Len Ziehm On Golf

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – Add the Korn Ferry Championship  to the long resume of big golf tournaments played on the courses at French Lick Resort. Lots of new things have been going on at the southern Indiana destination, the latest being the staging of the season-ending event for the PGA Tour’s alternative circuit. The concluding event ...

Money.  That’s what differentiates the LIV Tour’s third tournament in Chicago from the others in the circuit’s first three seasons. The event that tees off on Friday at Bolingbrook Golf Club will have the standard purse for the Saudi-backed circuit — $20 in the individual competition and $5 million in the team competition. That was also ...

SILVIS, IL. – Sungjae  Im started his Sunday round in the John Deere Classic with five straight birdies, and Ben Griffin also was 5-under through the first five holes, making an eagle, three birdies and a par. Those were extraordinary starts in the $8 million PGA Tour stop at TPC Deere Run, but not nearly enough.  ...

Bizarre. I’d say that was the best way to sum up the 106th PGA Championship at Valhalla in Louisville, Ky. No question the golf was great.  So was the drama. Xander Schauffle was 21-under-par in finally winning a major championship on Sunday. You couldn’t beat the drama, either.  Bryson DeChambeau renewed the PGA Tour vs. LIV ...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – This was only fitting.  The newest tournament on the PGA Tour was won by one of the circuit’s youngest players. Chris Gotterup, just 24 and barely a year removed from his last college tournament, captured the inaugural Myrtle Beach Classic at the Dunes Golf & Beach Club.  He took a four-stroke lead ...

OCALA, FL. – Even without a ball being hit yet, the week ahead looms as an interesting one on the PGA Tour. Holding two concurrent events in the same week isn’t unusual on the PGA Tour, but this is a little different.  The Wells Fargo Championship, in Charlotte, N.C., and the Myrtle Beach Classic are similar ...

PALM HARBOR, Florida — The winners at PGA Tour events are frequently emotional, but Peter Malnati was in tears immediately after his last putt dropped at the Valspar Championship on Sunday. Malnati, 36, won his second title nine years after his first.  He had qualified for only three major championships and never made it to the ...

  CLEARWATER, Florida – The scheduling for the Aramco Team Series opener was unusual, its opening event being slated opposite the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational just an hour away in Orlando. With a teeoff Friday on International Women’s Day, the Aramco event is unusual enough.  Imagine a women’s team event — one put on by the ...

BELLAIR, Florida – Changing times on the LPGA Tour are unlike the PGA-LIV soap opera on the men’s circuit, but the women are in the progress of some adjusting, too – starting with the name of the season’s penultimate tournament.  Instead of using the name of the host club in the title, what was the ...

  BELLEAIR, FL. — Annika Sorenstam was a legendary player before she stepped away from the LPGA Tour in 2008. Now she’s back again in a variety of roles, most notably as the host of a revitalized tournament called The ANNIKA driven by Gainbridge at Pelican. The Pelican Golf Club, on the outskirts of Tampa, hosted the ...

  Rarely has Illinois been treated to a golf tournament doubleheader as attractive as the one on tap for this week – and it’s all about the amateurs. The Women’s Western Amateur has been played without interruption since 1901, and the 123rd staging begins on Tuesday at White Eagle, in Naperville.  The always popular Illinois State Amateur ...

  SILVIS, IL. – Low numbers are nothing new at the John Deere Classic, and Sunday was no exception. Sepp Straka, far down the leaderboard at the start of the final round, shot 28 on the front nine at TPC Deere Run and strung four birdies on holes 11-14. With four holes left Straka needed just one ...

SILVIS, IL. – Every year a prominent story line at the John Deere Classic is who will be the next first-time winner on the PGA Tour and this year is no exception. The JDC has had 23 champions who won for the first time in its 51-year history. That’s an extraordinarily high number, and they range ...

  SILVIS, IL. – Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman has been Chicago’s best PGA Tour player for years, but this season hasn’t been one of his best. Qualifying for the FedEx Cup Playoffs was even in serious doubt when the John Deere Classic teed off this week. Only players ranked in the top 70 in the FedEx point standings ...

A golfer from Sweden was expected to contend in the John Deere Classic this week, but it wasn’t Jonas Blixt in Thursday’s opening round. Blixt, a 39-year old journeyman, has won three times on the PGA Tour, the last time in the 2016-17 season. He hadn’t even played in a PGA Tour since the Byron Nelson ...

    JASPER, Indiana – The Senior LPGA Championship, only six years old, is the youngest of golf’s designated major tournaments. It was first played at French Lick’s Pete Dye Course in 2017 and England’s Trish Johnson was the winner. This year’s tourney was played only 20 miles away, at Sultan’s Run Golf Club, and Johnson was in ...

  ORLANDO, FL. — The Koepka brothers could be in for a big payday on Sunday. Brook owns a three-stroke lead entering the final round of LIV Golf Orlando and their team, Smash, is two ahead in the team competition. The individual champion gets $20 million and the winning team splits $5 million. And that’s not all. Brooks is ...

  JASPER, Indiana – Golf’s top senior women players found a home at French Lick Resort, which hosted big tournaments for nine straight years. The senior run ended in 2021 when the last of three Senior LPGA Championships was played on the Pete Dye Course there. “A great run for them, and a great run for us,’’ ...

  NAPLES, FL. – Bernhard Langer now shares the honor of being the winningest golfer in the 43-year history of PGA Tour Champions. This great accomplishment was a long time coming. In winning the Chubbs Classic on Sunday Langer notched his 45th win on the 50-and-over circuit to pull even with Hale Irwin. Irwin, who very rarely ...

ORLANDO, FL. — Funny thing about the LPGA.  The premier women’s tour in golf ended its 2022 season and started its 2023 campaign with Florida tournaments that were marred by some discontent. The sponsor of last November’s CME Championship wasn’t happy that all the players competing for the biggest first-prize in women’s golf didn’t show up ...

SEBRING, FL. -The International Network of Golf is a fixture at the PGA Merchandise Show and the Myrtle Beach World Amateur Handicap Championship.  ING also hosted an annual Spring Conference around the country prior to pandemic concerns. Still on the brink of celebrating his group’s 30th anniversary, ING executive director Mike Jamison moved in another direction. ...

