if that is what the game really needs. Such courses demand more of everything that stifles golf - cost, space, and time.  As a counterpoint, Bill extols the virtues of a smaller scale venue. Courses that are tighter knit and measure 1,000 yards shorter than what is being proposed are more economic on all counts and deliver the greatest amount of fun to the greatest number of golfers.

Bill and I question the on-going stigma attached to sub-6500 yard courses in this country. Afterall, the Brits have long appreciated the joys of the Pulboroughs, Liphooks, Wokings and Swinleys and they do so on foot as opposed to Americans who traverse the bloated acreage sitting on their rumps in carts. Among the hundreds of calls and conversations I have each year, the group of courses that generate (to paraphrase Colt) the least negative critiques is the collection of sub 6500 yarders throughout England. Americans in particular relish their exposure to these design gems scattered outside London.

America needs to embrace this model at some point and maybe another city will show the way if more people express their sentiments as Bill has. Until then, good luck to the City of the Big Shoulders and let's hope they end up doing what proves to be best for their particular situation.

[Jeff Schley]

I appreciate Bill's POV and he is not alone. Both courses need at minimum a restoration that is clear and I think everyone wants that to happen at least.  The OPC is going to happen one way or another on the South Side, the timing isn't clear, but it will. The South Side as all Chicagoan's know isn't what it once was and probably will never get back to that level of manufacturing jobs and middle/upper middle class neighborhoods, which we all lament. They need some immediate interjection of hope and pride and this project has that potential.
You have:


1. Courses that need work
2. The OPC which will be a big attraction
3. Area of the city that needs some revitalization

I see the same synergy that those in favor of the 18 hole championship course do. The issues can be dealt with, I'm talking the course only for adding the OPC has it's own hot topics.1. Environmental concerns that needs governmental approvals2. Limit the cost of Chicago residents and guarantee them blocks of tee times3. COST!4. Lawsuits from the Protect Our Parks (which recently received a grant to float legal fees)



1. is being dealt with presently

2. will be expected and I think they will get both a limited green fees along with guaranteed starting times as they should

3. Cost.... well the infrastructure is the issue as I think you can raise the 30m privately (I suggested earlier corporate sponsors). How about Nike footing the bill since tiger is involved? The Swoosh at Jackson Park has some cache.

4. This is inevitable and in the overly litigious society that the US is expected and will have to be dealt with.  Some of our legal minds Terry and Shelly have better ideas here.


All in all, the golf course itself isn't a land grab of public land as it is already park district owned and will maintain as such. OPC is something that is and if there is ever a reason for it I would think building a presidential center for of your own who happened to be the first minority president in the country's history is a pretty good thing to have around as a source of pride.  He came from here!

I don't know if I'm biased but if this was on the Northside of town I wouldn't think it as important, but for the South Side which is in desperate need of opportunities and pride I'm all for it.  Spend some of that money on the South Side and give the residents back something to be proud of.

[Tom_Doak]

I have stayed pretty quiet about this project since it was announced, and I don't really wish to wade into the design aspects of it.  But, since we did our feasibility work for the University of Chicago, and the Obama Presidential Center project was a public bid process, I was informed months ago that our plan could be dragged out into the discussion, because all of the proposals for the OPC are public information.


Still, I didn't think it would show up on Golf Club Atlas.


I wondered aloud from the beginning of the assignment if building a championship course [even as a part-time composite of the two courses] was really serving the community, which the people at the University to whom I answered cared greatly about.  Jeff talks about giving the residents of the South Side something to be proud of, but how many of the people driving this project live on the South Side?  And how many of the black teenagers I saw playing as singles on the afternoon that I visited, will be paying $50 to play the course at the new "locals" rate?


It's quite a contrast to Memorial Park, a project that came to us while Jackson Park is still being debated.  In Houston, the Astros owner Jim Crane agreed to underwrite the project while he was raising funds from local businesspeople to pay for it, and also agreed to pay some of the proceeds of the Tour event to the City of Houston Parks Department [to improve conditioning of the course] and to the Memorial Park Conservancy. 


