Conway Farms Golf Club

Overview: Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest is a Tom Fazio course designed around Scottish links traditions on 209 acres of former farmland. The private layout plays to par 71 and reaches 7,233 yards in the directory record, using open corridors, sod-walled bunkers, ponds and a creek that becomes increasingly important as the round progresses. The land gives the course a spacious first impression, but the best lines depend on shaping the ball into carefully angled greens. Conway Farms is modern in date but deliberately rooted in older ideas about ground movement and strategic width.

History: Three Lake Forest families began acquiring the Conway Farms property in 1956, preserving a long-term dream of creating a first-rank golf club. Tom Fazio transformed the former cornfields into the present course, which opened for play on August 3, 1991. Imported Scottish sand was used at the opening ceremony as a symbolic link to golf's birthplace. The club later became a regular host for major amateur events and the BMW Championship.

Did You Know? Conway Farms was almost named Twin Silos, after the farm structures that once stood on the property. The silos disappeared as the surrounding area developed, but the course still carries the agricultural shape of the original land.