SEBRING, FL. — The International Network of Golf’s first Fall Forum in 2022 couldn’t have been scripted better for Joy and me. In Tuesday’s pro-am for the Citrus Golf Tour Open we played on different teams.  Joy witnessed a hole in one by her professional partner, Chris Wiatr, and my team’s pro, Donnie Trosper, tied Chris ...

  BELLEAIR, FLORIDA – This is the ultimate crunch time for women’s golf.  The CME Group Tour Championship, which offers  the biggest prize fund in women’s golf history — $7 million with $2 million going to the champion.  That tournament tees off on Thursday at Tiburon in Naples, FL. The last full-field event on the LPGA Tour, ...

BELLEAIR, Florida – As the last full-field event of the season, the Pelican Championship is important for LPGA players. The top 60 on the season point list qualify for next week’s $7 million CME Group Championship in Naples, where $2 million – the largest first prize in the history of women’s golf – will be ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – It’s transition time for women golfers at Indiana’s premier golf resort. It’s hard to imagine any golf facility doing more for the women’s game in the last decade than this southern Indiana resort has been willing to step forward for two pro circuits — The Legends for players who have reached their ...

The 27th version of the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open turned into one of the more unusual ones on Tuesday.  It all turned on great approaches to the No. 10 green by the only two players who seriously contender for the title on the Mistwood course in Romeoville. Amateur Addison Klonowski stuck her approach on the ...

SILVIS, IL. – This has been one weird John Deere Classic. Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour stop usually has a few big names.  This one had such mainstays on the circuit as Bubba Watson, Daniel Berger, Steve Stricker and Jason Day among its entrants, but none made it to the starting line. The local players haven’t stepped ...

The first day of spring also coincided with the last day of the PGA Tour’s four-tournament Florida Swing this year, and  the final tournament of the Sunshine State’s moment  in the sun for 2022 provided the best weather,  the biggest crowds, the best scoring and the most drama of the four events. Sam Burns repeated as ...

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. – Neither Zach Johnson nor Luke Donald looked threatening during Thursday’s first round of the PGA Tour’s traditional Florida Swing. The veterans teed off within 20 minutes of each other, Donald starting his round off No. 1 and Johnson off No. 10 at the Honda Classic – the first of four straight ...

NAPLES, FL. — Tour Edge, based in Batavia, IL., isn’t the biggest golf club manufacturer, but it is the dominant one on PGA Tour Champions. That was particularly evident on Sunday when two Tour Edge ambassadors – Bernhard Langer and Tim Petrovic – finished one-two in the first full-field event of the season for the ...

NAPLES, Florida – Another year of dominance for Bernard Langer on PGA Tour Champions seems a given with the first full-field tournament of 2022 still having one round to go. Langer, 64, opened the Chubb Classic by shooting his age on Friday.  He wasn’t impressed. “It was the second time for shooting my age and I did ...

LAKEWOOD RANCH, Florida – The Korn Ferry Tour is only a pathway to the PGA Tour, but it can offer some things that the premier circuit. That clicked in during Friday’s second round of the circuit’s first tournament of 2022 in the United States. For one thing the LECOM Suncoast Classic included three Illinois Open champions ...

Golf-wise it’s Florida where the action is for at least the next month. First it was the LPGA tour staging its first three tournaments of 2022 in the Sunshine state.  They were captivating events, too, with Danielle Kang, Lydia Ko and Leona Maguire winning the titles and Annika Sorenstam drawing bigger galleries than all of them ...

NAPLES, FL. – The traditional warmup in Hawaii is over.  Now PGA Tour Champions is ready to get down to business. With the tournament rounds scheduled for Feb. 18-20, the Chubb Classic Presented by SERVOPRO is the first full-field event of the season for the 50-and-over circuit. “A great place for it,’’ said Peter Jacobsen, who ...

BOCA RATON, FL. – The first full-field event of the Ladies PGA tour’s 2022 season was just a two-player duel between two of the circuit’s most popular stars. One of them not only came away with a vicrtory but also gave herself a big boost for her Hall of Fame aspirations. Lydia Ko, a 24-year old ...

  BOCA RATON, FL. — The first full field event of the LPGA’s 2022 season tees off on Thursday at Boca Rio Golf Club.  It’ll have 120 players, but not Annika Sorenstam. Sorenstam, who won 72 tournaments on the LPGA tour before taking 13 years off from golf competition, is still tinkering with a comeback but her ...

LAKE NONA, FL. – The Ladies PGA Tour, like the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions, opens each season with a Tournament of Champions.  The women do it a little differently, though. They hold a celebrity event in conjunction with theirs, and Saturday’s third round had an even more unusual twist. Paired in the final group ...

Dismiss the fact that the PGA Tour has played tournaments in Hawaii the last two weeks. The 2022 golf season really starts this week. That’s when the golf spotlight shifts to Florida and will stay there for a while. The PGA Merchandise Show returns after taking a year off because of pandemic concerns and the LPGA ...

  NAPLES, FL. – The PGA and LPGA tours concluded their 2021 seasons on Sunday, and the women went out with a bigger bang than the men. The PGA Tour reached its high point a couple months ago with the staging of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Ryder Cup. Those were tough acts for the remaining ...

  NAPLES, FL. — Beware of the injured golfer.  Korea’s Jin Young Ko is the defending champion in the biggest money event in women’s golf, and she’s definitely injured. An injury to her left wrist has troubled her since May and she never takes a full swing in practice.   On a scale of 1 to 10 she ...

The golf season has a series of climax events these days. The PGA Tour had its season climax in either September, when the FedEx Cup Playoffs concluded, or October, when the Ryder Cup ended. Take your pick. PGA Tour Champions concluded its season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs last Sunday when Phil Mickelson won the last tournament ...

  BELLAIRE, FL. – With the biggest money tournament in the history of women’s golf coming up this week it’s easy to think of the two-year old Pelican Championship – the last event of the LPGA’s regular season – as anything more than a warmup event. It was certainly no ho-hum affair on Sunday, however. It came ...

