Wheaton's Golf Courses Are Spending This Fall Building for Winter

This October, Wheaton golfers have fewer places to hit balls than at any other point this year. Arrowhead Golf Club's driving range and practice chipping green closed on September 8 and stay closed for the rest of 2026. At Cantigny Golf, the Woodside nine is still a construction site while Hillside and the newly reopened Lakeside carry all the play. Look at where the money is going, though, and both properties are mostly building for the months when Wheaton golf usually shuts down. They're adding heated bays, fire pits, a halfway house, and room to eat and gather. This fall is the cost of that.

What's actually open this October

Here's what you'll find if you show up with clubs this month.

At Arrowhead, the casualty is practice. All three nines are still playable, but warming up before a round or hitting a bucket after work isn't possible on site until next year. At Cantigny, the casualty is variety. Since Cantigny says it will keep 18 holes open during construction, golfers have one 18-hole combination to play until Woodside returns.

Arrowhead is turning a range into a year-round venue

The closed range is being rebuilt on the same footprint. The Wheaton Park District's project page describes 24 covered hitting bays with Toptracer technology, target greens, lessons, indoor restrooms, and food and beverage service. Arrowhead's own range page adds the detail that changes the calendar. Each bay will be heated with its own thermostat, and the range is planned to stay open year-round from 6 a.m. to sunset on most days. Up to six people can share a bay.

Toptracer cameras track every shot and report distance, ball speed, launch angle and accuracy. The system also runs games and lets golfers play virtual rounds on well-known courses. Combine that with heated bays and a social gathering area with food and drinks, and you have a range that works in January for a group that doesn't care about golf swings.

The posted bucket prices are $5 small, $10 medium, $20 large and $30 jumbo. No separate Toptracer charge is listed. Pricing for corporate events and party rentals, along with the food and beverage menu, is due on or about November 1, 2026.

The budget shows how seriously the park district took the project. The packet the board reviewed on August 19, 2026 lists $4,215,616 in anticipated expenses. That total breaks down as follows:

• EP Doyle's general contract: $2,619,935 for the base bid plus two alternates, approved August 19 along with a 10 percent contingency
• The prefabricated "Cover the Tees" structure: $693,036, approved March 18, 2026
• Owner-furnished items: $470,600
• FGM Architects: $321,923, plus $23,500 for the schematic design approved in July 2025
• Geocon materials testing: $33,717
• Toptracer: a five-year lease approved June 17, 2026, at about $52,905.60 a year, rising 3 percent annually

The packet budgets $2 million from fiscal 2026 and a proposed $3 million from fiscal 2027. The attached business plan projects $929,625 in driving range revenue. The roof over the tees costs more than a quarter of the general contract, and that roof is what makes winter use possible.

The timing is fitting. Arrowhead is marking its 100th anniversary in 2026 and has promised anniversary merchandise, dining specials and special events, with details still to come. The club is spending part of its centennial year getting ready for its first winter season.

Cantigny is building the same kind of space on a longer schedule

Cantigny's renovation began in June 2024 with the Hillside nine, the halfway house and the putting lawn. Hillside reopened in June 2025 and work moved to Lakeside. Lakeside was set to reopen in June 2026, when the Woodside phase began. Cantigny now says the renovated Lakeside nine and the Cantigny Golf Clubhouse have both reopened. The clubhouse has expanded event space and larger outdoor dining areas. Todd Quitno of Quitno Golf Designs leads the course work, according to the Daily Herald.

The latest progress report on Cantigny's renovation page, the September 2026 update, starts with the spaces built for lingering rather than with the holes. The new patio is finished, along with an Airstream halfway house and fire pits around the Practice Putting Lawn. Fire pits around a putting green are made for cool evenings.

On Woodside itself, the same update reports:

1. Tree work and tee box reshaping have started around Woodside 1.
2. Several greens are seeded, new sod is going in around greens and bunkers, and bunker shaping is close to done.
3. The new green shared by Hillside 6 and Woodside 8 is finished and growing in well, with play on it expected this spring.
4. The mainline irrigation is complete, so the project can move on to finishing and grow-in.

That shared green explains a detail on Cantigny's rates page. Hillside 6 is still played to a temporary green, and the new one is targeted for spring 2027. If the sixth hole on Hillside looks unfinished, that's because it is.

The construction reached the October calendar too

Cantigny's work changes more than golf this month. The Cantigny 5K Run/Walk on Saturday, October 17 benefits the Midwest Shelter for Homeless Veterans in Wheaton, and most of its route runs through Cantigny Golf. The course has been changed for the construction, mapped as close to 3.1 miles as possible, and won't be certified this year or next. If your watch disagrees with the mile markers, the organizers have already said that may happen.

Registration through the Cantigny 5K page costs $30 through October 15. After that it's $45, and you have to sign up in person at Cantigny on October 16 or 17. Early packet pickup is Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Visitors Center. The race starts at 9 a.m. Saturday, and the American Legion pancake breakfast runs from 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Registered runners who pick up their packets don't pay for parking.

For young golfers, Youth Links is open on October weekends from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. through October 26.

The months between now and the new range

Until February, one indoor option sits just outside Wheaton. X-Golf Naperville is running an eight-week fall simulator league that starts the week of October 18 and ends the week of December 13, skipping Thanksgiving week. Simulator time is posted at $55 an hour Monday through Thursday and $65 an hour Friday through Sunday. Arrowhead's bucket prices make a useful comparison once the heated bays open.

Here's the order things happen in:

• On or about November 1, 2026: Arrowhead posts party rental pricing and the food and beverage menu for the new range.
• November 14, 2026: The Wheaton Park District's free Smashing Pumpkins & Gourds event takes over the Rice Pool parking lot at 1777 S. Blanchard St., with food trucks, crafts and children's activities.
• November 20, 2026: Cantigny's Christmas Light Show begins, with a new Fireside S'mores for Two add-on at $35. The outdoor ice rink and Cocoa Cabanas open the same day. Rink admission is $7 and skate rental is $3.
• February 2027: The new Arrowhead range is expected to open with heated bays.
• Spring 2027: Hillside 6 moves to its new green at Cantigny.
• June 2027: Cantigny's Woodside nine reopens.

If the Arrowhead range opens on schedule, Wheaton golfers will be hitting balls in heated bays roughly four months before Cantigny has all 27 holes back.

The renovations at Arrowhead and Cantigny follow the same idea Nancy Winchester applies to homes. Spend where people will gather and use the space all year, and plan for a little disruption along the way. If you're weighing which updates will matter most in your own home before a sale next spring, start with an instant home valuation and staging plan, and we'll go through the rooms that will earn their keep.