The budget is more than I'd hoped - reinforcing concrete paths so they can set up luxury suites for the tournament is not cheap, nor is digging basins to capture rainwater so the course won't use so much municipal water for irrigation - but it's still about a third of what they're talking about in Chicago, where the city has to rebuild roads around the course and pay for all the engineering work.  In Houston, the only thing the project is costing the city is ten months of lost revenue while the golf course is closed for the renovation -- and when the course reopens, the green fee should be pretty similar to what it's always been, although they may yet implement a strategy to make out-of-towners pay more.


The biggest surprise to me in the process was that although we are redesigning the course with a Tour event in mind, the overwhelming input I've received from locals is that we need to make the course tougher (!) as they are worried it won't challenge the players enough.  Memorial's reputation has always been that it's the toughest test in the city, a holdover from the days when length was a bigger part of the game's challenge, so very few people seem to be worried we'll make it too hard.

[Mike_Young]

How many guys you know walking around at 5 feet 10 inches of height but describe themselves as six footers? 

That's the same problem a course has when it tells the truth about it's length.  Most of us think we are playing a longer course than we do.

[Tim_Cronin]

I still can't see how the Boondoggle Course at Jackson Park will come to fruition. Public sentiment is mixed, and more important in Chicago, the money isn't there and the key proponents are exiting the stage.


The original ask of the city and park district was that the group fronted by Rolfing and controlled by a pal of the major needed to raise $24 million of the original $30 million cost, which would cover reconstruction and an endowment to help finance the low rates for local players. As I understand it, while many have promised, something under $350,000 has been raised, and we're two years in. Ground was expected to have been broken in spring of 2017.


Furthermore, mayor Rahm Emanuel and parks superintendent Mike Kelly are both retiring. That means Rolfing and Co. are left without their clout to grease the way, to use a Chicago term. No money and no backers means nothing will happen. Jackson Park and South Shore will remain open in their present state, and will eventually get a refurbishment, as the Robert A. Black course on the north side (on the site of old Edgewater Golf Club) did last year.

[Jim Nugent]

The city is giving $3.9 million the Smith Group just for engineering consulting.  Doak or the other architects here at GCA probably could have used that money to turn the existing course(s) into outstanding municipal layouts, that the local golfers would love.  This is about politics and egos, not golf or serving the needs of the golfers who play there now.

[Terry Lavin]

The argument to throw just a few million for renovating the 18 at Jackson Park and the 9 at South Shore has undeniable appeal. If you like small plans. Daniel Burnham was the architect who drafted the plan for the Chicago lakefront from downtown to Jackson Park at the South end. “Make no little plans” was his motto.


The plan that is still in play is no little plan. It involves many millions in infrastructure work, many millions in golf course construction, many millions in private donations and millions toward programs to develop caddie programs to benefit local kids. In fact, the Evans Scholars Foundation just awarded the first full-ride college scholarship to a Jackson Park caddie.


The politics, optics and other narratives, to use the current argot, are difficult to evaluate, but this big plan would help the surrounding communities for a very long time and it would help educate local kids and provide a tour-worthy golf course.


Good idea?  Bad idea?  We can debate. But it sure aint a little plan. Thanks, Daniel Burnham.

[Tom_Doak]

In fact, the Evans Scholars Foundation just awarded the first full-ride college scholarship to a Jackson Park caddie.

What a coincidence! /s

[Terry Lavin]

In fact, the Evans Scholars Foundation just awarded the first full-ride college scholarship to a Jackson Park caddie.

What a coincidence! /s

It’s no coincidence, my cynical friend, because ESF started a program a few years back which included recruitment of neighborhood high school kids who would work as caddies and try to get grades good enough to get into a great university, without having celebrity parents hire crooked ACT coaches.


Wink all you want, this project will help the community and change the lives of a lot of kids.

[Scott Weersing]

This JP/SS project seems like the wrong thing to do. Why not try to copy what they did at Common Ground in Aurora, CO?