BELLAIRE, FL. – The Pelican Championship, the last regular season tournament on the Ladies PGA Tour, reached only its halfway point on Friday but the week has already been a big success for Christina Kim. The 37-year old LPGA veteran is lucky to be in the field.  She came up one shot short of making it ...

Curtis Malm, may have been the defending champion in the Illinois PGA Players Championship this week, but he was lucky to even be in the field. The 36 players invited into the last of the IPGA’s four major tournaments is determined off a season-long point list, and Malm was one spot out until Shaun McElroy, of ...

HAVEN, Wis.—The longstanding U.S. frustrations in the Ryder Cup are over.  After losing to Europe in four of the previous five meetings and seven of the last nine captain Steve Stricker found a combination of young  players who dominated the 43rd staging of golf’s premier team event at Whistling Straits. In fact, this American team dominated ...

HAVEN, Wis. – If it wasn’t for a nightmarish day nine years ago the United States golfers and their supporters would already be in a celebratory mood at Whistling Straits. The U.S. went 3-1 in Saturday’s morning foursome matches for the third straight session to open a 9-3 lead. The Europeans had their best session of ...

HAVEN, Wis. – Beautiful weather greeted the 40,000 spectators when the 43rd Ryder Cup teed off Fridays. So did massive traffic jams on the rural roads that surround Whistling Straits. At the end of the day, though, there was at least hope for the American side that has been dominated by the Europe  in  in ...

HAVEN, Wis. – Thursday’s Opening Ceremonies for the 43rd Ryder Cup was not without the unexpected.  U.S. captain Steve Stricker provided it. First Stricker broke into tears while introducing his wife and daughters to a standing room only crowd who ignored a late afternoon rain to gather at the Dye Pavilion at Whistling Straits. “I had a ...

Tee-K Kelly was the whole show at the 72nd Illinois Open, no question about that. The Wheaton resident, Ohio State alum and Medinah Country Club member led wire-to-wire in winning the biggest event for Illinois resident.  He was a record-tying 17-under-par, posting a 54-hole score of 199 at Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora. His rounds of 66, ...

  SILVIS, IL. – Being a rookie on the PGA Tour isn’t easy.  Doug Ghim, who got to golf’s premier circuit after growing up in Arlington Heights, is making headway and Thursday’s first round of the John  Deere Classic provided proof of that. Ghim came into the JDC with $1,152,732 in season winnings and had made 16 ...

Tristyn Nowlin finally won a big golf tournament at Mistwood on Wednesday. The University of Illinois graduate student from Richmond, Ky., who turned pro two weeks ago, was a runner-up on the Romeoville course twice in 2018.  That year she dropped a match play final to Emilee Hoffman in the Women’s Western Amateur and was edged ...

Tuesday marked the start of the biggest six days of tournament golf in Illinois this year. The 26th Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open, at Mistwood in Romeoville, started things off with a 36-hole session.  The final round is Wednesday (TODAY) and then the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic begins its four-day run on Thursday in ...

The PGA Tour’s developmental circuit has gone by various names – Ben Hogan, Nationwide, Nike, Web.com — over its 32-year history, but the just-concluded Evans Scholars Invitational on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour was an event like no other. Chicago has hosted various events over the years, but local players never made the impact ...

David Cooke won the Illinois Open as an amateur in 2015 and last year as a professional. He may well have problems just making his first-round tee time to open his title defense when the 71st playing of the tourney tees off on Monday at White Eagle Club in Naperville. Cooke’s win last year was special.  ...

At first it was a feeling of shock, then disappointment. How could the 2020 John Deere Classic be canceled? Here was a tournament that struggled at times to just stay on the PGA Tour, a difficult task for any event in a small market. And, this year’s July 6-12 staging at TPC Deere Run in downstate ...

Vince India’s breakthrough win on a professional tour will have to wait. The former University of Iowa golfer from Deerfield, took a four-stroke lead into the final round of the King & Bear Classic on the PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour on Saturday and couldn’t protect it. India soared to 4-over-par 76 in the final round, ...

The Illinois golf calendar took a big hit on Friday when the Chicago District Golf Association announced the cancelation of its two biggest and oldest championships. The CDGA Amateur, which was to be played for the 101st time June 22-25 at Bull Valley in Woodstock, and the Illinois State Amateur, slated for its 90th playing at ...

While the PGA Tour schedule remained in a state of flux on Thursday, there were some noteworthy developments. Two involved Illinois tournaments. The Evans Scholars Invitational, scheduled as the next event on the PGA’s alternate Korn Ferry Tour, won’t make its scheduled May 20-24 playing at The Glen Club, in Glenview. It’s not being ...

The tournament schedules of the pro golf tours have turned into a mess, the result of the coronavirus pandemic. Chicago’s premier tournament, the BMW Championship, won’t undergo much of an adjustment, however. The FedEx Cup Playoff event was moved only one week as part of a schedule revampment announced on Monday by PGA Tour commissioner ...

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL. – Commissioner Jay Monahan gave his annual state of the PGA Tour announcement earlier this week, noting with pride that the circuit has events in Asia, Canada, Bermuda and the Dominican Republic and three allied international tours in Canada, China and Latin America. He added that over 200,000 fans were ...

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. – Luke Donald knew the drill. To win on the Champion Course at PGA National you don’t take many chances. The Jack Nicklaus-designed layout is too tough. It’s annually one of the hardest courses on the circuit. “There’s just such a lot of nerve-racking and daunting shots out here ...

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. — Winning the Honda Classic is still a possibility for injury-plagued Luke Donald entering Sunday’s final round on PGA National’s Champion Course. Donald is tied for third, two strokes behind leader Tommy Fleetwood, through three rounds. Donald isn’t predicting victory, but not ruling it out, either. “With a back injury at 40 years ...

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. – Could Friday’s second round of the Honda Classic be the start of something big for Luke Donald? Time will tell, but Donald certainly looked like the golfer who was No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings for 56 weeks in 2011 and 2012. The former Northwestern star and member ...

