Montreal winters are not kind to golf handicappers.Just ask Bertrand Quentin. By the time October rolls around, he’s usually worked his way into single-digit territory. Then winter hits, the courses close and six months later they start again.
“It’s a cycle,” Quentin said GOLF by email. “I’ll work my way to a single-digit handicap in October, but then I’ll wake up with a 12 handicap when the season finally starts in May. That six-month layoff is a real momentum killer.”
For golfers in cold climates, the options are familiar: install a simulator, book a winter golf trip or just wait. Quentin chose a more radical path.
His solution is called Megalodome Golf – a huge indoor golf complex that is unlike anything that currently exists. Plans call for it to open outside Chicago in late 2027.
The concept went viral this week after images and details began circulating on social media. The renderings looked futuristic: a sprawling Arizona-style golf environment, complete with palm trees, cacti, water features and sandy waste areas – all under a series of interconnecting domes. The location is in Oswego, about an hour west of downtown Chicago, although Quentin said he can’t reveal the exact location yet.
Despite the name, Megalodome has nothing to do with prehistoric sharks. It’s about scale.
Indoor golf is of course not new. Facilities such as the SoFi Center in Florida, home of the TGL competition backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, have advanced the concept through simulator-based competition. But Quentin insists that Megalodome is fundamentally different.
“Simply put, there is nothing else like it in the world,” he said.
The plan includes four enormous domes. Three will house a nine-hole executive course – six par-3s and three par-4s, playing to a par of 30 – designed by Montreal-based Huxham Golf Design. The course is built on artificial grass that is designed to bounce, roll and react like real grass. A fourth dome will be dedicated to a full practice facility.
The scale is hard to miss. The practice area will include a short game complex and 50 hitting boxes, with a range of more than 275 meters. A clubhouse will be located between the course and the practice facility, with sight lines that Quentin said will extend approximately 1,000 feet in each direction.
“The scale is really unprecedented,” Quentin said.
Quentin, a 65-year-old forest engineer, traces the idea back to seven years ago, when a friend first planted the seed. What followed, he said, was an “intense journey” from concept to concrete planning.
Ambitious ideas require ambitious funding. Quentin said he and his partner, Alain Desrochers, are preparing to launch a $50 million investment fund and are already in advanced discussions with major financial groups. He believes the project is on track to meet its 2027 opening target.
Chicago was a conscious choice. It’s a huge golf market with a long offseason – exactly the problem Megalodome is designed to solve. And if the first location is successful, Quentin sees no reason why it couldn’t expand to other cold-weather cities.
But for now, the focus remains on bringing a slice of desert golf to the Midwest – inspired by a style of golf that Quentin is best known for by reputation.
“I’d like to play there,” he said of Arizona, “but it’s very expensive, I hear.”
#Megalodome #ambitious #plan #build #largescale #indoor #golf #Chicago