A familiar course will have a new name when play resumes later this summer.
The Canal Shores Golf Course has been renamed The Evans at Canal Shores, per an announcement of the Evanston Wilmette Golf Course Association and course’s management firm, KemperSports. Coinciding with the re-brand, an owl will now be the course’s logo.
“Canal Shores has served a special place in the community for more than 100 years,” Board President Matt Rooney said in a statement. “The Evans at Canal Shores continues the legacy of Canal Shores while putting added focus on the youth development and youth caddie training opportunities that will come from the renovated golf course.”
The incorporation of the Evans name links the course to Chick Evans, who went to high school in Evanston on his way to starting an amateur golf career. Working with the Western Golf Association, the Evans Scholars Foundation was formed in 1930, awarding full tuition and college scholarship to youth caddies. The Canal Shores course is very close to the initial Evans Scholarship House, opened in 1940 at Northwestern University.
In another aspect of the re-brand, the logo has an owl on top of a golf club.
“The logo represents the course’s commitment to being a good steward to all inhabitants in the community and represents its mission of educating the community’s youth through golf,” according to the statement.
The new name and logo are tied into the ongoing renovation of the par-60, 18-hole course led by architect Todd Quinto.
A KemperSports spokesman said in an email the plan is to open at least 11 – and possibly 13 – holes by August 1. The entire scope of the renovations are scheduled to be completed next year along with the opening of a youth development training center and Western Golf Association Caddie Academy.
“It’s still the charming and quirky urban parklike course it’s always been,” noted Josh Lesnik, Executive Vice President of Golf for KemperSports and Canal Shores board member in the statement. “We simply created a new mission focused on youth development and scholarships, invested in infrastructure so we could improve playing conditions and certainly added some architectural interest and excitement to an already memorable routing.”
The spokesman said nearly $6 million in private donations have been raised to fund the upgrades.
Daniel I. Dorfman is a freelance reporter with Pioneer Press.