BOCA RATON, Florida – There’s no reason the LPGA shouldn’t play as many of its tournaments as possible in Florida. After all, the LPGA’s headquarters are in Daytona Beach and three of the circuit’s top stars — Lexi Thompson and Jessica and Nelly Korda – live there. This year’s schedule called for four LPGA tournaments in ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – Winning a Grand Slam in senior women’s golf isn’t unusual. You just need to win two tournaments to do it. England’s Laura Davies did it in 2018 and Sweden’s Helen Alfredsson accomplished the feat on Wednesday when she captured the Senior LPGA Championship on the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort. Alfredsson ...

The year’s major golf championships aren’t finished just yet. There’s still one to go. Indiana’s French Lick Resort will host the third annual Senior LPGA Championship on its Pete Dye Course from Oct. 14-16. The 54-hole final event of The Legends Tour season has an unusual Monday through Wednesday schedule because that enabled ...

Record scores were the story after each of the first three rounds of the BMW Championship at Medinah. Not so in Sunday’s final round, however. While Justin Thomas came out the champion, the final 18 at Medinah basically set the stage for what comes next – The Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. ...

Patrick Cantlay had his best round of the week on Sunday, shooting a 7-under-par 65. Only Hideki Matsuyama (63) did better. Neither could overhaul Justin Thomas at Medinah but they’ll have a chance to do it next week in the final FedEx Cup Playoff event in Atlanta. Cantlay goes into it with a two-stroke ...

Just how low can these guys go? Medinah No. 3 has long been considered one of the world’s most difficult courses. It won’t be after the BMW Championship concludes there on Sunday. Only two of 69 players are over par after 54 holes and leader Justin Thomas is 21-under. Thomas has set the pace in this ...

Tiger Woods played better on Saturday. He shot a 5-under-par 67 at Medinah No. 3, but it may not matter. Woods’ chances of getting into the top 30 on the Fed Ex standings still aren’t good going into Sunday’s final round. “I figured I’m going to have to do something in the mid-60s for two ...

Lots of great rounds, by lots of great players, have been shot over Medinah Country Club’s No. 3 course over the years. So many, in fact, that it’s tricky determining which one was the best. Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama staked the best claim yet to the record on the storied course on Saturday. The layout that ...

Tony Finau is thinking victory at the halfway point of the BMW Championship, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t be. Finau is just a shot behind leader Hideki Matsuyama heading into Saturday’s Round 3 at Medinah. Finau shot 66 on Friday in an effort to keep in close touch with the record-setting Matsuyama and believes Medinah ...

It didn’t matter that all the conditions — comfortable temperatures, minimal wind, soft greens and fairways – were all ideal for low scoring at Medinah on Thursday. Justin Thomas certainly wasn’t thinking about that while warming up for his first round in the BMW Championship. “I had the worst warmup I’ve ever had in my ...

With all due respect to Tom Watson, Hale Irwin and even Tiger Woods, there is another contender when debating the most successful player on Chicago courses. Jim Furyk should also be on the list. All four players have feasted on Chicago area courses. Furyk just did it most recently – and is still ...

Tiger Woods took to the famed No. 3 course at Medinah on Wednesday and played only nine holes in the Gardner Heidrick Pro-Am, the last pre-tournament event before Thursday’s start of the BMW Championship. Woods worked only his short game on the back nine, just like he did at last week’s first FedEx Cup Playoff event ...

Brooks Koepka is the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world, the reigning PGA champion and the winner of four major championships in the last three years. On Wednesday, though, he played second fiddle to one of his playing partners in the Gardner Heidrick Pro-Am, the final warmup for Thursday’s start of the BMW Championship ...

Rory McIlroy nearly missed his tee time in the last big event he played at Medinah. He can only laugh about it now. The moment of infamy came in the 2012 Ryder Cup. McIlroy didn’t account for a time change and didn’t realize he needed to be at Medinah until someone called him. He needed ...

The gates of Medinah Country Club open to the public for the first time since 2012 today. This week’s big event, the BMW Championship, will be much different than the last one held there – a devastating loss for Team USA in the Ryder Cup matches against Europe. The BMW is a 70-player, 72-hole no-cut ...

David Cooke became the 13th player to claim multiple wins in the Illinois Open on Wednesday and – like his first win in 2015 – this latest one was basically no contest. Cooke won by five strokes when the tournament was held at Royal Melbourne, in Long Grove, four years ago and his 16-under-par score there ...

Bolingbrook’s David Cooke could win the 70th Illinois Open today. He enters the final round at The Glen Club, in Glenview, with a three-stroke lead but he might have other things on his mind. Cooke, who won the tournament in 2015 when he was still an amateur, will catch a flight to North Carolina ...

The Illinois PGA, in an effort to increase entries, instituted a two-course format for the finals of the Illinois Open in 2015. It allowed for a 264-player field for the 54-hole finals instead of the traditional 156 after the entries – usually around 700 — were whittled down through a series of state-wide qualifying rounds. Carrie ...

It took just one swing for the 25th Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open to turn into a real battle Wednesday at Mistwood, in Romeoville. Nicole Jeray, for two decades Chicago’s only LPGA Tour player, picked the perfect spot to deliver the dramatic shot. Now 48, Jeray has shifted her focus to teaching at Mistwood and ...

SILVIS, IL. – The Las Vegas odds-makers didn’t believe experience mattered much when they sized up the John Deere Classic field earlier this week. The top five betting favorites – Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Joaquin Niemann, Sunglae Im and Matthew Wolff — are all between the ages of 20 and 22. But what do those ...

SILVIS, IL. – Luke Donald is seven years removed from being the world’s No. 1 golfer, but he’s showing signs of regaining the form that made him that good, and that’s saying a lot. Donald was sidelined for nearly a year with back problems. During the time off he lost his PGA Tour membership ...

SILVIS, IL. – The 49th John Deere Classic meant the return of the PGA Tour to Illinois for the first time in 2019, but Thursday’s opening round had a different feel to it. There was the usual abundance of low scoring, with the best saved for last. Mexico’s Roberto Diaz, in the last threesome to ...

The Illinois State Amateur doesn’t have a home course. It moves around the state annually, but in the last two decades one location has become a favorite. Cantigny, in Wheaton, has hosted four times in the last 22 years and will be the site for the tourney’s 89th staging from July 16-18. “For us ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Jennifer Kupcho was a convincing winner in the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur on Saturday, but women’s golf may have been the biggest benefactor. For the third straight year the top women players had a new high profile event to build on. In 2017 it was the Senior LPGA Championship at Indiana’s ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Augusta National Golf Club has been a trend-setter since legendary player Bobby Jones led its creation in the 1930s. Jones also organized the Masters — at least arguably the world’s most popular golf tournament — in 1934. Today women finally get their chance to play the iconic course in a tournament ...

