Onwentsia Club
Address: 300 North Green Bay Road, Lake Forest, IL 60045
Head Golf Professional: Nikos Papadakes, PGA
Golf Course Superintendent: Scott Vincent
Website: Onwentsia Club
The Women's Western Amateur Championship will return to its founding site for a fifth time in 2024. The renowned Onwentsia Club hosted the first two editions of the championship in 1901 and 1902 before hosting again in 1924 and 1944.
Onwentsia’s beginnings trace back to 1893 when the club, known then as Lake Forest Golf Club, consisted of a diminutive seven-hole course in the yard of Sen. Charles B. Farwell. Players navigated flowerbeds and used sunken tomato cans for holes.
In 1895, the club moved to its current location on Green Bay Road and was given its present name – Onwentsia. The club hired Charles Blair Macdonald, who founded Chicago Golf Club, to design the first nine holes. The second nine were designed in 1898 by famed golf course architects Herbert J. Tweedie, James Foulis and Robert Foulis. The course was renovated by Tom Doak in 1996.
In addition to the Women’s Western Amateur, Onwentsia has hosted a collection of golf’s most prominent championships:
- 2021 Western Junior – Caleb Surratt
- 1965 Women's Western Junior – Carol Sorensen
- 1949 Women's Western Junior – Pat Leith
- 1944 Women's Western Amateur – Dorothy Germain
- 1924 Women's Western Amateur – Edith Cummings
- 1906 U.S. Open – Alex Smith
- 1902 Women's Western Amateur – Bessie Anthony
- 1901 Women's Western Amateur – Bessie Anthony
- 1899 U.S. Amateur – H.M. Harriman