With the completion of golf course architect Rick Jacobson's massive renovation of 18 holes at Hilton Chicago/Indian Lakes Resort, the Chicago area can boast of having a world-class golf resort that is just minutes from downtown and O'Hare International Airport.

Jacobson completed the first nine holes of his $6 million, 27 hole renovation project in the summer of 2002.  The second nine-hole phase was completed and opened on July 4th, 2003 with a new name for the 18-hole west course, "Blackhawk Trace"

Rick Jacobson is a nationally renowned architect who has transformed a solid but somewhat dated, 1960's-era style golf course into Chicago's first real upscale, state-of-the-art resort golf experience.  Golf at Hilton Indian Lakes Resort has a proud past, but an even brighter future, thanks to the many improvements that have been made over the last few years.

Jacobson has completely changed the character of the resort's Robert Bruce Harris-designed West Course into an experience that is strategically challenging as well as aesthetically pleasing, in the following ways:

• ·         Replaced the original 1965-vintage, saucer-shaped bunkers with new bunker complexes inspired by the work of Alister McKenzie.  Many of the new bunkers slope dramatically down from the green and feature sand flashed high on the slopes with fingers of turf bleeding down into the bunkers.
• ·         Installed four separate teeing areas on almost every hole in order to accommodate various levels of play.  The separate tee areas replaced the original tee box design, which consisted of one long tee box with room for three sets of tees.
• ·         Renovated the greens in order to recapture or create new pin placements.
• ·         Added fairway bailout areas not included in the original design.
• ·         Upgraded all playing surfaces.  Greens (originally poa), tees, and fairways (originally bluegrass) have been improved to high-quality bent grass turf.
• ·         Incorporated fescue grasses in order to provide contrast and texture to the turf.
• ·         Installed new irrigation and drainage systems to improve overall course conditions.

The goal in extensively renovating the two 18-hole courses at Hilton Chicago/ Indian Lakes Resort has been to raise the courses to the highest standards of conditioning, challenge, and aesthetics demanded by today's golfers.  One of the ways to make golf more fun and more interesting is to create golf holes that are memorable both for the way they look and how they play.

The Par on the Blackhawk Trace course remains at 72.  Yardages are 6,966 from the championship tees, 6,471 from the gold tees, 5,814 from the white tees, and 4,943 from the forward tees.

The massive makeover of the resort's two golf courses is one primary aspect of Hilton Indian Lakes Resort's overall $20-million renovation project spearheaded by the resort's owners.  The project included a major upgrade of the resort's 308 guest rooms, dining facilities, lounges, 50,000-square feet of meeting and banquet rooms, atrium and lobby, internal corridors and the exteriors of its four primary buildings.  It can accommodate groups of up to 800 people for a meeting or convention.

The resort also added Spa Vargas, a fashionable full-service spa, which services golfers for a massage or other treatments after a round of golf. 

"The addition of Spa Vargas to the resort's excellent recreational amenities is an important enhancement to the quality services we are striving for with our $20 million renovation. Our vision is to make Indian Lakes into a complete full-service resort with superior complementing amenities."-- Tom Denklau, Director of Golf