George Williams College GC a/k/a Kish-Wau-Ke-Toc GC a/k/a YMCA GC (Williams Bay/Lake Geneva)
1937 Aerial -
In 1897 the Yerkes Observatory, dubbed the "birthplace of modern astrophysics," was established in Williams Bay on the shores of Lake Geneva. Right next door was a YMCA training academy that would come to be know as George Williams College.
There are reports that this club started with a one hole course in 1900 with six holes later being laid out by James Naismith, a full 9 holes by 1906 and 18 holes by 1918. None of this jives with the historical record.
I can find no indication of a course near the Yerkes Observatory before 1904, when Tom Bendelow was noted as laying out a 9 holes for a new club which would be named the Kish-Wau-Ke-Toc GC (not to be confused with the Kish-Wau-Ke-Toe CC that would be founded on the other end of the lake a number of years later). Whether only 6 holes were built or 3 holes disappeared is unclear, but in 1925 9 additional holes opened adding to the existing 6 holes to make a 15 hole course (an erroneous advertisement of 18 holes total would be corrected the next month).
If Naismith was ever involved with the course, I can find no record of it. I'm not ruling it out as he was part of the committee that established the University of Kansas' first course a few years earlier, but the record seems pretty clear that golf started in 1904 with Bendelow.
Oct. 19, 1904 Chicago Tribune -
June 6, 1907 Lake Geneva Regional News -
July 23, 1925 Lake Geneva Regional News -
June 24, 1926 Lake Geneva Regional News -
July 29, 1926 Lake Geneva Regional News -
Excerpts from Picturesque Lake Geneva, 1926 -
Postcard -