Restoring Diversity: ThunderHawk Golf Club, Beach Park

At 243 acres, ThunderHawk Golf Club embraces more land than many 18-hole courses, but a remarkably low percentage consists of turfgrass. Mowed turf covers less than 90 acres, leaving 74 acres of native and replanted forest, 32 acres of preserved and created wetlands, and more than 50 acres of restored prairie. Opened in 1999, ThunderHawk was designed by noted course architect Robert Trent Jones, Jr., and became the sixth public course worldwide to achieve Audubon's premier Signature Sanctuary status, a more rigorous program available only to newly constructed courses.

Savanna fringes the green at Thunderhawk. Photo by Walt Anderson/Visual Echoes.

Photo by Kim Karpeles.

During construction, the discovery of more than 2,000 small sundrops (0enothera perennis) prompted development of a conservation plan for the state-threatened plants. The course owner, Lake County Forest Preserves, worked with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Audubon International to protect, manage and monitor the plants.

Restored natural areas provide habitat important to migratory birds such as towhees, white-throated sparrows, and yellow-breasted chats, notes Ken Klick, restoration ecologist with the Lake County Forest Preserves.

See also: Thunderhawk Golf Club Web site.