Kemper Lakes Golf Club

Kemper Lakes Golf Club is a private club in Kildeer, Illinois, in Lake County, in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Its 18-hole course was designed by Ken Killian and Dick Nugent for James S. Kemper Jr., the president and chairman of the Kemper Insurance company, and it opened in 1979 as an upscale course open to the public. It became private in the 2000s. In between, it hosted the 1989 PGA Championship, won by Payne Stewart, and it returned to the major championship stage in 2018 with the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

The course is a par 72 laid out around a chain of lakes. On the course-rating table published in 2026 by the Chicago District Golf Association, the regional body that rates the club, it measures 7,417 yards from the back tees, the Green set, with a rating of 76.9 and a slope of 148. Wikipedia and older listings give shorter figures, which reflect the tees in use at the time; the details are set out below.

The club is managed by Troon, the golf management company, which describes the setting as one of expansive lakes, meadowland and old oak trees. In its early years, according to Wikipedia, Golf Digest ranked it among the 100 greatest courses in America. Today the Top 100 Golf Courses website ranks it 34th in Illinois.

A championship course built for an insurance family

The name comes from the founder’s family. Troon’s description of the club says it was born from the vision of Jim Kemper Jr.; the Top 100 Golf Courses site says the brief was a long, demanding course that would test the best players. Killian and Nugent answered it with what Wikipedia calls a big, sprawling 1970s-style layout, in which water defines most of the holes.

The course was quickly used for televised golf. Wikipedia records that it hosted the PGA of America’s Grand Slam of Golf several times in the mid-1980s, and the Chicago Golf Report directory adds six events on the senior tour. In August 1989 came the 71st PGA Championship, played at 7,197 yards and par 72, according to Wikipedia. Mike Reid led with three holes to play. He pushed his drive into the water at the 16th and made bogey, then made a double bogey on the 17th after a poor chip from the rough and three putts. Payne Stewart, who had played the last nine in five under par and birdied four of the last five holes for a 67, won his first major championship by one stroke over Reid, Andy Bean and Curtis Strange.

In 1992 the club hosted the U.S. Women’s Amateur, in which Vicki Goetze beat Annika Sörenstam in the final, according to Wikipedia.

From public course to private club

In 2003 the course was sold. Golf Course Architecture magazine names the buyers as the developer Stephen Jouzapaitis and Crown Golf Properties, and both that magazine and Wikipedia describe a changeover from public to private golf over four years. Wikipedia dates the private club from 2007; the Top 100 Golf Courses site describes it as private since 2003, the year of the sale.

The new owners then set about modernizing the course. In 2011, according to Golf Course Architecture, the club hired the Chicago architect Rick Jacobson to draw up a master plan, with the renovation of the bunkers, their drainage and their sand as the first priority. Troon describes the result as a three-year bunker renovation. A second phase, reported in 2022 by the Daily Herald, added six fairway bunkers, new championship tees and seven forward tees, with the stated aim of stretching the course toward 7,600 yards and attracting professional tour events.

The 2018 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, played from June 28 to July 1 at 6,741 yards and par 72, according to Wikipedia, was won by Park Sung-hyun of South Korea in a playoff over Nasa Hataoka and Ryu So-yeon. The course remains in regular competitive use: the Chicago District Golf Association lists a U.S. Senior Open local qualifier at the club in April 2026.

What it asks of you

Kemper Lakes makes no secret of its penal character. The Top 100 Golf Courses site notes that the first two par 5s, the 4th and the 7th, run beside more than 1,000 yards of water between them, and that the 18th hooks sharply around a lake. Reviewers describe mature trees, bending fairways, punishing rough and slick greens, and advise knowing when to attack and when to play safe, because a wayward shot leaves little chance to scramble.

The finishing stretch that undid Mike Reid is still the heart of the course. A 2018 Golf Channel preview called it the Gauntlet. The 16th is a long par 4 with water along the entire right side and a forced carry on the second shot. The 17th is a par 3 to a long, narrow green, nearly 60 yards deep according to the Top 100 Golf Courses site, with water on the left and bunkers on the right; the Golf Channel preview describes water on three sides. The 18th asks for a drive over water and an approach over water again, as the hole curves left around the lake.

The club publishes no scorecard on its public website. The hole-by-hole figures below come from a scorecard listed on the Golfify app, from the back tees of that card, which total 7,217 yards; they do not include the newest championship tees. The pars match the 36 and 36 split given by every listing we found.

• 1st: par 4, 406 yards.
• 2nd: par 4, 380 yards.
• 3rd: par 3, 173 yards.
• 4th: par 5, 508 yards. The first of the two waterside par 5s on the front nine.
• 5th: par 4, 442 yards.
• 6th: par 3, 180 yards.
• 7th: par 5, 557 yards. The second par 5 along the water.
• 8th: par 4, 421 yards.
• 9th: par 4, 448 yards.
• 10th: par 4, 453 yards.
• 11th: par 5, 534 yards.
• 12th: par 4, 393 yards.
• 13th: par 3, 219 yards. The longest of the four short holes on this card.
• 14th: par 4, 420 yards.
• 15th: par 5, 578 yards. The longest hole on the course.
• 16th: par 4, 469 yards. Water down the whole right side; the hole where Reid lost a stroke in 1989.
• 17th: par 3, 203 yards. The long, narrow green beside the water.
• 18th: par 4, 433 yards. Over the water from the tee and again to the green.

