The Preserve at Oak Meadows

The new design is interesting. Obviously the greens are going to be very hard and not receptive this season. The wetlands can come up very close to fairway, so you can be searching for golf balls quite a bit. The back side more interesting than the front. Still some growing to do. I personally would have taken out a few more trees around some tee boxes, growing grass is going to be difficult. We'll give it some time and play again

I was excited to experience the redesign and after playing the track I can't wait to get back! The Preserve at Oak Meadows does need to mature for a few years.

A new “prairie style” clubhouse will eventually be built (ground breaking next year) on the site of the historic clubhouse that burned down in 2009. The redesign opens with the same buildings/facilities - small efficient pro shop and the trailer for food/beverage. The range area now contains a very nice chipping green very representative of the redesigned course conditions as well as a sand bunker to take a few swings located near the site of the original practice putting green near the cart barn. The slope of the practice putting green near the 1st tee was familiar and a new very large practice green nearby towards what will be the site of the new clubhouse provides the best place to test putting speeds/conditions pre round. A very good GPS screen system now installed on the golf carts. The flags have laser sights but do not have a back/middle/front color system. The course is not yet mapped for Garmin devices but has been requested. A quirk for beverage cart service on holes 2 thru 5 - there’s some sort of tax situation with these holes located in Wood Dale limits rather than Addison so purchase beer pre round if you want one early in the round. A couple of porta potties are located after finishing the 4th and 13th.

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Greens – 100pct ready….young, well sized and rock hard (difficult to hold shots or even make a ball mark) extremely smooth with good stimp…. simply outstanding with nice slopes and different quadrant areas to keep your interest round after round. A number of run out areas around the greens to test your chip and run ground game as well as just putting up or down slopes from these fringe areas……fun!

Sand Traps – ready, deep and quite numerous. Really nice white sand in them and they appear to drain well and if maintained (and raked by fellow golfers) will be a joy to play out of.

Tee boxes – not so ready for play. Patchy in areas as well as some different grasses in them…surprised at this aspect and overall condition. I experienced several areas that felt at least to me to be not overly level causing me to re tee to a different part of the box….some tee boxes I felt were too small in overall size (especially some of the white tee boxes which may get a significant amount of play). My initial reaction - I wish the course designer, shapers and maintenance crew would have paid more attention to them.

Fairways – mainly ready for play but with some exceptions where areas need to be immediately roped off to avoid damage by motor carts. Most fairways had very good run out and even with all the rains the course has drained exceptionally well. A couple of light mud balls....not too many. Most shocking and I really hope the forest preserve strongly will consider this suggestion -provide top quality divot mix with seed on the carts otherwise in a few years these fairways will be laced with divot holes – I need to go play Mt. Prospect a 2nd time after their renovation…..I suspect Mt. Prospect’s newer fairways may already having divot issues.

Rough – in decent shape (long at this writing especially around some sand traps) however definition is sketchy between fairway/rough in some places but this condition will definitely improve as the course matures.

Course design – impressive and well done! Familiar and not so familiar….a lot original routing was kept in certain areas so there’s a comfort level for the frequent players of the old course. Thoroughly enjoyable different challenge Par 5's, short and longer par 4's....and some variety in the par 3's but not enough for this writers liking. The white tees at 5700 yards with a 128 slope are plenty of trouble for most golfers. Course is very playable and really enjoyable from that distance but it’s a tad short (the fairway bunkers really come into play more) but still provides a very significant challenge. The blue tees at 6213 with a 134 slope may be way too much distance for casual golfers who will elect to play these tees more so than any of the other tees (they’ll absolutely lose at least a couple of sleeves of balls). Concerns me that pace of play when The Preserve fully opens in 2018 will be an issue. Tourney tees stretch out to a massive 7015 as well as Black tees playing at a fairly hefty 6631. The front tees at 4906 seem to be well placed and eliminate most forced carries. There’s significantly more hazard and forced carries (10 forced carry shots in total!!) on the redesign especially so from the blue tees and longer. Many well placed fairway bunkers as well. There’s also a 6431 hybrid course yardage (Black/Blue) on the scorecard…….even more way too much for casual golfers….this may encourage casual golfers to play an even longer distance than they should…. plenty of challenge just from the blue tees….. my suggestion would be to change the hybrid mix to a Blue/White tee hybrid with a course playing slightly over 6000 yards (there’s a 513 yard difference between blue and white!...a full par 5 of distance) to encourage players to experience the track at a more reasonable difficulty/slope and distance. Quite a few trees were felled and the middle parts of each nine have more of a prairie/open feel to it. A nice mix of tree lined holes and wide open holes so winds will come more into play. The course demands very accurate driving and precise iron play to reach large greens which have a multitude of pin positions. The 4th hole will be the most talked about....a devilish potentially reached on your drive scorecard wrecking 300 yard par 4 that probably needs to be played several times just to figure out how to tackle it comfortably. The 10th hole may unfortunately continue to back up groups making the turn - a 179 yard blue tee Par 3 forced carry over Salt Creek with an angled green fronted by sand.

Both my playing partner and I thoroughly enjoyed the track and will definitely play it again and again and again! With maturation, proper care and maintenance The Preserve at Oak Meadows will be a Chicagoland gem for years to come. 4.75 stars - 5 stars when the clubhouse is finished. Highly recommended.