Augusta Nationwide of Midwest: Wealthy Harvest Farms can take a look at world’s greatest

Chicagoland has dozens of excellent golf programs, lots of which might host top-tier occasions, resembling Medinah No. 3, Olympia Fields, and Butler Nationwide.

That additionally contains Wealthy Harvest Farms, the attractive Jerry Wealthy-designed format in Sugar Grove, a small, quaint midwestern city roughly 45 miles west of Downtown Chicago.

When heading out to this golf course on the Ronald Reagan Memorial Freeway, you discover that the expressway lights change into much less frequent, the variety of automobiles dwindle, and rural farmland turns into extra prevalent. You’re instantly in America’s heartland, the area that helps feed and nourish the nation, and nicely out of the shadows of the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Constructing.

Certainly, a picture-perfect golf course couldn’t exist someplace among the many corn, cattle, and cabbage.

However one does.

Whenever you arrive on the entrance gates at Wealthy Harvest Farms, a pleasant safety guard welcomes you into a fantastic oasis among the many farmland. You rapidly notice that not a blade of grass is misplaced, and each tree seems to be prefer it belongs within the Backyard of Eden. Lovely flowers bloom all over the place, too.

Charlie Dahlin/Wealthy Harvest Farms

No marvel why this place is known as the ‘Augusta Nationwide of the Midwest.’ The Wealthy Harvest Farms caddies even don the full-length white bibs, just like what golf followers see at The Masters yearly.

And but, Wealthy, a pc billionaire who purchased this fascinating piece of property in 1985, didn’t initially intend to construct a golf course right here.

“I needed to construct a golf gap, the place I may hit some wedge pictures to a inexperienced and apply. However I didn’t have an entire curiosity past that,” Wealthy stated.

“I simply reduce some grass, so I may hit 70 yards or 100 yards.”

A few years later, in 1987, he determined to get somewhat extra inventive and broaden his apply space. He added just a few extra holes and created a number of teeing areas, permitting him to play every of his three greens from totally different angles and lengths.

However Wealthy rapidly acquired tired of that. So he determined to broaden upon this little course for himself. He then spent the following 10 years portray his 18-hole masterpiece.

“Wherever I play, one of many issues I at all times do is take a look at the design of the golf holes. I keep in mind after I performed Augusta for the primary time, I believed, ‘What was Bobby Jones pondering of when he designed Augusta Nationwide?’ And as I performed each gap, I may see what he was excited about,” Wealthy stated.

“Bobby Jones was an ideal beginner participant, however he was not a golf course designer. And I usually thought, ‘If Bobby Jones can design Augusta Nationwide, I can design Wealthy Harvest Farms.’ So over a interval of 10 years, we constructed the 18 holes.”

Charlie Dahlin/Wealthy Harvest Farms

The Course

From the very again tees, Wealthy Harvest Farms performs to 7,704 yards—a size usually employed in a U.S. Open. It might probably take a look at the perfect gamers on the planet, regardless of the otherworldly distance positive factors the sport has seen over the previous quarter-century. Nevertheless it already challenges the following era {of professional} golfers, because the Northern Illinois Males’s and Ladies’s Golf groups apply at Wealthy Harvest Farms.

An indication within the pavilion even reads, “The Amateurs who flip Professional… play at Wealthy Harvest Farms.”

It’s no marvel the course has such a prestigious historical past of internet hosting marquee occasions since its founding in 1998. That features the 2017 NCAA Division I Males and Ladies’s Golf Championships and quite a few different collegiate occasions.

In 2009, Wealthy Harvest Farms hosted the Solheim Cup, with unbelievable crowds flocking to Sugar Grove to see the perfect feminine gamers on the planet. The Individuals received that yr, 16-to-12, because of an excellent efficiency from Michelle Wie, who received 3.5 factors to guide the competitors.

Picture by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Pictures

A number of years later, the membership welcomed the 2015 Western Novice, which noticed Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa miss the reduce, a testomony to how troublesome this course can play.

“Off the tee is essential,” Wealthy stated when requested what his course prioritizes. “You need to preserve your self within the quick grass to go after these greens. However a poor drive is not going to permit you to do this.”

Certainly, this golf course requires not solely size but additionally accuracy off the tee. Being out of place will result in an extended day, because the thick, wholesome tough that strains it should punish any wayward drive. Loads of timber are in the way in which, too.

Talking of timber, Wealthy Harvest Farms’ Signature Gap, the dogleg left, 388-yard par-4 third gap, used to have a tree sitting proper in the midst of the green.

Wealthy figured {that a} tree that bisected the green supplied a stark departure from most holes whereas difficult the gamers. Nevertheless it actually befuddled considered one of Wealthy’s greatest mates, the legendary Sam Snead.

Charlie Dahlin/Wealthy Harvest Farms

So, after constructing the golf course, Wealthy, who met Snead at Pine Tree Golf Membership in Florida, invited the seven-time main champion to play his newly constructed golf course. Once they arrived on the third gap, Snead gave Wealthy a confused look and requested him, “The place ought to I hit this, Jerry?”