EVANS, Ga. — The 30 women who will be the first to compete on Augusta National’s famed course were decided on Thursday. NCAA champion Jennifer Kopcho, the Wake Forest senior and No. 1 in the Official World Amateur Rankings, headed the list after playing two rounds at Champions Retreat in 5-under-par 139. Champions ...

EVANS, Ga. – The weather couldn’t have been better for the first round of the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur at Champions Retreat Golf Club. Augusta National president Fred Ridley and Diana Murphy, a former U.S. Golf Association president who became the fourth woman member of Augusta National, were on hand when Jennifer Kupcho ...

PALM HARBOR, Florida — It took 19 years, but the Valspar Championship now has a repeat champion. England’s Paul Casey backed up his victory in 2018 with another triumph on Sunday at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. Valspar hasn’t been the title sponsor throughout the PGA Tour’s run at Innisbrook, but no player could win twice ...

PALM HARBOR, Florida – Luke Donald has played well at the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship before. He even won the title here in 2012 when the tournament was known as the Transitions Championship. This week’s been different, though. Donald, the former Northwestern star, was ranked 919th in the world before the tournament teed ...

ORLANDO, Florida — What are the chances that the two Illinois players competing the most regularly on the PGA Tour would be paired in consecutive groups in Saturday’s third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational? That’s what happened when Pekin’s D.A. Points, in green shirt and paired with Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, teed off in the twosome ...

NAPLES, Florida — No metropolitan area has hosted PGA Tour Champions longer than Naples. Nine courses in the area have hosted tournaments on the 50-year over circuit for the last 32 years but this week’s Chubb Classic on the Classics Course at Lely Resort was a bit different than the others. A playoff seemed ...

Bernhard Langer, at 61 years old, may seem near the end of his career as a tournament player. There’s only one thing wrong with that line of reasoning. He keeps on winning. Langer won on PGA Tour Champions for the 39th time on Sunday, and his victory in the newly-named Oasis Championship was something ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – There’s no doubt who the best senior woman golfer was in this first historic first year. England’s Laura Davies won both the U.S. Senior Women’s Open and the Senior LPGA Championship convincingly. Davies was as dominant in the Senior LPGA as she was in the Open, played in July at ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – England’s Dame Laura Davies, winner of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open at the Chicago Golf Club in July, is poised to sweep the two major championships for senior women golfers on Wednesday (TODA). Davies started Tuesday’s second round of the Senior LPGA Championship on the Pete Dye Course with a two-stroke lead, ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – Laura Davies and Juli Inkster finished one-two in the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf Club in July, and the possibility loomed for a similar result after a weird finish to Monday’s first round of the Senior LPGA Championship here. Temperatures in the 40-degree range and winds of 15 miles ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – As far as tournament play on the Pete Dye Course here is concerned, this is definitely the Trish Johnson Era. “And I hope it continues,’’ said Johnson on Sunday – the last practice day before Monday’s start of the second Senior LPGA Championship. This is the last major championship of 2018 ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – Last year the long overdue first major championship for senior women golfers was staged on the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort. The second playing of the event, 15 months later, will clearly be bigger and better than the original. The inaugural staging was paired with the Donald Ross Centennial ...

Unless your name is Vince India the 69th playing of the Illinois Open will likely be an easily forgettable experience. Annually the biggest tournament for Illinois residents, this year’s version was a weather nightmare. Heavy rains delayed the first and second rounds. The weather cleared for the third round, but it couldn’t start until second-round ...

The Illinois PGA Championship has been Mike Small’s personal playground for nearly two decades and there’s no reason to think that the 96th playing of the tournament this month at Stonewall Orchard in Grayslake should be any different. The University of Illinois men’s coach has won the IPGA title a record 12 times, his first coming ...

This week’s Illinois Open will be hard-pressed to duplicate the drama provided in the Western Amateur, which concluded on Saturday with one of the most dramatic championship matches in the event’s 116-year history. Cole Hammer, an incoming freshman at the University of Texas, was 4-up on Alabama senior-to-be Davis Riley with eight holes to play at ...

It’s been quite a while since Sunset Ridge had had a moment in the sun tournament-wise. The private club in Northfield hosted the Western Open in 1972. While Sunset Ridge hosted Illinois PGA stroke play events, U.S. Golf Association qualifiers and high school tournaments in subsequent years, it has been without such a high-profile event for ...

Scott McCarron may be a battled-hardened mainstay on PGA Tour Champions, but he anticipates a unique feeling when he opens play in the Constellation Senior Players Championship at Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park. “It’ll be the first time I’ve defended a title in a major,’’ said McCarron, looking ahead to the July 12-15 tournament – ...

Patrick Flavin’s amateur career is going to end with a bang after all. He earned a coveted place in the Sweet 16 of the 116th Western Amateur on Thursday at Sunset Ridge Country Club in Northfield and his professional debut at next week’s Illinois Open looks much more promising than it did a week ago. “I ...

Two years ago Hannah Kim tied for third in the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open. Last year she was the runner-up. So, guess what the former Northwestern standout did to climax the 24th playing of the IWO on Wednesday at Mistwood, in Romeoville? Kim, the stalwart of coach Emily Fletcher’s powerhouse Wildcat teams of the ...

PGA Tour Champions had become a showcase for Bernhard Langer the last few years, especially at its Constellation Senior Players Championship. That’s no longer the case. At 60 Langer isn’t the dominant player he once was, and Sunday he wasn’t up to the task with another chance to win one of the circuit’s most prestigious ...

Illinois men’s coach Mike Small, who started the day tied for fifth, was no threat for the title in Sunday’s final round of the Constellation Senior Players Championship at Exmoor, but there was a bright side. Small picked up his biggest check on either the PGA Tour or PGA Tour champions. He earned $67,200 for ...

