LFLB History Museum

Lake Forest Golf Club: An All-Absorbing Sport Grows Amongst Sheep and Trains

The Lake Forest Golf Club converted one of Leander McCormick’s outbuildings, alternately a “sheep shed” or “chicken coop” depending on the account, for use as its single-chamber locker room.

Within a mere three years of Charles Blair Macdonald’s first swing over the bluffs of Fairlawn, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that “Golf is now the all-absorbing topic at Lake Forest.” Local golfers outgrew the little course on Senator Farwell’s lawn and by 1895, set their sights on something bigger.

Lake Forest Club golfers and caddies, pictured beside the clubhouse porch. By mid-1895 over 150 players had enrolled as members, including 60 ladies following the lead of Rose Farwell Chatfield-Taylor.

Seeing the success of the new Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, the North Shore golfers organized themselves into the Lake Forest Golf Club, scouring the area for a better location. The former Leander McCormick farm served the purpose, and Macdonald helped lay out a nine-hole course. Scotch golf professional Robert Foulis was engaged as teacher and club maker.

This course, while longer than the first, also had its shortcomings. It featured no bunkers, although the treacherous water hole in front of the first tee proved hazardous. Other interference could be met at the hands of either the McCormick sheep or noise from the bordering railroad tracks.

The course proved so popular that by the end of the 1895 season, members formally organized the Onwentsia Club and searched for space to expand to 18 holes.

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