Canal Shoes Rebranded as The Evans at Canal Shores

by | Jun 18, 2024 | News

The Evanston (Ill.) Wilmette Golf Course Association and KemperSports have re-branded Canal Shores to The Evans at Canal Shores. The new name and logo spearhead the re-branding efforts as the 100-year-old course embarks on a new era of delivering exceptional and memorable experiences for Chicagoland golfers.

Under the leadership of KemperSports and in collaboration with the Canal Shores Board, this non-profit course has been revitalized through a collective effort of golf industry leaders. This includes the Western Golf Association/Evans Scholars Foundation, First Tee – Greater Chicago, Wadsworth Golf Charities, the Chicago District Golf Association, Quitno Golf Designs, and private contributors. The reimagined golf course, set to reopen in 2025, will feature a fully upgraded par-60, 18-hole golf course, a youth development training center, and the Western Golf Association Caddie Academy.

“Canal Shores has served a special place in the community for more than 100 years,” said Board President Matt Rooney. “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 golf course renovation, which started in 2022 and is led by architect Todd Quitno, is the modernization and reimagination of the urban golf course. Located alongside the North Shore Canal, which feeds into the Chicago River, The Evans at Canal Shores will serve as a beacon for youth golf development and a youth caddie training facility through partnerships with the First Tee – Greater Chicago and the Western Golf Association/Evans Scholars Foundation.

“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.”

The new name represents a deep connection to the namesake of the Evans Scholars Foundation, Chick Evans, who attended high school in Evanston and became one of the greatest amateur golfers of all time. Instead of turning professional, Evans worked with the Western Golf Association to use the earnings from his golf career to establish the Evans Scholars Foundation in 1930. The Foundation has awarded full tuition and college scholarships to more than 13,000 youth caddies, including the 1,130 Evans Scholars enrolled in 24 leading universities nationwide this year. The Evans at Canal Shores is located less than a mile from the first Evans Scholarship House, established in 1940 on the campus of Northwestern University.

The golf course logo is a graphical representation of an owl perched on top of a golf club. It represents the course’s commitment to being a good steward to all inhabitants in the community and its mission of educating the community’s youth through golf.

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<a href="https://golfonemedia.com/author/steve_pike/" target="_self">Steve Pike</a>

Steve Pike

Steve “Spike” Pike is a lifelong journalist whose career covers Major League Baseball, the NFL, and college basketball. For the past 26 years, Spike has been one of the more respected voices in the golf and travel industries, working for such publications as Golfweek, Golf World, and Golf Digest for The New York Times Magazine Group. In 1998, Spike helped launch the PGA.com website for the PGA of America. As a freelance travel and golf writer, Spike’s travels have taken him around the world. He has played golf from Pebble Beach to St. Andrews, walked the Great Wall of China, climbed an active volcano in the Canary Islands, been on safari in South Africa, and dived with sharks off Guadalupe, Baja California.