FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The five-year old Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort figured to be a mystery to the players in the LPGA Legends Championship. The layout, loaded with elevation changes and spectacular views, had never hosted a premier women’s event before welcoming the biggest in the history of the LPGA’s senior circuit.

Dina Ammaccapane, a Legends Tour rookie, didn’t find the layout all that difficult in Friday’s first round, however. She made birdies on the last four holes en route to posting a 6-under-par 66 that will go down as the competitive course record.

Ammaccapane had played in just two previous Legends tourneys before taking charge early in the 13-year old circuit’s milestone event. The 54-hole tourney drew the Legends’ biggest field ever (58 players) and offered the biggest purse ($500,000). Sunday’s champion will earn $75,000.

“I’m the baby of this bunch, so I’m just getting my feet wet,’’ said Ammaccapane, who spent 21 seasons on the LPGA Tour after helping San Jose State to the 1989 NCAA Championship.

Ammaccapane finished Round 1 with a two-stroke lead over Laurie Rinker and Laura Davies. Only Davies threatened Ammaccapane’s domination of the first round. Davies actually held the lead briefly, after getting to 7-under through 15 holes.

Davies dropped back, however, with a double bogey at No. 16, a par-3, and then lipped out a par putt on the par-5 finishing hole.

Ammaccapane, whose older sister Danielle was also in the field, made birdies from five, three and 12 feet on Nos. 15-17 and then got up and down for birdie on the par-5 finishing hole thanks to a great chip to within a foot.

“This course favors my game. I’m a cutter, as opposed to the girls who draw the ball,’’ said Ammaccapane, who did no research on the Dye course prior to playing her two practice rounds this week. “I took notes, and I took a lot of trouble out of play.’’

Rinker could have gathered some advance knowledge. Her brother Larry, a former PGA Tour player, competed on the Dye Course in the 2010 Professional Players National Championship. Rinker, though, didn’t seek his advice. Instead, she hired Caleb Powers – a regular caddie at French Lick.

“He knows the course like the back of his hand,’’ said Rinker. “I heard this course was tricky, so I wanted local knowledge. You’ve got to know where you’re going.’’

Rinker pretty much knew until facing a long eagle putt on the 18th green that could have tied her with Ammaccapane for the lead. Rinker not only missed that one, but also failed to connect on her birdie try. She had no complaints with her 68, however.

“I played very well. I drove the ball well and hit my irons well,’’ she said. “I kept it in good spots. This course is beautiful, kind of target golf, and — not playing as competitively as much as I used to do – you’ve got to put a lot of mental effort into it.’’

Saturday’s second round will also include the start the of the 36-hole Super Seniors competition. It’ll be between four players – Susie Berning, Jane Blalock, Donna Caponi and Sandra Palmer.

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The stage is set for what amounts to more than just a golf tournament. The Legends Championship presented by Humana is a week-long celebration of women’s golf at French Lick Resort.

The Legends is the official senior tour of the Ladies PGA. It has been in existence since 2000, but the 54-hole tournament that tees off on Friday, is the circuit’s biggest event yet. It offers a record purse of $500,000 with Sunday’s champion receiving $75,000.

Veteran competitor Jane Blalock, chief executive officer of the circuit, calls it “the most significant event in the history of the Legends Tour.’’

French Lick, with a rich history in women’s golf, unveiled its new Legends Hall of Fame on Thursday night at the West Baden Springs Hotel prior Friday’s first tee shot by a field of about 60 LPGA stars of the past on the resort’s Pete Dye Course.

Kathy Whitworth, winner of 88 LPGA tournaments and six major championships, and Jan Stephenson, the leading career money-winner on the Legends circuit, will be the first inductees to the new Hall and Louise Suggs, Betsy Rawls and Mickey Wright were also honored on Thursday.

Suggs won the 1958 French Lick Women’s Open, the first of three LPGA events staged on the resort’s Donald Ross Course. That layout also hosted the LPGA Championships of 1959 and 1960, with Rawls and Wright the respective champions. Whitworth was in the field for those two majors.

“With our history of women’s golf – past, present and future – and the addition of the Legends Championship, it was a natural fit to create a Hall of Fame here for these legendary golfers,’’ said Dave Harner, French Lick’s director of golf. “Stephenson and Whitworth have done so much for women’s golf and are perfect choices for our first year of honoring these legendary golfers.’’

