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THE GOG BLOG-by RORY SPEARS-Director of Content and Creation for Golfers on Golf. Follow Rory on Twitter @GogBlogGuy or on Facebook, Linkedin, and Instagram.

Architect-designer Greg Martin walks a green at Park Ridge Country Club.

HE’S KEEPING BUSY.

Which is always a good thing for golf architects these days. In the case of Batavia based Greg Martin, he has been pretty busy now for years, and he hopes that will be the case going forward.

With good architects they don’t always find work, it finds them. In Martin’s case he is not afraid to go exploring around the Chicago area, to see courses that have issues, and offer ways to help.

Golf course problems get worse if they are not fixed and the temporary quick fixes are usually a waste of money. The common excuse of that we have no budget for that, is no way to maintain a facility. Especially if you expect to keep your members in your club, or the public golfer coming back. In the Chicago area there are plenty of public and private clubs to pick from, and the golfers know that. Club management does not want to hear, how the club down the street is better, because they have a new this or that. On the course or off it, there is plenty to be done these days at most area golf courses.

Martin marking the edges of a bunker getting rebuilt, at the Park Ridge Country Club.

Martin’s recent run of projects have rebuilt several area golf courses, and turned them into places that golfers can’t wait to play, and them comeback and play them over and over again.

Just a few years back, Martin served as the national president of the ASGCA (American Society Golf Course Architects), earning that office takes years of service, and even more, a great deal of respect from your peers in the business.

Martin’s work in his home town of Aurora at Phillips Park, won him a Design Excellence award from the ASGCA. His new design of the Preserve at Oak Meadows in Addison for the DuPage County Forest Preserve District, earned him several more. What Martin takes real pride in at the Preserve, is the renovation there was more than just rebuilding the golf course. It was about creating a preserve around the golf course, and being able to control storm-water when the floods arrive. The project has kept not only the golf course dry and playable, but the surrounding neighborhoods and peoples basements dry as well.

  THE 16TH HOLE’S-(L) At the Preserve at Oak Meadows, (R) at Wilmette Golf Club.

Martin’s work includes another bail out project, that eliminated the serious flooding problems at Wilmette Golf Club that has a branch of the Chicago River running past a few of it’s holes. Recent Martin projects also include Wedgewood in Joliet, all 27 holes at Arrowhead Golf Club in Wheaton, Fox Run Golf Club in Elk Grove.

In addition to current restoration work at the Park Ridge Country Club in advance of the 2021 Women’s Western Golf Association’s (WWGA) national amateur championship in July, crews will start working at Settlers Hill in Batavia in just a few weeks. This years work will not effect play on any of the 18 holes, and the golf course will remain open through the end of the season. Settlers Hill will be closed for all of 2021, and there is hope that the course can reopen at some point in June of 2022.

THE PAR 3, 13TH HOLE (L) and the location for the new clubhouse behind the current first green, and right of the second tee box.

Martin’s plan for Settlers Hill makes the current second hole the first hole, and the current first hole will be the 18th hole and so forth around the golf course. On the course two of the par 3 holes will be relocated, holes 7 and 16. The testy par 5, 11th hole will become the 10th hole, and will have some changes. It will become more playable, but don’t expect it to become a real easy hole either.

One change golfers should look forward to, is the current par 3, 7th hole. The cart path into the hole will be more direct to the tee box instead of golfers having to drive through a line of ball flight, then backwards up the hill. The 7th hole will go straight right from the current tee box, into the wooded area, and play over a creek that runs through the trees. Bring your clubs and your camera.

The current clubhouse will be come a new banquet and special events facility.

The current par 5, 17th hole, will become the new 16th hole.

Martin will be moving the current tee boxes left up to the top of the hill, for an elevated tee shot, with great views of the area from the new tee box.

It’s been no secret for a while, that some trees and brush areas around golf course need to be trimmed out or taken out completely, and Martin says that will happen.

CLICK HERE to hear an interview with Greg Martin on his work at the Park Ridge Country Club and the upcoming project at Settlers Hill in Batavia.

The new range at Settlers Hill will be up the hill from the new clubhouse and there will be a three-hole junior course added. So if you wish to play Settlers Hill a time or two before next years shutdown, get out and do it soon. But do be ready, it will dazzle golfers when it reopens for play in 2022. When the golf course reopens in 2022, there is a possibility that the new clubhouse might not yet be completed. Stay tuned for details on that part of the project.

For more information on Greg Martin and his current and future projects that include work on the Naperville Park District courses, see Martindesigngolf.com.