Wealthy then responded by saying that Snead ought to hit it proper on the base of the tree, which might give him a transparent shot into the inexperienced on this dogleg left. Snead did simply that, as his tee shot landed proper into the “crotch” of the tree. So, Snead, among the best golfers ever, backhanded his second shot away from the tree, along with his ball touchdown a few ft from the tree trunk. He then hit his third shot on the inexperienced and knocked it in for a miraculous par, thus main Wealthy to call the third gap, “Snead’s Crotch.” That tree has since come down, however the legend nonetheless lives on.

Each gap stands out at Wealthy Harvest Farms, however one which instantly involves thoughts is the beautiful par-3 14th gap, colloquially referred to as “5 Silver,” as Wealthy refers to his two nine-hole tracks as “Gold” and “Silver,” which you’ll play in no matter order.

Impressed by the twelfth gap at Augusta, the 14th at Wealthy Harvest Farms has water in entrance of the inexperienced and a pencil-thin placing floor. A bunker, which has similarities to the one which perches above Rae’s Creek in Georgia, additionally guards the center of the inexperienced. However this inexperienced at Wealthy Harvest Farms has loads extra undulation than the one it takes after at Augusta. Three-putting could be very simple to do—simply ask the writer—as a big swale in the midst of the inexperienced leaves little room for error.

Wealthy Harvest Farms

However all in all, many of the greens at Wealthy Harvest Farms make use of quite a few bumps and humps, sloping in each course, similar to Augusta. Therefore, discovering the green is essential as a result of it’s worthwhile to have spin to cease your pictures on the greens. And you’ll solely put spin on the ball from the green.

“It’s a very good golf course,” stated Cameron Smith forward of a LIV Golf occasion held at Wealthy Harvest Farms in 2023.

“I believe being within the fairway is fairly key round right here. The timber aren’t too good. And the greens are fairly slopey, and should you get within the fallacious spot across the greens, you’re taking a look at 5 or 6 fairly fast.”

Wealthy Harvest Farms hosted a pair of LIV Golf occasions in 2022 and 2023, received by Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau, respectively. The Saudi-backed circuit actually has had its truthful dose of controversy, nevertheless it additionally employs a number of the greatest gamers on the planet.

Therefore, with the demise of the Western Open, and since main championship golf doesn’t go to the Chicago space usually, Wealthy determined to host a LIV Golf occasion in his yard.

It turned out to be an ideal success as Wealthy Harvest Farms as soon as once more flexed its muscle mass, testing the world’s greatest, just like how the Blue Monster at Doral continues to do to at the present time.

Though Wealthy drew inspiration from Jones, Snead, and his good pal Bob Murphy, legendary architect Dick Wilson enlightened him essentially the most. Wilson designed the Blue Monster at Doral, Pine Tree, and Bay Hill in Orlando. So, once you play Wealthy Harvest Farms, you’ll discover that the bunkering is kind of just like these Florida programs. A lot of the greens are elevated, too, a giant a part of Wilson’s forte.

Charlie Dahlin/Wealthy Harvest Farms

Giving Again

Wealthy has nice pleasure within the golf course he has constructed and the tournaments he has hosted, however he’s most happy with the Children Golf Basis of Illinois, a corporation he began to introduce golf to underserved children within the space.

However this all took place due to a vital second that occurred to him when he was rising up in Wooden Dale, Illinois, on the age of 10.

“Anyone had talked about to me that I may make some cash caddying. After all, being 10 years outdated, I had no concept what caddying was all about. It was at Brookwood Nation Membership on Addison Street, and we lived about 4 miles away. So I rode my bike, parked my bike, and stood round these buildings for a couple of minutes, after which a person got here out of one of many buildings,” Wealthy stated.

“He walked behind the constructing and got here out with a pull-cart. He put this golf bag, which I didn’t know what a golf bag was on the time, on this cart, and he gave me two minutes of instruction. I pulled this cart for a girl for 9 holes, and once we acquired all completed, she gave me a greenback and 1 / 4.

“Again then, I used to be the happiest child on the planet. I did not know if it was a tip or if that was the wage. However I’ve advised this story many, many occasions as a result of it wasn’t the greenback and 1 / 4 it wasn’t Jerry Wealthy pulling the pull cart, it was this person that gave me the chance as a result of he knew I knew nothing about golf. He may have very simply stated, ‘Hey, child, get out of right here.’ However he didn’t. He gave me that chance, and due to that, 30 years later, after I constructed the property, I needed to return the favor he gave me by beginning my Children Golf Basis. Now, we contact over 8,000 children per yr within the state of Illinois.”

Since its inception in 1998, the Children Golf Basis has reached over 275,000 youngsters within the Land of Lincoln, giving each a possibility to study the sport of golf. However the true worth of this program are the life classes every little one learns and the instruments they’ll carry with them for the remainder of their lives.

“It’s the sport of golf, however [we] additionally train them find out how to apply these life classes once they exit [in their communities],” stated Mary Timm, a web site coordinator of the Children Golf Basis.

“We have now had lots of of youngsters undergo this system, and it’s so enjoyable to see them personal it. They take possession of these life classes as they apply them to the sport of golf: honesty, integrity; not solely starting, however following by means of and ending.”

Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By way of. Remember to take a look at @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You’ll be able to observe him on Twitter @jack_milko as nicely.