The Ross Course, which also hosted the 1924 PGA Championship won by Walter Hagen, underwent a renovation in 2008, but it won’t be the site of the Legends tourney. The well-received Dye Course, the last course designed by the legendary Indiana-based architect, will be the site of the competition that includes nine members of the LPGA Hall of Fame and six former Solheim Cup captains. The Dye course has previously hosted the Professional Players National Championship and the Big Ten men’s and women’s championships.

Among the competitors in the Legends Championship are Nancy Lopez, Joanne Carner, Betsy King, Beth Daniel, Pat Bradley, Amy Alcott, Donna Caponi and Hollis Stacy. All won at least 18 LPGA tournaments and were major tournament winners.

Laura Davies, Liselotte Neumann, Blalock and Rosie Jones are also among the leading competitors. Blalock and Caponi will join Hall of Famers Sandra Haynie and Sandra Palmer in a 36-hole Super Legends event on Saturday and Sunday.

This has been a tough season for Luke Donald. The world’s No. 1 player for 55 weeks in 2011 and 2012 missed the cut in both the British Open and PGA Championship. Some home cooking, though, got him out of his funk.

The former Northwestern golfer came into the BMW Championship on his home course and, presto!, his golf game is back in business.

Donald entered the tournament at No. 54 in the FedEx Cup Playoff rankings, leaving him with seemingly little hope of getting into the top 30 for next week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta. Missing that one would be painful, since another $8 million is on the line, and every qualifier will pick up at least $300,000 for just playing 72 more holes.

Oh, yes, there’s the matter of the $10 million bonus that goes to the FedEx Cup winner after the Tour Championship concludes the four-event series.

Donald has little hope of claiming the big prize, but at least he has a chance. His 67-66 finish at Conway Farms boosted him into a four-way tie for fourth place in the BMW Championship and elevated him from 54th to 29th in the FedEx Cup rankings.

“I thought I had to finish top five at the very worst for the week, and I was hoping that being a member here would help me,’’ said Donald. “I think it did a bit.’’

Despite his sub-par season Donald was in the spotlight at Conway, where he’s been a member been a member for 15 years. He started playing at the Lake Forest course when he was still a student at Northwestern and he campaigned with the Western Golf Assn. and PGA Tour to get the tournament moved from Cog Hill, the tourney’s home in Lemont for 20 years.

Donald believes his campaigning was worth it, and expects the tourney to return to Conway in 2015.

“It’s done well on all fronts – on fan attendance, on selling (corporate hospitality) tents and the players have been very positive about it,’’ said Donald. “It looks great on TV, and it’s been a success from my standpoint.’’

Donald was a success on the course thanks to birdies on the last two holes. He knew they would probably be needed to qualify him for Atlanta.

“There were nerves the last couple holes, probably from 15 onwards,’’ he said. “I knew I had gotten myself into position where we had a chance. Fortunately I was able to hit some good shoots when I needed it hit them.’’

Donald, 35, felt the need to do a painful thing as his game was seemingly slipping away. He recently replaced Pat Goss as his swing coach, turning to Chuck Cook instead. Goss was the head coach at NU when Donald played there and their working relationship continued into the professional ranks.

Goss remains Donald’s short-game coach, and his college loyalty is still intact. He left immediately after Monday’s round to attend Wildcat Golf Day at Evanston Golf Club. From there it’ll be on to East Lake in Atlanta where he hopes his sudden golf turn-around will continue. It’s still mathematically possible he could win the FedEx Cup.

“It’s unlikely, but it’s certainly been done before when you look at what Bill Haas did a couple years ago, winning – I think – from the 27th position,’’ said Donald. “I’ve notoriously played pretty well at East Lake. I’ve had chances to win there.’’

Donald was one of only two players to move into the top 30 at the BMW Championship. Nick Watney, who rallied with a 64 on Monday to finish second, also climbed into the top 30 at No. 12. Harris English and Lee Westwood, in the top 30 before the BMW Championship, finished outside of it.

Three others will Illinois connections advanced to East Lake. University of Illinois alum Steve Stricker, who was in the tie for fourth at Conway Farms, is No. 6 for the Playoffs. The five ahead of him – Tiger Woods, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, Zach Johnson and Matt Kuchar – will win the $10 million if they win in Atlanta. If none do Stricker could claim the biggest money prize in golf.

Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman goes in at No. 19 after finishing in a tie for 33rd on Monday. Another Illinois alum, D.A. Points, slipped to No. 28 after tying for 57th in the BMW Championship.

Slugger White, the PGA Tour’s vice president for rules and operations, knew rain was going to fall at the BMW Championship on Sunday. He just didn’t know how much.

The PGA Tour deals with weather issues all year long, and usually has the answer to minimizing the problems related to them. That wasn’t the case in the circuit’s first visit to Conway Farms in Lake Forest.

After Saturday’s third round White’s staff checked the weather forecasts. It called for about half the rain that pelted the course on Sunday and forced the suspension of the final round of the $8 million championship.

“We thought to was going to be about six hours of maybe constant rain, but just an accumulation of maybe a half an inch,’’ said White. “That’s not too much in a six-hour period. To me it was almost like a mist.’’

So the PGA Tour staff set time times similar to Saturday – all players off the first tee in twosomes beginning at 7:15 a.m. instead of sending them off in threesomes off both Nos. 1 and 10 to condense the playing time required.

White arrived at 6 a.m. on Sunday and it didn’t take long for him to realize the rain might be more than just a mist.

Play started on time but had to be suspended at 10 a.m. It resumed at 1:31 p.m. but was stopped again at 2:28 when puddles formed on the greens and fairways and in the bunkers. White and his staff went back out at 4 p.m. after the rain had subsided in hopes of getting the players back on the course. He was surprised again.

“It wasn’t even close to what we had when we started at 1:30. That was the reason there was no sense in going back out,’’ said White. “This course drains well, but Mother Nature just won’t give us a break as far as shutting this faucet off.’’

He scheduled the resumption of play for 8 a.m. on Monday, and Golf Channel will pick up coverage at 9 a.m.

White expects better weather on Monday when 64 of Sunday’s 70 starters will take to the course. Only six finished their final rounds before play was suspended for the day and 22 hadn’t even teed off. That group included leader Jim Furyk, who is scheduled to tee off in the last twosome at 9:40 a.m. on Monday.

Vince Pellegrino, vice president, tournaments for the Western Golf Assn., said gates would open at 7 a.m. on Monday and that anyone with a Sunday ticket would be allowed to return on Monday. Tickets will also be on sale, at the full price of $55. Some hospitality venues will be open.

Parking options may have to be adjusted, based on how the designated lots handled Sunday’s one inch-plus rainfall.

“We had a great week through Saturday,’’ said Pellegrino. “It’s just one of those things that’s unavoidable. We’re anticipating having a good-sized crowd (on Monday). We will have public transportation, the shuttles to and from Metra, as well.’’

Barring a playoff, White expects the tournament to be completed in six hours. He’s expecting scattered lake showers in the morning with sunshine peeking through as the day progresses.

The BMW Championship, first PGA Tour event ever at Conway Farms and first on Chicago’s North Shore since 1972, is the 22nd event of the season that has had delays in play for various reasons – fog, lightning, thunderstorms, snow, hail, sleet, frost, darkness, high winds.

Now a roving tournament after being an annual Chicago event until 2007, the BMW Championship has had suspensions in six of the last nine years. The last without a suspension was in 2011 at Cog Hill, in Lemont.

This season the PGA Tour has had two previous unscheduled Monday finishes – the Farmers Insurance Open because of fog and the Arnold Palmer Invitational because of thunderstorms.

Players competing for the biggest monetary prize in golf will have their travel plans altered thanks to this latest Monday finish. The top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings after the BMW Championship advance to the final stop in the four-event series, The Tour Championship that tees off on Thursday at East Lake in Atlanta.

All three of the FedEx Cup Playoff events this year have had a suspension in play, but only the BMW Championship was forced to finish a day later than scheduled.

For Jim Furyk, leader of the BMW Championship through 54 holes, Sunday turned into a day to watch football on television. For Steve Stricker, his closest pursuer, it was a day for family time.

For all the 64 players left in the third event of the four-tournament FedEx Cup Playoff series it was a day to change travel arrangements. They had to figure out how to get to Atlanta for the final tournament that tees off on Thursday.

