NUGENT GOLF INC.
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NUGENT GOLF INC.
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HERITAGE BLUFFS PUBLIC GOLF COURSE Channahon Park District, Channahon, Illinois In 1990, Nugent Golf was selected by the Channahon Park District to provide professional guidance for a land purchase agreement. After completing numerous routing plans, a final land configuration was agreed upon. It was the Park District's long range plan to build the golf course in seven to ten years. With the advent of the property tax cap legislation, Channahon Park District realized that it had just under three months to have the project underway. Nugent Golf completed all of the design and construction documents in 45 days to allow one month for public bid. One week prior to the deadline, all $5.4 million of bonds were sold and the Wadsworth Golf Construction Company started moving dirt. Once the deadline had been met and the project was underway, an archeological survey detected a significant historical finding which had to be worked around. Nugent Golf also secured a Section 404 wetland mitigation permit to relocate a portion of a low grade wetland from one end to the other end of the archeological site. With the installation of a restrictive drainage system, this wetland has been enlarged to over twice its original size and is now considered to be an aided wetland in quality. Nugent Golf also provided Construction Management Services for this project. This constant on-site involvement allowed for the modifications of the overall design to accommodate previously undesigned elements such as the clubhouse and parking, the conversion of a farmstead to a maintenance compound with both refurbished barns and a new shop, and the new service road alignment. Although only green-to-tee asphalt cart path was originally budgeted for, the discovery of a large deposit of suitable gravel in the driving range allowed for a continuous cart path and a more dramatic "amphitheater" practice facility. Nugent Golf Associates personnel also conceived a plan to use the irrigation piping network to allow for both recharging of the irrigation pond and the irrigation of the golf course during the grow-in when Commonwealth Edison failed to deliver an electrical service on schedule. Based on the Park District's budget and our cost estimates, the preliminary construction budget for Heritage Bluffs was set at $3.25 million. The final construction cost including change orders was $2.8 million. Ranked by Golf Digest as one of the "Top Ten Best New Public Golf Courses" in the country for 1994, this stand-alone 18-hole course was also recognized as both the #1 Best Golfing Value and the #1 Most Fun Golf Course in Chicagoland by the 1995 readers poll in the Chicagoland Golfer.
GREEN BAY COUNTRY CLUB Green Bay, Wisconsin This stand-alone private 18 hole Championship golf course is located on 240 acres of farmland, pasture and wooded ravines. Before the design could be finalized and construction could commence, extensive review and coordination with the Wisconsin DNR and Brown County Department of conservation was required. With their input, a design was formulated which would not interfere with any of the on-site wetlands. Additionally, stream bank preservation work was designed to counter the years of erosion due to livestock interaction. The areas around the golf holes where converted to naturalized prairie. When the course opened in May, 1995, so many people stated that the course looked like it had been there for years, that the club has elected to not plant one new tree on the course. We have recently been consulting with the club regarding the planting of hardwoods to supplement the natural areas with some Savannah. In 1995, Green Bay Country Club was ranked as the #6 Best New Private Course by Golf Digest and was designed and constructed for under $3 million.
HARBORSIDE INTERNATIONAL Chicago, Illinois 36 Holes, Port and Starboard Courses After a nationwide search for a course designer, The Illinois International Port District chose Nugent Golf to plan, design, and be an active member of an operations oversight committee for a 456 acre stand alone golf and marina facility. Services provided for this project included complete plans and specifications, financial feasibility studies, construction cost estimates, and golf course construction management. The Harborside facility consists of two 7,150 yd. Championship links style courses and a 58 acre Golf Academy designed to simulate all phases of the game. The greatest challenge in the designing of Harborside was that the land consisted of a 200 acre partially closed sanitary landfill and an on going construction debris landfill located on the remainder of the site. Further complicating the task was that the site was devoid of any topsoil and the treated sludge, which was the only available cover material, would be brought to the site for a three year period at 250,000 cy per year. The design would have to incorporate the deliveries into the construction schedule. After soils testing showed that the sludge would be a poor growing medium for a number of years due to its high salt content, and consultation with the leading experts in the field of agronomy and researchers experimenting with sludge applications in farming, it was found that a consensus on a solution could not be reached. Since the experts didn't have an answer, Nugent Golf and Kudrna Associates worked with the maintenance contractor, ServiScape, to devise a sand/sludge combination in conjunction with the only wall-to-wall irrigation system in the midwest to combat the toxic levels of salt. Even today, a vast matrix of grass species and maintenance practices is being maintained on the Port course as part of a long range experiment to better understand the unique complexity of the environment. In 1995, Harborside opened its first 18-holes on schedule on July 1st with a third nine holes opening in August of 1995, one year ahead of schedule. The final nine holes opened in 1996, also one year ahead of schedule. Even before the opening of the course, Harborside was one of the three courses under consideration to host the Ameritech Senior Open. Recently, the Harborside Golf Center received the American Public Works Association Achievement Award and was awarded a rare Honorable Mention citation by the American Society of Civil Engineers, Illinois Section. The Outstanding Civil Engineering Project of the Year went to the Kennedy Expressway Reconstruction project. (Normally an Honorable Mention is not awarded but the Society deemed the Harborside project worthy of special recognition.)
IVANHOE COUNTRY CLUB 27 Hole Private Country Club, Ivanhoe, Illinois Ivanhoe Country Club was completed in 1990 with a nine-hole addition completed in 1994. Situated on over 500 acres of rolling Lake County woodland and farmland, the Ivanhoe project has been regarded as a successful blend of three distinct environments. The three nines named THE FOREST NINE, THE PRAIRIE NINE, and THE MARSH NINE all reflect the natural element which predominates the area. In 1995, Ivanhoe successfully became a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary with golf course Superintendent, Pete Leuzinger, being recognized as the Mid-Continent Region recipient of the GCSAA's Environmental Steward Award. All facets of the golf course design including the irrigation and landscape design were completed in-house. With the desire to one day host a PGA tournament, Nugent Golf Associates brought in long-time PGA Tournament Director, Jack Tuthill, as a design consultant. All golf course construction was directed in the field by Nugent Golf Associates and construction staking was provided on the nine-hole addition. Working with two different golf course contractors and a third site contractor, this championship caliber project was brought in on budget. Nugent Golf Associates worked closely with the infrastructure engineering firm of Donald Manhard and Associates, the sewage treatment engineer, Shaeffer and Roland, and Gerald Estes Land Planning, to insure that the master site plan incorporating the golf course and the upscale housing elements formed a cohesive matrix. Larsen-Kramer-Kjelstrom added the finishing touch with a grand prairie style clubhouse. In 1993, Golf Digest rated the Ivanhoe Country Club #6 in the Top Ten Best New Private Course list. PRAIRIE GREEN GOLF COURSE City of Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls, SD In 1992, Nugent Golf was commissioned by the City of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to design a flagship golf course for their City golf course system. On land donated by a consortium of developers, a championship golf course was constructed. As budget was a significant factor in the design, Nugent Golf implemented a strategy utilizing hybrid bluegrass fairways and a low cost, high efficiency irrigation system. Additionally, naturalized cart paths utilizing native red quartzite were installed to highlight the tan native grasses. The final construction cost for this project was $2.2 million. In January 1996, Golf Digest listed Prairie Green the Number Two Best Public Golf Course in South Dakota.
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