Anybody who follows golf in Illinois shouldn’t be surprised when Mike Small gets into contention in a tournament, but when he puts himself in position to win a major title on PGA Tour Champions, well, that’s another matter. The Illinois men’s coach did just that on Saturday, shooting a third-round 66 at Exmoor Country Club in ...

The Constellation Senior Players Championship, in progress at Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park, could be the last major golf championship in the Chicago area for quite awhile. None of the pro tours have such a tournament scheduled here after the last putt drops at Exmoor on Sunday. On PGA Tour Champions, however, majors are ...

Illinois coach Mike Small started Friday’s second round of the Constellation Senior Players Championship in a tie for the lead and then made birdies on his first two holes. The good times didn’t last for long, however. Small dropped back after that and finished with a 71. That didn’t knock him out of contention going ...

Scotland’s Trish Johnson is the only woman to have won a major senior tournament. She won the only one – the first Senior LPGA Championship last fall – and she got off to a good start on making it two-for-two in Thursday’s first round of the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf ...

So far the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open has been a feel-good story — the long-overdue creation of a national championship for women golfers who have passed their 50th birthday. They’re delighted the U.S. Golf Association added the event to its schedule, and it’s brought a lot of former professional and amateur competitors together again. ...

WHEATON, IL. –The inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open, which teed off on Thursday in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, has been a celebration of women’s golf. It resembled a high school reunion, too, with the best pros and amateurs of the past re-connecting during three days of practice rounds and pre-tournament activities. More than anything, ...

It isn’t that Mike Small hasn’t gotten into big golf tournaments before. The super successful men’s coach at the University of Illinois has remained a competitive player in large part by taking advantage of sponsor’s exemptions. Small didn’t get an invitation to this week’s Constellation Senior Players Championship, which tees off at Exmoor Country Club ...

Golf was a different game when Pat Bradley won the ultimate title available to her, the U.S. Women’s Open. She did it at LaGrange Country Club in 1981, coming from three strokes behind in the last round to post a 66 and beat out Beth Daniel and Kathy Whitworth. It was the crowning ...

Watching the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship wrap up on Sunday created good vibes for Steve Jouzapaitis, the owner of Kemper Lakes. What was once one of America’s most prominent golf venues could be again, following a successful staging of a major championship. “I expected more issues and things to address, but everything was so smooth,’’ ...

The possibility is remote, but China’s Shanshan Feng – in a tie for 54th place at the start of Saturday’s third round of the 64th KPMG Women’s PGA Championship – could still win the title on Sunday and regain her place as the No. 1-ranked player in women’s golf. Feng demonstrated on Saturday what one good ...

Danielle Kang began the defense of her title in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship Thursday in less than impressive fashion. She shot 73 at soggy Kemper Lakes, and it was not a pretty site. At one point Kang was doubled over in pain, the cause of which she suspected was the waffles she had for ...

Michelle Wie’s days as a young phenom are over. In her early years she did things very few women players ever did, competing against the best women in her mid-teenage years and later taking on the men in a few PGA Tour events that included two appearances in the John Deere Classic. With five wins on ...

The champion will defend at this week’s 64th KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Kemper Lakes. There was some doubt about that when Danielle Kang pulled out after 11 holes at the Meijer Classic in Michigan two weeks ago, citing only “personal reasons.’’ Last week Kang didn’t seem ready for a major title defense either. She ...

Sabrina Bonanno of Norridge and Jessica Yuen of Bolingbrook were dominant golfers in the Illinois high school ranks and have been solid college players. Starting Tuesday, however, they’ll be experiencing something new and different as far as competition goes. Both are in the select 120-player field in the 118th Women’s Western Amateur at Mistwood ...

Scott Cassin has been the tournament director of previous eight Web.com Tour events played at Chicago golf courses, and he never had to experience a sudden death playoff — until Sunday, that is. Chase Wright, in what might be the last playing of the Rust-Oleum Championship at Ivanhoe Club, rolled in a five-foot birdie putt ...

Nothing much went according to form in Saturday’s third round of the Web.com Tour’s Rust-Oleum Championship at Ivanhoe Club, and it’ll be much the same on Sunday – at least at the start of the final round. The probability of inclement weather led tournament organizers to schedule play in threesomes off both the Nos. 1 ...

Former Masters champions don’t usually play in Web.com Tour events like this week’s Rust-Oleum Championship at Ivanhoe Club. Mike Weir, the Canadian left-handed golfer who won the 2003 Masters, made it a point of coming this year, however, and Friday he was glad he did. “Other than the Canadian Open I probably won’t play in ...

The 156 starters in Thursday’s $600,000 Rust-Oleum Championship at Ivanhoe Club included six Chicago area players and two more who played collegiately at Illinois. None were a threat to first-round leaders Andrew Novak, of Raleigh, N.C., He claimed the 18-hole lead with a 7-under par 65. However, four of the locals got off to solid ...

The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, coming to Kemper Lakes in Kildeer from June 26 to July 1, is the biggest golf tournament coming to the Chicago area this season and it figures to be the biggest for many years to come. Formerly called the LPGA Championship, this tournament is – with the U.S. Women’s Open – ...

PALM HARBOR, Florida – The Valspar Championship, the PGA Tour stop that tees off here on Thursday (TODAY) has its best field ever. Tiger Woods and Rory McElroy are here for the first time and Jordan Spieth is also on hand. Oh, yes. Dylan Meyer is here, too. While his Illini teammates were competing ...

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida – Tiger Woods made a last-minute decision to enter this week’s Honda Classic, the PGA Tour stop closest to his home in nearby Jupiter, FL. He didn’t have much of a choice, though. The Masters is only six weeks away, and being ready for it has been Woods’ main goal in ...

BOCA RATON, Florida – Ten Broeck was once a prominent name in Chicago golf, with three brothers winning titles in either the Illinois Open or Illinois State Amateur. Lance, youngest of the three, proved to be the best and – at 62 years old – he can still compete with the best on PGA Tour ...

PALM HARBOR, Florida – The spotlight was on defending champion Adam Hadwin at the media kickoff for next month’s Valspar Championship, but tournament director Tracy West made the most news. One of only two women to hold tournament director’s position on the PGA Tour, West announced the participation of some top international players for the March ...

