I have seen the preliminary routing, which if I recall correctly, was prepared by Beau Welling. There is some really neat stuff going on there, and I am sure it will surface here at some point.
With regard to the other mechanics of getting it done, a few nuggets:
It will be interesting to see how they achieve balance with being a positive to the community, affordably serving the local market, extracting a premium from out-of-towners, and being a PGA Tour venue. They have smart people from the PGA, WGA/Evans Scholars and First Tee involved, among others, and initial signs seem to be encouraging.
There is a major difference between what happened with the Lucas Museum and this project that makes it more likely to happen. The Lucas project required repurposing of land, which is what got the community / friends of the park folks riled up. Although I am not a fan of how they seemed to have handled the situation (obstructionism vs. negotiation), the concerns were understandable. If they had studied George Lucas's dealings in the past, they might have learned that home boy responds poorly to chest thumping and legal challenges.
This project is fundamentally different. There is CPD property being used for golf now, and that property is being renovated for continued use for golf in the future. That makes the hurdles to clear lower, and is one of the reasons why more ambitious plans to fill in a portion of lake, or incorporate additional parcels of property, have been ditched. Doing so would have brought more players into the mix and complicated approvals.
The best-use-of-funds question is basically unanswerable conceptually because different groups and individuals have a near-infinite list of different opinions and priorities for what constitutes the greatest social good. In this case, that question is largely irrelevant because as I understand it, this project is not being paid for out of the city's general fund. The lead organizations (PGA, WGA, FToGC) and supportive individuals are partnering with the CPD under this new umbrella to raise money specifically for this project. Would the city be better off by fixing infrastructure or investing more in schools or public services? Perhaps so. But the question doesn't matter in relation to the priorities of the donors and/or supporting organizations. They want to put their money into this golf project, not those other things.
I could be wrong about the above, and our fair city has shown a certain genius for tainting or ruining good things. From what I know being privvy to some of the inner workings of this project though, there is reason to be excited if you care about golf in Chicago.