Design a course that is fun for all, set up a caddie program, and NOT have a PGA tour event. As Tom Doak, has said many times, it is much different to build a course for pros then for the general public. We will see what happens with Memorial Park in Houston.

[Quinn Thompson]

An "Opinion Piece" will always be problematic; some readers go for it, others opt for another cup of coffee and the bill.


This is Chicago ! We spend money on all sorts of shit, and the Northsiders never give a damn. A pedestrian bridge was recently built at 35th street for 20 million bucks and nobody gave a fuck.


"In my opinion" ( for it's nickels worth ), why not ? This ain't Lubbock Texas, nor is it Winter Park Florida...it's a city of big plans and big budgets. I pay taxes in Chicago; investing in the Southside and her future has to be big...you're boutique course won't survive down here.


Lets see what happens...in the meantime; next time you fly into Midway, or O'Hare, and spend your'e evening down Michigan Avenue
way; try saddling up and visiting Jackson Park as it is...play golf and look around.

[Paul OConnor]

Quinn,
That bridge is actually at 31st Street, and cost $23 mil.  $18 mil was funding from federal and the other $5 mil was state money. There is another bridge at 41st Street which cost $33 mil, all fed and state cash.  I guess that since these bridge projects did not involve millions in spending by the Chicago Park District, the closing of major streets, the loss of existing parkland or the elimination of a nature center, might be the reasons nobody in Chicago gives a fuck. 

And the fallacious argument that because 100 years ago Daniel Burnham said something noteworthy, $60 million should be spent on a golf course is obviously nonsense. 

Paul O'Connor

[Quinn Thompson]

Does that mean we bitch and moan until nothin happens ? Thats where it's going...


I'm just saying: at least someone is trying to do something, and a little attention has been brought to a forgotten part of town.


Odd's are, it ain't gonna happen, and the South Shore neighborhood will slip into the lake and life will carry on...

[SL_Solow]

I have been troubled by both the lack of knowledge and the lack of perspective contained in some of these comments.  First, while the Jackson Park course has a fair amount of history and some decent bones, it has fallen into disrepair and needs work.  But more importantly, our perspective for the most part, has focused largely on golf and, to a lesser degree, on a  series of oversimplified views of Chicago politics.  This project, along with the Obama Library, are designed as part of an effort to help revitalize the South Side.  I note parenthetically that the major effort in opposition is being funded largely by a single individual who lives nowhere near the neighborhood.  Assume for a moment that the plan to build the golf course included the following conditions, 1.  A significant number of tee times would be reserved for neighborhood residents at municipal course rates.  Play from outside would be at a substantially higher rate, presumably supported by the quality of the course, the riparian location and the prestige factor assuming that a tournament is scheduled.  2.  All jobs, other than those requiring special expertise, e.g. head pro, course superintendent, would be filled by neighborhood residents.  All grounds staff, pro shop staff, kitchen staff, caddies etc would be filled locally.  3.  The First Tee, CDGA Foundation and other similar. organizations would have a presence and hold programs.  4.  If a pro tournament or tournaments are scheduled, a significant portion of the charitable proceeds would go to local charities.   


Assuming that this focus is implemented and the Obama Library Campus is built in the same general area, together they could bring an influx of visitors and with the visitors, jobs and economic development in a healthy way.  At the same time, they could provide, to paraphrase the good Doctor, healthful recreation and even some education.  I recognize that there is a long way to go before this is achieved.  I am familiar with the political issues.  But to throw up one's hands and say such a project is impossible means that we will ultimately do nothing to revive what once was a thriving neighborhood which continues to be one of the most beautiful parts of the city.  There is a lot of promise in this project.  I would prefer to focus on making it happen the right way rather than succumb to pessimism.  I am a born cynic but that simply allows me to test the proposals.  Let's see what happens.

[Kalen Braley]

SL

I think you bring up a lot of great and valid points.  All good things to chase IMO....

However, i think what many of us reacted to is the proposed price tag, which quite frankly seems insanely high especially from an opportunity cost perspective.