Quail Meadows Golf Course

This article was written by Frank Borror of the East Peoria Historical Society in 2016. Used with permission.

Quail Meadows Golf Course began as the brainchild of Warren K. Keil who owned the land on which it now sits. The Keil family had resided in the area since Warren's great-great-grandfather Georg Balthasar Keil patented the ground on which part of the course rests.

Georg Balthasar obtained title on Feb. 19, 1835, claiming a homestead right of earlier settlement. In 1971, a consortium including Warren Keil, Chuck Hurst and Bob West, owner of Winkler's Meats opened Highview Hills Country Club. The country club containing 140 acres, lying in both Washington and Fondulac Townships, offered an 18-hole golf course, driving range, putting green, pro shop, heated swimming pool, dining room and cocktail lounge, locker rooms, sauna, whirlpool and exercise equipment. The country club was operated as a private club for use by its members.

The golf course was designed by Walter G. Brakeman, a local landscape architect and the construction was supervised by Keil himself with the aid of Vernon "Boots" Aberle. The first nine holes were opened in 1971with the assistance of Purdue University and the second nine the following year.

The golf greens were constructed as Purr-Wick greens, a relatively new concept in golf green construction. The name "Purr-Wick" is derived from Plastic Under Reservoir Root zone with Wick action and was developed at Purdue University by agronomy Professor William H. Daniel in 1966. It used an underground system of vacuums, moisture sensors and drain pipes to either drain excess water from the green or to backflow and send water to the grass roots. Under the turf was a two-ply plastic sheet that sealed off the green from the surrounding earth. The growing medium above the liner was largely sand which aided in drainage.

Clayton Keil, Warren's son, remembers hauling sand from Spring Bay to build the greens and laying waterlines with an old Willys jeep with a trencher mounted on the back. He recalls his mother, Georgia, specializing in offering red snapper, au gratin potatoes and prime rib in the restaurant that sported a western theme with barn-siding walls, wagon-wheel chandeliers and punctuated with black and white cowhide.

The timing for a new country club was not good and the facility closed in 1977, a victim of sky-high interest rates. It was reopened on April 19, 1982, as Quail Meadows Country Club, under the ownership of Doctors Sanit Shay, Tsuong Chen and Thanad Shay. Denny Schielein managed the clubhouse with Larry Saylors as golf professional and new owners, who also owned a country club in Springfield, brought in Mark Scherer as greens keeper. Purchase, reconstruction of the course and improvements to the clubhouse took nine months and reportedly cost an investment of one million dollars. The western motif was eliminated and a portico added to the clubhouse by Scheilein Construction Company.

Mark Scherer left the course in January of 1990 to work for Springfield Park District and Darryl Smith took the reins until Fondulac Park District leased the property on Dec. 31, 1991.

Darryl, present course maintenance superintendent, has a long history with the property. He recalls working for Warren Keil's father, Herb, on his dairy farm as early as the fifth grade. He then helped build the course and maintain it until it went defunct. He returned to the course in 1985 and has been there ever since.

Tom Wolfe, present Director of Golf, was employed as course superintendent by the Park District in the spring of 1992. The district purchased the property a year later and that time closed the swimming pool. The pool area was turned into an indoor driving range with the installation of two driving range simulators in 2009. The course has a present play of some 30,000 rounds of golf per year and is home course for East Peoria Community High School's golf team.