Major Golf Tournaments Scheduled for Aurora Area of Illinois

Three major golf tournaments are coming to Rich Harvest Farms in the Aurora Area of Illinois.

Rich Harvest Farms will host the 2019 Western Junior Championship, 2020 Big Ten Men's Golf Championship, and 2021 Arnold Palmer Cup.

The 2019 Western Junior Championship will be held June 17–20, 2019. The Western Junior draws the top junior players from more than 40 states and internationally each year. With a field limited to 156 entrants, exemptions into the Western Amateur are awarded to the top three finishers and ties. The tournament has been a testing ground for stars of the future, such as current PGA Tour stars Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Hunter Mahan, and Rickie Fowler.

After a successful 2017 NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Golf Championships, some of the biggest colleges in golf will return to Rich Harvest Farms to compete in the 2020 Big Ten Men's Golf Championship, May 1–3, 2020. The Big Ten Men's Golf Championships have been played since 1920, with 10 current Big Ten institutions having won at least one conference championship. Illinois claimed its 16th Big Ten title in 2018, its ninth championship in the past 10 years.

Rich Harvest Farms will become the first repeat host of the Arnold Palmer Cup when play begins at the 25th annual event June 11–13, 2021. The Arnold Palmer Cup, co-founded by golf legend Arnold Palmer and The Golf Coaches Association of America, is a Ryder Cup-style tournament featuring the top male and female university/college golfers, matching the United States against an international team. It is the only major tournament that features men and women playing side-by-side on the same field.

About Rich Harvest Farms: Located less than an hour outside of Chicago, Rich Harvest Farms is an ultra-private, members-only club, consistently ranked in Golf Digest's "America's Top 100 Golf Courses." Owned and built by Jerry Rich, the course consists of 18 perfectly manicured holes and is a 1,820-acre showcase of nature and agriculture. With state-of-the-art meeting spaces, numerous lodging options and non-golf amenities that include a private car museum, miles of horseback riding trails and three fully stocked lakes for fishing, Rich Harvest Farms offers distinguished facilities in a luxurious setting.

Rich Harvest Farms, a par 72 with Professional tees at a length of 7,715 yards, has and continues to play host to numerous amateur, collegiate, and professional tournaments. These include the Palmer Cup (2015), Solheim Cup (2009), as well as the Ryder Cup Captain's Challenge (2012) and numerous USGA Qualifiers. This list also includes the Western Amateur (2015) and Western Junior (2003, 2019). Northern Illinois University Huskies Men's and Women's Golf Teams are proud to call Rich Harvest Farms their home course and so the following have also been hosted at the course: NCAA Men's Division I Central Regional (2007, 2014), MAC Championship (2003, 2012), the annual Northern Intercollegiate (2011-Present) and, most recently, the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Golf Championships (2017).

A hidden gem at Rich Harvest Farms is the Kids Golf Foundation of Illinois, a nonprofit junior golf organization founded in 1998 by Jerry Rich and longtime friend Don Springer. Today, the Foundation has impacted the lives of over 150,000 youth through golf and its valuable life lessons.

For more information about Rich Harvest Farms, please contact Laura Poczatek, 630.466.7610 or lpoczatek@richharvestfarms.com. Formed in 1987, the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and marketing the area as a visitor destination. The Aurora Area CVB aggressively promotes the area as an overnight destination and increases visitor awareness and expenditures for the maximum economic benefit of our tourism partners. The goal of the Aurora Area CVB is to enhance the economic and environmental well-being of our region compromised of 10 municipalities: Aurora, Batavia, Big Rock, Hinckley, Montgomery, North Aurora, Oswego, Plano, Sugar Grove, and Yorkville.

Find and follow the Aurora Area CVB on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or visit us online at www.enjoyaurora.com.

For more information about this topic, please contact Cort Carlson by calling (630) 256-3191 or email at cort@enjoyaurora.com.