Illinois golf tournaments starting to heat up
The biggest Illinois golf tournaments will be coming fast and furious with the 95th Illinois State Amateur leading the way.
It reaches a climax on Thursday with the low 35 players and ties after 18-hole rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday going 36 more holes to decide the champion at Crestwicke Country Club in Bloomington.
Jordan Less covered the 72 holes in 16-under par at Stonebridge in Aurora to win last year but did not defend his title. The State Am started with eight qualifying sessions around the state. They whittled the field from 469 entrants to 138 for the 72-hole wrap up.
While the tournament is generally held in the Chicago area, Crestwicke has had its share of time in the hosting spotlight. The Bloomington course, designed by Larry Packard, hosted the tournament in 1979, 1980 and 2005 and hosted U.S. Amateur qualifiers in 2011 and 2012 as well as U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifiers in 2015, 2019, 2022 and 2025.
The State Am champion gets the Louis Emerson Trophy plus a berth in the U.S. Amateur at Merion, Pa. from Aug. 10-16.
The run of big events actually started with the 126th Women’s Western Amateur last week at River Forest in Elmhurst. It came down to a duel between two Western Athletic Conference stars, with Kylee Choi — a 19-year-old who just completed her freshman year at Pepperdine — beating Gonzaga graduate Grace Lee 2 & 1.
The next two big events both begin on Monday. Here’s a look at what may emerge as the biggest week of the 2026 Chicago tournament season:
Evans Scholars Invitational: The Western Golf Association stages this one at The Glen Club in Glenview with tournament rounds from July 23-26. It’s part of the Korn Ferry Tour, which provides a pathway to the PGA Tour.
This event started in 2019 with a most notable winner. Scottie Scheffler is now the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer. Two other winners at The Glen — Cameron Young (2021) and Harry Hall (2022), also went on to win on the PGA Tour and Xander Schauffele and Justin Thomas, both very successful tour players, are also among the Evans Scholars Invitational alumni.
This year’s tournament offers $1 million in prize money. Last year’s champion, Johnny Keefer, earned $180,000.
Illinois Women’s Open: The IWO also tees off on Monday at Mistwood in Romeoville, but it doesn’t have as long a run as the week-long Evans Scholars. It’s a two-day, 36-hole affair created by the late Phil Kosin in 1995.
Over the years amateurs have fared well against the competing professionals in the IWO. One amateur, Kerry Postillion, won three of the first five titles and amateurs have won twice in the last three years — Grace Curran in 2023 and Kate Brody last year.
Western Amateur: The most physically demanding of all the tournaments will be played at Chicago’s Beverly Country Club from July 27 to August 1.
The Western Golf Association invites 156 starters from around the world, thereby assuring the tournament’s place as one of the toughest fields in amateur golf. The Western Am is the third oldest of those events. The British Amateur was first played in 1885 and the U.S. Am in 1895.
The Western was first played in 1899. Chick Evans, Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods head a stunning list of past champions. Others who have played in it include Scheffler, Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth and Collin Morakawa.
Fourteen of the Western Am champions have combined to win 52 major titles, with Nicklaus and Woods accounting for 32. The demanding competitive format is what sets the Western Am apart from all other big tournaments. It begins with 72 holes of stroke play competition, then the low 16 advance.