“You’re used to getting to a tournament on Monday and having a routine, practice rounds, all that kind of stuff,’’ said Brandt Snedeker, winner of the FedEx Cup and its $10 million bonus last year and two strokes behind Furyk now. “Things are just going to be thrown off, but we’re used to this. It happens probably four or five times a year that we have to play on a Monday.’’

Furyk was supposed to start his final round at 12:40 p.m. on Sunday but won’t do it until 9:40 a.m. on Monday. He’s glad he didn’t have to hit a shot in Saturday’s downpours.

“It’s probably a positive because if I did get out on the golf course it would have only been for a hole or two,’’ he said. “It’s tough to get real excited about that. No one wants to slop it around in bad weather on a golf course where we’re playing the ball down.’’

The lift, clean and place rule is frequently put into effect when rain hampers tournament play, but it couldn’t be done at the BMW Championship because play had already started without that rule in place. It can’t be instituted after play starts because it wouldn’t be fair to all the players.

Of the six players to finish their round on Sunday the best was Rory McIlroy, the tourney’s defending champion. He shot 68, the same as his score on Saturday. Finishing at 7-over-par 291 for the 72 holes, he is the clubhouse leader but he won’t hold that honor for long once more players finish on Monday.

Dustin Johnson was the last player to complete his round on Sunday. He put his second shot into water at the par-5 18th and settled for a 72, good for a 72-hole score of 293. Though he doesn’t have to play on Monday, he will be watching closely to see if he winds up in the top 30 in the series standings and qualifies to play in Atlanta.

Kevin Chappell, Johnson’s playing partner, shot the same score at Conway Farms and will also have to sweat out Monday’s round to see if he’s still alive in the playoffs.

Stricker, one shot behind Furyk, joined the leader in being thankful he didn’t have to play on Sunday.

“We got the better end of the deal,’’ said Stricker. “It looked like pretty tough conditions for everybody.’’

Zach Johnson, three shots behind Furyk and also in the mix for the title, doesn’t feel a later arrival in Atlanta will matter much because the players all know that course already.

“There’s not a winner in all of this,’’ said Johnson. “If anything I feel really bad for the fans. I certainly feel bad for the WGA (Western Golf Assn.) and BMW because it was such a great championship up until this point.’’

Monday, in a sense, will be anticlimactic, with fewer fans likely to attend. The players will also be dealing with a changed course after the day-long rains. Soggy greens are slower than dry ones and wet fairways don’t allow for as much roll as they do before the rain falls.

“It’ll be completely different,’’ said Johnson. “Maybe you can be a little more aggressive, but yet you’ve still got to pay attention to how the course is playing. This course can bite you if you get too aggressive. You’ve just got to roll with it and hopefully get the speed of the greens down early.’’

Play less, but play better. Not a bad formula for a golfer as long as it works.

It’s definitely worked for Steve Stricker this season. Seeking more family time Stricker cut his PGA Tour schedule almost in half but that didn’t reduce his skill level. On Saturday the University of Illinois alum from Madison, WI., posted a 7-under-par 64 at Conway Farms to move into second place in the BMW Championship.

Even Stricker has been surprised by the results and wouldn’t be surprised if other PGA Tour player scale down their schedules in light of his success.

“I thought about it a lot of years,’’ he said after moving within one stroke of leader Jim Furyk with 18 holes to go in the $8 million tourney. “Doing it was the hard part. I had no expectations. I didn’t plan to play much in the playoffs, but then I finished second (at the Deutsche Bank Championship two weeks ago in Boston) and got to thinking `I’ve got a chance to win this thing.’’’

Indeed he does.

He went to Boston in hopes of winning a spot on the U.S. Presidents Cup team. He accomplished that goal, so he came to Chicago and – after a few days deliberation – decided to skip a hunting trip and go to The Tour Championship next week in Atlanta as well.

Thanks to his hot round on Saturday Stricker is on the brink of moving into the top five in the FedEx Cup standings. If he does that in Sunday’s final round he’ll control his own destiny next week. Any player in the top five going into Atlanta will get the coveted $10 million bonus if he wins there.

That’s a ways off, but Stricker went on the prowl Saturday. Furyk and Brandt Snedeker led after two rounds and Stricker trailed them by six strokes but still had hope.

