Local artist's mural captures '"golf in Chicago" at Olympia Fields Country Club
OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. (CBS) – The top 50 professional golfers were dueling it out at the Olympia Fields Country Club this week for the BMW Championship.
The golfers were artists on the course, but anyone who's been out to Olympia Fields saw some cool artwork on the way in. As CBS 2's Matt Zahn reported, there was an interesting story of how it came together.
The Western Golf Association held a contest for area high schoolers to submit works of art capturing the essence of "golf in Chicago." They selected three winners: Miley McCullum of Lyons Township High School, Kayle Davenport of Mother McCauley, and Gavan Little from Schaumburg High School.
After the winners were selected, that's when local artist Brett Whitacre came in.
"They told me the idea," Whitacre said. "'We're gonna have some high school students create some art for the tournament and we want you to take that and decipher that and turn it into your own, but take inspiration from what they created.'"
Zahn: "So what is it like when you're trying to sort of collaborate three other people's works?"
Whitacre: "I wanted to take some iconic imagery. So I was looking for anything like that, like the stadium, the players, past champions, the trophies. When I see what they created, yeah I'll take that and I just have to compose it. Right? So it has a nice flow and nice balance."
One other factor in the project was that Whitacre is actually colorblind. So how does he deal with that?
"I know what colors are correct," he said. "If there's any question, I'll ask my wife or there are actually some applications where I can press my finger on a photo and it'll tell me what color that is or which paint brand to use."
Whitacre added that he "loves the colors … and the balance of it all."
"Everybody has to walk past this, so it's a great location," he said.
It was so cool that CBS 2 saw people taking video of the mural while talking to Whitacre.