Canal Shores Management Rebrands Golf Course As 'The Evans At Canal Shores'

EVANSTON, IL — The new management of Canal Shores Golf Course has rebranded the 105-year-old course on publicly owned land along the North Shore Canal in Wilmette and Evanston.

The nonprofit Evanston Wilmette Golf Course Association and KemperSports, the Northbrook-based management company that took over operations in 2022, announced earlier this month the course will now be known as The Evans as Canal Shores.

“Canal Shores has served a special place in the community for more than 100 years,” said Matt Rooney, president of the Canal Shores board. “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 upgraded 18-hole course is due to open next year along with 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,” said Josh Lesnik, Executive Vice President of Golf for KemperSports and Member of the Canal Shores Board. “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.”

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The course was initially named after Peter Jans, an Evanstonian who believed in providing less expensive and more accessible options for playing golf.

The new name honors Chick Evans, the notable amateur golfer and Evanston Township High School grad who used his golf career earnings to establish the Evans Scholars Foundation in 1930.

Since then, the foundation has awarded full college scholarships to more than 13,000 young caddies, including more than 1,100 this year.

The new logo for the golf course features an owl perched on a golf club, which is meant to symbolize a commitment to community stewardship and education through golf.

Renovations of the 82-acre course began in 2022 and have been led by architect Todd Quitno.

The land is owned by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, when then leases it Evanston and Wilmette.

The city and the village then then lease it to the nonprofit Evanston Wilmette Golf Course Association, which does not get any taxpayer funding and relies heavily on donations and other sources of revenue.

Funding for the rebuild has been provided by the Western Golf Association/Evans Scholars Foundation, First Tee – Greater Chicago, Wadsworth Golf Charities, the Chicago District Golf Association, Quitno Golf Designs and through private contributions

In addition to golf, the course has also hosted community events such as the popular "Out of Space" concert series. It has also been certified as a wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation and recertified by the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf.

The Evans at Canal Shores will open a limited number of holes for preview play in late summer 2024, with all 18 holes opening in summer 2025.