Best Golf Courses in Lake County, Illinois

Lake County runs from the Cook County line north to Wisconsin, and its golf splits cleanly in two. On the public side are three courses that opened in 1999, each by a different architect, and all three are ranked on Golfweek's 2026 list of the best courses you can play in Illinois. On the private side are clubs that have staged three major championships between them. This guide, for golfers choosing where to play, covers the courses on the Lake County region page, public first. The North Shore towns of Lake Forest, Lake Bluff and Highland Park are in Lake County too, but their clubs, among them Shoreacres and Conway Farms, are in the North Shore guide.

The public courses

Stonewall Orchard Golf Club, Grayslake

Stonewall Orchard Golf Club is the pick if you want the hardest public round here. Arthur Hills' first Illinois design plays 7,106 yards from the Silver tees at a 75.3 rating, and its 152 slope is the steepest of any course in this guide, the private clubs included. The setting supplies the difficulty: by the club's count, more than 65,000 mature pines and oaks frame the course, the 8th, 13th and 14th carry over wetland, and every par 3 brings water or wetland into play. Greens range from the severe 2nd to a two-tier 17th. The club compares the setting to golf in the Carolinas.

It has hosted serious golf since opening in 1999, including U.S. Open qualifying, four Illinois PGA Section Championships by 2009 and, the club says, Korn Ferry Tour qualifying six times. It is No. 9 on Golfweek's 2026 Best Courses You Can Play list for Illinois and No. 30 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Illinois Best in State list, the only one of the three public courses here on the Golf Digest list. You can walk, and the dress code calls for a collar and soft spikes.

ThunderHawk Golf Club, Beach Park

ThunderHawk Golf Club is the Lake County Forest Preserves' flagship, a Robert Trent Jones Jr. design on 243 acres of old farmland between Chicago and Milwaukee. Finished in the spring of 1999, it completed a trio of Jones courses in the Chicago area, on a plan for more than 1,000 new trees, 57 acres of native prairie and 15 acres of wetland restored on once-drained farm ground. It is now an Audubon Signature Sanctuary.

The card is the oddity, a par 72 with five par 5s, five par 3s and just eight par 4s. Fairways are generous, so the defense moves to big, fast greens with severe contour in places, and to water and marsh late in the round. From the Black tees it is 7,031 yards, rated 74.6 with a 143 slope. Walking is allowed and the course closes for the winter. Golfweek's 2026 Illinois list has it at No. 12.

Shepherd's Crook Golf Course, Zion

Shepherd's Crook Golf Course is the one for golfers who like to think their way around, and the shortest of the three at 6,741 yards, par 71, rated 72.3 with a 133 slope. Keith Foster designed it for the Zion Park District, which still runs it, and it opened in August 1999 as a links-style course on bentgrass from tee to green, likened by the club to Ballybunion and Waterville. Its hole notes describe options more than forced carries: a split fairway at the 7th that you pick by the pin, a 12th tee shot that is blind or clear depending on your line, a punchbowl green at the 6th, and ditches that make the par-5 14th and 18th go-or-lay-up holes.

Instead of a driving range it has a 23,000-square-foot short-game area, and it sells no memberships. Walking is encouraged. Golfweek's 2026 Illinois list ranks it No. 15.

If you have time for one, it comes down to taste. Stonewall Orchard is the stiffest test, ThunderHawk has the most unusual card and the restored prairie, and Shepherd's Crook rewards strategy over power.

The private clubs

The rest of Lake County's top golf is private, for members and their guests only, and none of these clubs can be booked. They are here for their history and design.

Kemper Lakes Golf Club, Kildeer

Kemper Lakes Golf Club started out public. James S. Kemper Jr. opened it in 1979 on Kemper Insurance's grounds, to a Ken Killian and Dick Nugent design, and it hosted the 1989 PGA Championship, won by Payne Stewart; its water-lined closing three holes are best remembered for Mike Reid's late slip that week. It turned private in stages between 2003 and 2007, and after Rick Jacobson cut the bunkering by about 38 percent it hosted the 2018 KPMG Women's PGA, won by Sung Hyun Park. That makes two majors, one men's and one women's.

Before 2018 the PGA of America's Kerry Haigh called it a course without tricks, with fairways around 30 yards across, heavy rough and greens big enough, a couple of them 50 yards long, for the hole location to change the club by two or three. It plays 7,417 yards from the Green tees, and its 76.9 rating is the highest in this guide. No. 21 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Illinois Best in State list.

The Merit Club, Libertyville

The Merit Club is golf only, built on Stonehenge Farm, a former cattle farm Bert and Sandy Getz bought in 1967. Bob Lohmann steered the design, and it opened in 1992 across a valley with more than 100 feet of elevation change, with no cart paths or roads cutting through. Getz wanted a course made for golfers, and the routing shows it: the early holes play away from the morning sun, the par 3s each face a different direction, and most approaches can be run on. Karrie Webb won the 2000 U.S. Women's Open here by five shots, and the club later staged the 2016 UL International Crown. At 7,442 yards from the back it is the longest card in this guide. No. 27 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Illinois list.

The Club at Wynstone, North Barrington

The Club at Wynstone is Jack Nicklaus's, opened in 1989 on W. Clement Stone's former country estate at the heart of a gated community, and in 2011 Nicklaus Design called it the only private Nicklaus Signature course in the state. Expect his hallmarks of elevated tees, deep bunkers guarding large greens and big water, through wetland and mature oaks. Renovations in 2015 and 2024 reworked the turf and bunkers. No. 26 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Illinois list.

Ivanhoe Club, Ivanhoe

Ivanhoe Club is the second Arthur Hills course here and a different exercise from Stonewall Orchard: 27 holes, re-created from 2003 as three nines with their own character. Forest climbs through oak and hickory to the highest point in Lake County, Prairie is the club's links-style nine, and Marsh is framed by wetland, with water on all three. Ivanhoe hosted the Web.com Tour's Rust-Oleum Championship from 2016 to 2018. The pairing on its listing carries a 150 slope, and the club is No. 25 on Golf Digest's 2025-26 Illinois list.

How to book

Stonewall Orchard, ThunderHawk and Shepherd's Crook take public tee times through GolfNow or their own tee sheets, linked from each listing; ThunderHawk opens its sheet 30 days out and Shepherd's Crook 14. Kemper Lakes, The Merit Club, Wynstone and Ivanhoe are members and guests only, and we don't sell tee times. Most Chicagoland courses close or go to limited winter play from about November to March. For more public golf, see Best Public Golf Courses in Chicago; for access and the season, How to Play Golf in Chicago.