“I had a number in mind, which I don’t typically do,’’ said Stricker, who set 8-under-63 as his target in good scoring conditions on Saturday. He missed by a stroke but his score still had the desired effect. It pulled him closer to the lead.

The key to Saturday’s good score was the 99-yard sand wedge that Stricker put straight in the hole for an eagle at No. 15.

“I heard the clank, but it was a shock to see it go in,’’ said Stricker. “Holing that shot was something I really needed to get back into it.’’

He gave one of those shots back at the par-3 17th when he hooked his tee shot into the bleachers left of the green, but he got up and down from a green-side bunker for birdie on the finishing hole. That got him within striking distance of Furyk, who ignited the tournament with his 59 on Friday.

“That was an incredible round,’’ said Stricker, “and then (early starter Matt) Kuchar got 61 today. I knew the conditions were going to be a bit easier but it really didn’t have much influence. I was just trying to get to 13-under.’’

Paired with Furyk in the final round, Stricker has developed a reason for why his reduced schedule is paying off.

“It’s because I have a good balance in life, and I’m comfortable with the decisions I’ve me,’’ he said.

Life is good for Kevin Streelman this week.

On Sunday Chicago’s only homegrown PGA Tour player enjoyed a Bears’ game and steak dinner with some old high school buddies. On Friday the plan was to watch a high school football game between Wheaton South, Streelman’s alma mater, and arch-rival Wheaton North. Each night in between were spent playing video games with retired Bear Brian Urlacher and short commutes to the golf course from Urlacher’s house four minutes away.

All that relaxation has apparently benefitted Streelman’s golf game. The long-time Wheaton resident coped with windy, colder conditions in Friday’s second round of the BMW Championship just fine, tacking a 70 to his 66 of Thursday to stay contention midway through the $8 million tournament at Conway Farms in Lake Forest.

He’ll enter the weekend in a four-way tie for fourth place, trailing co-leaders Brandt Snedeker and Jim Furyk by five strokes and third-place Zach Johnson by two.

“I’m driving it great, hitting some nice punch shots and really rolling the ball well,’’ said Streelman. “Knowing that I’m in for next week (The Tour Championship in Atlanta), I’ve got nothing to lose. I’m just going to free-wheel it and see what happens. I really feel comfortable, especially in this city – my favorite city in the world. I love the people’’

The feeling is apparently mutual. The crowds have been behind him from the outset.

“All the screams, Wheaton South screams. The support’s been awesome,’’ he admitted.

Streelman came into the third leg of the four-event FedEx Cup Playoffs ranked No. 16 of 70 survivors. He’s a shoo-in to make it into the top 30 qualifiers for Atlanta, given his current 6-under-par standing at Conway Farms.

His score in the second round didn’t match that of his first, but the change in conditions had something to do with that – especially the wind.

“It got me on 11,’’ he said about hitting his tee shot into the water on the par-3 hole.

With the wind in his face Streelman’s shot was barely wet. He found the ball sitting on the rocks bordering a pond. He might have played it from there, but quickly thought better of it.

“The corner of the ball was sitting on solid rock,’’ he said. “That ball could have gone anywhere. It was best to take my medicine.’’

Streelman went back to the front tee and hit a wedge shot fat, leaving him lying three 30 yards short of the green. From there he hit a great chip to within two feet, settled for a double bogey that dropped him from 6-under to 4-under and moved on. He retrieved the two shots lost on that hole with birdies at Nos. 14 and 15.

Already this year Streelman has accumulated $2.9 million in tournament winnings and claimed his first win on the PGA Tour, at the Tampa Bay Championship. His winnings will climb dramatically in these last two big-money events of the season and scoring figures to be better in Saturday’s third round than it was on Friday for all the players.

“Tomorrow the winds should be calmer and it’ll be a little warmer,’’ said Streelman. “The wind will be coming back from the south. It’ll turn in completely the opposite direction and some of the par-5s that were playing super short will play into the wind and some of the par-4s that were playing extremely difficult will be a bit easier. It’ll be a birdie-fest. That should be fun for the fans.’’

Steve Stricker posted a solid 66 in the first round of the BMW Championship on Thursday, but he knew he was just a side show.

Playing partner Brandt Snedeker put on a putting display that was hard to match, and Stricker found it a challenge to focus on his own game instead of becoming more of a spectator.

