I played it for the first time last summer with a friend in landscape architecture. I could be imagining it, but he might’ve said his firm provided a quick proposal to the site for overall design. If not, we both walked away thinking there was a real opportunity for the NE corner of the property to be turned into a short course. Good elevation changes in those 5 holes.
Tam with the reno would be the PERFECT league course. Get off work, go play 9, turn and play as much as you can before dark.
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@PTM @TCRBrad @baldvinny any of you guys know the back story on this one? This one is right off 14 and 31. I heard it also possibly included where homedepot and petsmart sit as well?
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It’s my recollection that Home Depot used to be a mini-golf and executive 9-hole course called Twin Ponds. Arnold Palmer had a mini-golf course where Portillo’s is.
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Tom Vesey remembers the day in 1964 when a tiny, nine-hole golf course opened for business on the southeast corner of Illinois Highway 31 and U.S. Highway 14.
Twin Ponds Golf Course, which became a town landmark but soon will be replaced by a shopping center, had short fairways, a few small trees, two big ponds and an abundance of rolling hills.
Golfers–and ducks–flocked to the course, whose links provided the perfect learning ground for beginners and a relaxing getaway for intermediates.
Vesey said he took up the game of golf at age 5 and, later in life, formed a quick bond with Twin Ponds, but even he wouldn’t have guessed that bond would span 32 years.
“I was the third person to play the course the day it opened,” said Vesey, now 79, of Crystal Lake. “I went there with my son, Robert. There were as many trees back then, but they weren’t as big as they are now. It’s a beautiful course for your short game with irons.”
Eventually, Vesey and his wife, Marge, began working at Twin Ponds, manning the front counter and bar.
But just as every good game must come to an end, the couple’s 12-year employment with Twin Ponds will have run its course Thursday, as owner Walter Smith prepares to officially sell the property to Harlem Irving Co., a Chicago developer.
“This has been a great opportunity for me and I met a lot of wonderful people,” Smith said Wednesday, as he treated more than 100 of his regular customers to a free round of golf and complimentary appreciation lunch.
“We served a core group of people here that became a family to us,” he said. “We’ll miss it. I’m just glad I was a part of it.”
On the front counter in Twin Ponds’ small clubhouse sits a letter to the customers explaining Smith’s decision to sell.
The Illinois Department of Transportation eventually plans to widen Illinois 31 from two to four lanes and to construct a new interchange at Illinois 31 and U.S. 14.
IDOT would acquire portions of the golf course to make the improvements, thereby forcing Smith to reconfigure and reconstruct portions of the course, the letter says.
Smith has said the costs for the changes are beyond his means. And, since no one locally has expressed an interest in acquiring the course, Smith decided to sell to a developer.
The Crystal Lake City Council Tuesday night gave final approval to Harlem Irving’s plans to build a 245,000-square-foot shopping center, to be appropriately named Twin Ponds Marketplace.
The shopping center will house such national retail chains as Home Depot, Circuit City and Office Max.
Harlem Irving development director Rick Filler said the company will strive to keep as many of Twin Ponds’ trees as possible, as well as the largest pond.
But the smaller pond will be drained and construction will necessitate leveling hills now touched only by an occasional golf cart and marked by a driving range and an old “Twin Puddles” miniature golf course.
As golf balls are replaced with parking stalls, patrons know, too, that many of the giant oak, willow, maple and evergreen trees will be removed and the ground, covered with asphalt.
“I’ve golfed here since I was a kid,” said Nancy McGuire, 40, of Crystal Lake.
McGuire and her sons, Ryan, 13, and Colin, 9, said as they finished their last rounds at Twin Ponds on Wednesday afternoon that they were sad to see the course close.
“There are so many beautiful trees here, and it has a peaceful atmosphere,” McGuire said. “But mainly, I come here for the memories. I know each hole, and I know which holes are my worst ones–like the fourth hole. I always lose a ball going over the water on the fourth hole.”
Smith’s daughter, Jennifer Adams, has managed the course with her father since the family purchased it six years ago.
After mingling with the regulars and posing for photographs, Adams reflected on the business as she fed her seven “adopted” ducks that waddled onto the clubhouse’s back porch.
“It’s a sad day, because I have been here for six years,” Adams said. “But I understand from a financial standpoint why we have to do this. The seasons are just too short here.”
As two more regulars entered the clubhouse, Adams told them the bittersweet news that the greens fees were on the house.
Vesey quickly leaned over the counter and handed the two men a keepsake golf ball with this engraving: “Twin Ponds Golf Course, 1964 to 1996. We had a ball.”
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Gleneagles and Oak Club both hosted qualifiers in the last 15 years or so. I played one at Oak Club, state Am, I think, in 2006. It was brutally hot, and they had jugs of water on the course, not bottles. This was a really bad idea, since most of the assholes playing in the qualifier used the water in the jugs to wet their towels, and there was none left to drink late in the round. I think I started hallucinating around the 15th hole.
At Gleneagles I hit two good shots on the first hole and proceeded to four my way to a double. On the second I had a flip wedge in and nuked it over the green. Triple. That was a fun day.
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Been thinking about making a 2023 resolution to play every public course within 30 minutes of my house.
Does this seem doable? I started at 60 minutes and it was daunting.
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But at least it is numerically correct, as there are two separate distinct ponds. Unlike a certain course in North Woodridge whose advertised number of structures is different from the actual number present.
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Okay I LOVE this resolution. How did you build that map?
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Sure. It just comes down to if you have the time and will power to do it.
Slight Geogussr here, and a course that once was 27 holes, bulldozed, and redesigned into its present day iteration. Any guesses on what/where this is? Would love to do a historical deep dive on this as I’ve heard some of the holes were great.
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Feel like I’m staring into the suns of Tatooine.
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Google Doc this like Tom Coyne, allow playing partners to sign up, and have the Chains Life crew film it.
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The documentarian is in Alaska now, I think.
Google Doc can be a thing though.
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Cold place to 'toon.
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I’ll tag along for as many of these adventures, basically fall into that same map
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Looking for Luke Skywalkers moisture farm or Jaba’s palace. is that Beggar’s canyon to the right and sandpeople on the rim? may be the wrong thread for this 
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I would down for this. maybe we can make some ven diagram with us northwest burb folks and plan accordingly?
May need need to adjust the map settings to 20 minutes if the intent is truly to keep commute time to under 30 minutes from your house. northbrook for me i know is close to an hour drive.
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