BOCA RATON, Florida – PGA Tour Champions had a popular kickoff to its season with the Allianz Championship on the North Course at Broken Sound Golf Club. That sponsorship ended after the 12th playing of the event last year, but – other than a name change to the Boca Raton Championship – the event ...

Marc Leishman is hardly a household name in the golf world but – if he can hold his game together – he will likely win the BMW Championship today and be in a great position to win the FedEx Cup’s $10 million bonus next week in Atlanta. The question is, can he hold his game together? Leishman ...

Another Australian golfer may be leading the BMW Championship, but the story halfway through the third of four FedEx Cup Playoff events has been Jason Day. Day was the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer at the start of 2017. Then things went downhill, but they’re definitely on the upswing entering today’s Round 3 of the ...

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina – It’s definitely a competition, but it also has the friendly touches of an outing as well. The Myrtle Beach World Amateur Handicap Championship is golf event like no other. With over 3,000 playing in the same community at the same time, a case could be made that it’s the biggest ...

The Illinois PGA Championship has brought together the area’s top club professionals for 95 years, and Wednesday’s wrapup to the latest 54-hole test was one of the strangest. Only one player seemed to want to win it. Adam Schumacher, in his fourth season as an assistant pro at Indian Hill Club in Winnetka, went on ...

Patrick Flavin was hoping that his six-stroke lead going into Wednesday’s final round of the 68th Illinois Open at The Glen Club, in Glenview, would be enough to get him through the final 18. It wasn’t. Flavin wasn’t as sharp as he was in the first two days, when he shot a pair of 64s, but ...

This could be really big. Just six players have won titles in both the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open, and only David Ogrin swept both tournaments in the same year. That was 37 years ago. Today Ogrin, who continued on to a solid career on the PGA Tour, could get some company. Highwood’s Patrick Flavin, ...

The Western Amateur golf tournament has been played for 115 years, and it never had a championship match as dramatic as the one that Norman Xiong and Doc Redman put on Saturday at Skokie Country Club in Glencoe. Xiong won it on the fourth playoff hole when Redman missed a 12-foot par-saving putt. Until Saturday ...

The 115th Western Amateur was hardly a rousing success for the seven Chicago players among the 156 invitees to the prestigious event at Skokie Country Club in Glencoe. Only Nick Hardy, the senior-to-be at Illinois from Northbrook, advanced to the Sweet 16 during Thursday’s 36-hole day that concluded stroke play qualifying. Hardy shot 67-69 in the ...

What a difference a day makes. On Wednesday Jordan Hahn shot a 61 – the lowest round in the 87-year history of the Illinois State Amateur as well as the best ever recorded at Calumet Country Club, which opened its doors in 1901. On that magical day Hahn, a University of Wisconsin golfer from Spring Grove, was ...

Aimee Neff had good memories from winning the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open as an amateur in 2008 and 2009. Now an assistant coach at Vanderbilt University, she suggested that one of her players, Alexandra Farnsworth, use the IWO as a tuneup for her senior season at the Nashville, Tenn., school. Farnsworth took Neff’s advice ...

SILVIS, Ill. – Illinois golf and Bryson DeChambeau seem to be a perfect fit. DeChambeau won the U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields in 2015 and now he’s also the champion of the John Deere Classic. The JDC, in fact, produced his first victory on the PGA Tour. Few doubted that DeChambeau would be a ...

SILVIS, Ill. – If local players should shine at any PGA Tour event, it’d be at the John Deere Classic – the only annual stop on golf’s premier circuit in Illinois. Two are doing just fine through three rounds of this year’s $5.6 million tournament that concludes today. Whether either Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman or Northbrook’s ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The first Senior LPGA Championship presented by Old National Bank had a lot of things – historical significance. television coverage, beautiful weather. The Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort received the world-wide attention it has long deserved. What the inaugural staging didn’t have was suspense. England’s Trish Johnson, winner of The ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Scotland’s Trish Johnson described the golf she played in the second round of the Senior LPGA Championship on Tuesday as “rubbish.’’ Still, when the day was over on the rugged Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort, Johnson’s lead dropped only one stroke from the start of the day. She ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Monday’s first round of the Senior LPGA Championship was more about history than anything else. Winds gusting to 33 miles per hour prevented spectacular scoring – with one exception. Scotland’s Trish Johnson, no stranger to the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort, made five birdies in her last 12 holes to ...

July’s 87th playing of the Illinois State Amateur will be – at the very least – different. The prestigious championship will be contested over 72 holes from July 18-20 at Calumet Country Club in Homewood. None of the 86 previous stagings of the State Am were played at Calumet, though the private layout is one of ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – It all began with Nancy Lopez smashing the ceremonial first tee shot to kick off the inaugural Donald Ross Centennial Classic on Friday. While the 144 Symetra Tour players were starting to tee off on the Donald Ross Course Lopez was hurrying over to the nearby Pete Dye Course to participate in ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – It all begins on Friday, the most innovative tournament concept in recent golf – and not just the women’s version. The Symetra Tour, the Ladies PGA Tour’s qualifying circuit, will hold a $200,000 tournament on the Donald Ross Course at French Lick Resort starting on Friday to kickoff off six straight days ...

An American scored a rare victory in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship on Sunday – but Danielle Kang wasn’t the one you would have expected. Only four Americans have won the title in the last 20 years, and Lexi Thompson, Stacy Lewis and even Michelle Wie would have seemed the most likely to do the honors. Lewis ...

OLYMPIA FIELDS, IL. – Danielle Kang and Chella Choi are regulars on the LPGA Tour but have only one victory between them on the premier circuit in women’s golf. Still, they are the co-leaders in the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship – the second of the LPGA’s five majors of 2017. Both hit the 54-hole stop ...

Jiyai Shin doesn’t play on the LPGA Tour much anymore – but it’s certainly not due to a lack of talent. Her 7-under-par 64 on Saturday at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Olympia Fields proved that. Shin, from South Korea, was paired with American star Stacy Lewis in the third round but both were ...