“I watched a great round,’’ said Stricker, himself no slouch in the putting department. “Watching Snedeker pour them in from all over the place is always fun. He’s probably the best putter I’ve ever seen.’’

There were times in his career that other players gave Stricker such accolades. This season, though, he opted to step back a bit. He played a limited schedule, but the success he had in the tournament he did play encouraged him to juggle his plans this month.

He added the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston to his schedule in hopes of earning an automatic berth on the U.S. team for the President’s Cup matches later this month in Dublin, Ohio. After securing the President’s Cup berth he added the BMW Championship to stay sharp for that team event against a team of International stars.

At that point he had no intention of playing in next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. Stricker had planned to go elk hunting instead but, after giving it more thought, he changed his schedule again. He’ll got to East Lake hoping for the same start there that he had at Conway Farms.

“I just hung in there,’’ he said. “There’s a lot of birdie holes out there. I didn’t hit it the greatest, but I managed my game well.’

That will be more of a premium in the second round, when the weather forecast suggests the Lake Forest course will present a more difficult challenge. Stricker will start the day in a four-way tie for third place, three shots behind Snedeker with England’s Justin Rose, the U.S. Open champion, rounding out the threesome.

That trio drew great crowd support on Thursday, in part because Stricker – a University of Illinois alum from nearby Madison, WI. is a gallery favorite and Snedeker was hot.

“There were a lot of people out there,’’ said Stricker. “I got a lot of shout-outs from Wisconsin and Illinois, but I think the crowd was getting ahead because of who was behind us.’’

The Stricker-Snedeker-Rose threesome played one group in front of top threesome in the FedEx Cup standings – Henrik Stenson, Tiger Woods and Adam Scott.

Forget that shocking tie for 65th place finish that Tiger Woods posted in the Deutsche Bank Classic in Boston two weeks ago. That knocked the world’s No. 1-ranked player from first to second in the FedEx Cup Playoff standings, but that blip is a distant memory now.

Woods didn’t have his best stuff on Thursday in the first round of the BMW Championship at Conway Farms either, but he still signed in for a 5-under-par 66. A number like that never hurts, and it could have been much lower.

“I certainly wasted a lot of shots out there,’’ said Woods. “I missed three short ones ( putts from inside five feet) and I played the par-5s stupendously. I’m not exactly happy. I didn’t get much out of that round.’’

Still, Woods went head-to-head with the Nos. 1 and 3 players in the FedEx Cup standings and whipped them both. Leader Henrik Stenson shot 72 and third-place Adam Scott 67.

Woods, the only player to win the FedEx Cup twice, had seven birdies on his scorecard, the round ending when a 23-footer dropped for the last bird at No. 9. Woods started play at No. 10, birdied that hole and then had five birdies against two bogeys before that last long one dropped.

Usually the par-5s are easy pickings, but Woods played them in even par. He didn’t see the course until Wednesday’s pro-am, and most that round was spent plotting strategy with caddie

Conway Farms got its real first test from Woods on Thursday. He success in Chicago has been legendary. The Western Golf Assn. staged its biggest tournament at Cog Hill, in Lemont, for 20 years, ending in 2011. Woods won the Western Open there three times and the BMW Championship on the same layout in 2007 and 2009.

The PGA of America brought its PGA Championship to Medinah in 1999 and 2006. Woods won both. Now he’s in position to win at Conway Farms as well. He enters Friday’s second round in a four-way tie for third, three strokes behind leader and defending FedEx Cup champion Brandt Snedeker.

Numbers at least as good as Thursday’s will probably be needed if Woods is to stay with the leaders. Conway presented little problems in the first round, even with the wind kicking up and the temperature dropping when Woods was on his second nine.

“(The wind) was the only defense it had,’’ said Woods. “But it was still warm most of the day, so the ball was traveling and the greens were soft. Some of the holes we were hitting 3-wood just over 300 yards. The course played short.’’

The PGA Tour hasn’t visited the north suburbs in 41 years, when the Western Open was staged at Sunset Ridge Country Club in Northfield. That’s surprising, given the golf enthusiasm demonstrated annually in the area and the wide area of quality courses available.