On that card the front nine measures 3,515 yards and the back nine 3,702. The Chicago District Golf Association’s current table rates eight sets of tees for men: Green, 7,417 yards (76.9 and 148); a set named the Stewart tees, 7,193 yards (75.9 and 146); Blue, 6,873 yards (74.4 and 142); Gold, 6,505 yards (72.7 and 138); a Member Combo, 6,311 yards (71.9 and 136); White, 6,106 yards (70.9 and 134); an Event combination, 5,879 yards (69.4 and 131); and Black, 5,327 yards (67.4 and 126). For women it rates the Gold tees at 78.6 and 147, the White at 76.6 and 142 and the Black at 72.2 and 133. The colors used by the app do not match those of the association, so the two tables should not be compared set by set.

With four par 5s and four par 3s, the par 72 is a classic balance. What changes the round is less the length than the number of shots that must carry or skirt water. For a golfer who keeps the ball in play the course is long rather than tricky; for one who misses right on the closing holes, the lesson of 1989 is easy to understand.

What golfers are saying

As a private club, Kemper Lakes has fewer public reviews than it did in its public years, but app users, rating websites and golf directories still describe it. The points below summarize what recurs in that material. They are other people’s opinions, not ours; nobody from Panxis has played the course, and we name and quote no one.

What comes up in its favor

• Course conditions are the most frequent praise, especially the greens, described as pure, fast and receptive to iron shots, even after heavy rain.
• Reviewers enjoy the challenge and the strategic choices, and some rank it among the best courses they have played.
• The lakes and mature trees make for a scenic round, and the closing three holes are seen as a memorable finish with a real place in golf history.
• App users report a fast pace of play.

What comes up against

• The difficulty cuts both ways: app users rate the course very hard, and reviewers warn that trouble awaits any wayward shot, with little room to recover. Higher handicappers may find it punishing.
• Rating websites are less enthusiastic than the club’s history might suggest: one ranks it 34th in Illinois, a modest place for a former major championship venue, and Wikipedia sums up the design as a big, sprawling 1970s-style layout.
• Access is the underlying limit: the course that was once public is now reserved for members and their guests.

Who can play

Kemper Lakes is a private club, as the Chicago District Golf Association, Troon and Wikipedia all state. The club’s website is aimed at members and prospective members and publishes no visitor policy, no public tee times and no green fees. Golfers outside the membership can play as guests of a member, or in competitions held at the club, such as qualifiers. The club does not publish its season, its cart rules or its practice arrangements on public pages, beyond the driving range listed by golf directories.

Getting there

The club’s address is 24000 North Old McHenry Road, Kildeer, IL 60047, telephone 847-320-3450. Kildeer is a small village in Lake County, in the northwest suburbs. In a straight line, the course is about 17 miles north of O’Hare International Airport and a little over 30 miles northwest of the Loop; Golf Course Architecture puts it 40 miles north of downtown Chicago, a figure closer to the distance by road. Older championship records, including those of the 1989 PGA Championship and the 2018 Women’s PGA Championship, place the club in Long Grove, the neighboring village, and some directories use a Lake Zurich address.

Green fees

The club publishes no green fees, and none are given here. The course is open only to members and their guests.

How this page was made

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap for the location; the Chicago District Golf Association’s club page for the private status, the founding year, the architects, the current tees, ratings and slopes and the 2026 qualifier; Wikipedia’s articles on the club, the 1989 PGA Championship and the 2018 Women’s PGA Championship for the history, the founder, the early Golf Digest ranking, the change of status and the tournaments; Troon’s page on the club for the management and the bunker renovation; Golf Course Architecture magazine for the 2003 sale and the 2011 master plan; a 2022 Daily Herald report, as summarized in search listings, for the second phase of work; the Top 100 Golf Courses site for its state ranking and the description of the water holes; a 2018 Golf Channel preview for the closing holes; the Golfify app for the hole-by-hole card; the 18Birdies app, golf directories and rating websites for the reviews; Wikidata for the identifiers.

Where sources disagree, we say so. The length varies with the tees in use at the time: 7,197 yards for the 1989 PGA Championship, 6,741 yards for the 2018 Women’s PGA Championship, 7,217 yards on the app card and several directories, 7,290 yards on the 18Birdies app, 7,345 yards on Wikipedia with a rating of 75.4 and a slope of 146, and 7,417 yards on the current association table, with 76.9 and 148. Tee colors are not used consistently from one listing to another. The change to private status is dated 2007 by Wikipedia, at the end of a four-year transition, and 2003 by the Top 100 Golf Courses site. The club is placed in Kildeer by the association and Troon, in Long Grove by the championship records and in Lake Zurich by one directory; its ZIP code is 60047 for the association and Troon, and 60049 for one directory. The 17th green is described as having water on the left by one source and on three sides by another. The details of the work after 2019 come from a news report that we could not read in full, and should be checked against the club.

The opinion section summarizes reviews on golf apps, rating websites and golf directories, read in October 2026. We report recurring themes rather than individual voices, and we reproduce no quotations from reviewers. Nobody from Panxis has played or visited this course, and this page is no substitute for a round.

The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. This page contains no commercial link and earns us no commission. If you know the course and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our United States directory:

• Rolling Green Country Club — 9 mi
• Onwentsia Club — 10 mi
• Sunset Ridge Country Club — 14 mi
• Wing Park Golf Course — 17 mi