Other golf tours did make appearances. The U.S. Women’s Open was played at Merit Club in Libertyville in 2000. The PGA’s satellite Web.com Tour was a fixture at The Glen Club in Glenview through 2007. The Champions Tour had regular stops at Kemper Lakes in Long Grove in the 1990s and finally returned this June at North Shore Country Club, also in Glenview.

The PGA Tour, the biggest and best in the world, was always a no-show after Jim Jamieson’s final putt dropped in his six-stroke victory in the 1972 Western. Finally the draught is going to end. This week the PGA Tour returns on a course that didn’t even exist when Jamieson won.

Conway Farms, a private facility in Lake Forest, will open its gates on Monday for the BMW Championship and the top 70 players on the FedEx Cup Playoffs point list will battle for $8 million beginning on Thursday.

The Western Golf Assn., based in north suburban Golf, staged its biggest Chicago tournaments at Cog Hill in Lemont the last two decades but opted for a fresh look this time in an effort to improve fundraising for its Evans Scholars Foundation. The tourney will also be played at Conway in 2015, assuming the sponsorship agreement with the automaker is extended.

BMW needs plenty of space to showcase its products during the tournament, and Cog Hill offered much more of than than Conway Farms will, but the Lake Forest location has re-invigorated the event and intrigued the players. Most of them won’t have seen the course until Monday because Conway Farms’ start as a golf course wasn’t all that long ago.

It only opened on Aug. 3, 1991 but it didn’t take long for the Tom Fazio-designed layout to gain the respect of the top players. The best college players checked it out at the men’s NCAA Championship in 1997 and the Big Ten Championship in 2006. The best juniors were there for the 1998 U.S. Junior Amateur and the American Junior Golf Association’s Canon Cup in both 2002 and 2006.

Luke Donald, at one time the world’s No. 1-ranked player and one of the 70 competing this week, started playing at Conway when he was a student-athlete at Northwestern and he’s now a Conway member.

Some other professionals played it in competition at two U.S. Open qualifiers – a local elimination in 2007 and a sectional qualifier in 2008. Mainly, though, the Lake Forest masterpiece has been a haven for amateurs. Most recently it was the site for the 2009 Western Amateur and the 2012 U.S. Mid-Amateur.

This week, though, Conway Farms moves into a new era. The BMW Championship will be the first PGA Tour event held on the 7,216-yard par-71 layout.

Course architect Fazio doesn’t know how the PGA Tour stars will react to his fourth Chicago creation, but he’s comfortable with his finished product.

“If you could give a class on golf course architecture you’d use Conway Farms,’’ said Fazio, who collaborated with his uncle, George Fazio, on the creation of Butler National in Oak Brook – the all-male club that hosted the Western Open from 1974-1990—and was sole architect for both Aurora’s Stonebridge Country Club, a stop for tournaments on both the Ladies PGA and Champions tours in past years, and The Glen Club.

“There were very few restrictions, a lot of land to work with (209 acres) and the owners were committed to a qualify golf experience,’’ said Fazio. “It was a textbook, fun way to create a golf course.’’

Tournament director Vince Pellegrino believes the course will be ideal for both players and spectators because of that.

“It’s not going to be the most difficult course they play, but they won’t tear it up – and it’s not bad for TV and for the people on the grounds to see birdies and eagles,’’ he said. “We encourage that. That’s OK, but it’ll be a good challenge for the best players in the world.’’

Conway Farms’ creation started with three golf-minded families who purchased the property on what was old Conway Road in 1956. It was all farmland until Fazio was hired. His creation includes two great short par-4s – Nos. 7 and 15. They may be the most memorable holes, but No. 17 is a par-3 that’s hard to forget with its downhill fairway and long-range views of the area and the par-5 finishing hole is a fun adventure with a creek running from the left side, then across the fairway and then behind the green.

The Conway membership –it’s by invitation only — has welcomed tournament play on its walking-only course. Chief operating officer Todd Marsh and director of golf Jeff Mory have been on hand almost from the beginning and the 255 regular members are serious about their golf. Marsh says 169 have single digit handicaps.

“That may put us in the top five clubs in America,’’ said Marsh. “Our members are passionate about their golf. We may have the busiest practice facility in the Midwest because they take their golf seriously.’’

“We have known that Conway Farms is a world-class golf club,’’ said Conway president Dave McDonough, “and we’re excited to know the world is going to realize it as well.’’