The biggest names in women’s golf were notably absent from the top of the leaderboard on Thursday during Round 1 of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Olympia Fields. Korean Chella Choi, a morning starter, shot a 5-under-par 66 on Olympia Fields’ North Course and another Korean, Amy Yang, was at 5-under after playing 17 holes ...

Michelle Wie finished her first round at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship with a big smile on her face – and with good reason. She shot a 3-under-par 68, another indication that her game is improving. Wie hasn’t won since the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst and by her own admission her play in 2016 ...

Women’s golf has a new No. 1 player going into today’s start of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club. So Yeon Ryu of South Korea took over the top spot in the Rolex Rankings this week following her victory on Sunday in the Wal-Mart Northwest Arkansas Championship. She supplanted Ariya Jutanugarn, ...

Phil Mickelson obviously won’t be playing in this week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Olympia Fields but – just as was the case at last week’s U.S. Open – he was still part of the show. Mickelson’s participation in the Open at Erin Hills was in limbo until he formally withdrew to attend his daughter’s high ...

ERIN, Wis. – Brian Harman didn’t lose Sunday’s U.S. Open. Brooks Koepka just won it. That’s how Harman sees it. The turning point came on Erin Hills’ back nine after Harman made bogeys at Nos. 12 and 13. “Then I made the birdie at 14 and he birdies 14, 15 and 16,’’ said Harman. ...

ERIN, Wis. – Johnny Miller, the golf analyst for NBC, was impressed by Justin Thomas’ 63 in Saturday’s third round of the U.S. Open, especially the 9-under-par aspect to it. Miller shot the first 63 in the Open 44 years ago, and his score was 8-under on a par-71 course. “Justin Thomas is a lot like ...

ERIN, Wis. — Away from the play on the course it’s been one thing after another for the U.S. Golf Association to deal with at this 117th U.S. Open. On Thursday it was a blimp crash a half-mile from the course. On Friday the USGA announced that E.Coli bacteria had been detected in ...

ERIN, Wis. – Phil Mickelson ended the suspense before first round play began in the 117rh U.S. Open. He officially withdrew from the championship, ending speculation that he might make a dramatic last minute arrival at the first tee. Mickelson had said he would skip the Open to attend his daughter Amanda’s high school graduation ...

Stephan Jaeger took care of business on Sunday, nursing a four-stroke lead at the start of the day to nab a two-stroke win in the $600,000 Rust-Oleum Championship. Now it’s on to the U.S. Open. The Germany-born Jaeger survived a 36-hole U.S. Open sectional qualifier on Monday before claiming the $108,000 first prize in the ...

With winds blowing steadily at 25 miles per hour and gusting to 35 at times Saturday didn’t figure to be a good day for scoring at the Rust-Oleum Championship. A couple players apparently didn’t get that memo, however. Alexandre Rocha, who started the day in a tie for 52nd place, shot an 8-under-par 64 and climbed ...

The Illinois PGA pros used to dominate their amateur counterparts in the annual Radix Cup matches at Oak Park County Club, but no more. Though the IPGA owns a 35-19-2 overall edge the amateurs won for the 10th time in the last 18 meetings on Wednesday. The CDGA’s best took a 10-8 victory. Neither team, ...

If any player should have received a special invitation to the first U.S. Open ever played in Wisconsin it would be Steve Stricker. He won 12 PGA Tour events including the 1997 Western Open and three straight John Deere Classics from 2009-11. He’s also the current U.S. Presidents Cup captain. U.S. Golf Association leaders, however, ...

Illinois didn’t play its best golf on Monday in the final round of stroke play at the NCAA Championships. Coach Mike Small even had to talk tough to his players late in the round at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. “But that was exactly what we needed. We needed someone in our face,’’ said ...

The individual champion will be crowned Monday in the NCAA men’s golf championship at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, and that player could well be Illinois junior Dylan Meyer. Meyer starts the fourth round in a tie for third among the individuals, three strokes behind Scottie Scheffler of Texas. Scheffler, after three straight ...

The miserable weather that plagued the NCAA women’s golf championship last week unfortunately carried over to the men’s event as well. Friday’s first round of the men’s competition at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove couldn’t be completed, and Big Ten champion Illinois is one of the teams with holes left to play today before ...

A national championship eluded the Northwestern women’s golf team Wednesday, but you wouldn’t have known it by their post-tournament meeting with the media. It was non-stop clowning until coach Emily Fletcher was called on to reflect on the weeks’ surprising developments. NU had a so-so regular season, was dethroned as Big Ten champion and finished second ...

Saturday was not a good day for all the top women golfers who are visiting for two big tournaments. Both the NCAA Division I Women’s Championship at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove and the $300,000 Red Nose Walgreen’s Charity Classic, for players on the LPGA Legends Tour, were rained out. No balls were struck at Rich ...

The Northwestern women’s golf team couldn’t repeat as conference champions; the Wildcats were runner-up to Michigan State. And, they couldn’t win their NCAA regional, either. NU was second to Alabama in that one. Coach Emily Fletcher’s team was no bridesmaid in Friday’s first round of the NCAA Women’s Championship, however. The day may have been ...

The golf version of the NCAA Championships tees off Friday at Rich Harvest Farms. The women go first in the competition that will keep the private layout in Sugar Grove a busy place until the last putt drops in the men’s tournament on May 31. Northwestern is the “home team’’ in the women’s competition. Coach ...

There was a sharp contrast between the players in Thursday’s final of the 66th Illinois PGA Match Play Championship at Kemper Lakes in Kildeer. Both Danny Mulhearn, the head professional at Glen Oak in Glen Ellyn, and Jim Billiter, in his first year as Kemper’s head man, were past champions of the event – but that’s ...

The first tee shot of 117th U.S. Open at Wisconsin’s Erin Hills course, is still five weeks away but the battle to get there got into full swing this week with one notable surprise. Northwestern freshman Everton Hawkins not only survived one of the local qualifying rounds, he was also the medalist. The U.S. Golf Association ...

Kemper Lakes, for 28 years, has been a focal point for tournament golf in the Chicago area and it’ll again host the first big local tournament of the season this month. The 66th staging of the Illinois PGA Match Play Championship, however, will have some new looks. Within the last year Kemper Lakes has completed a ...

Northwestern and Illinois were both selected to play in the NCAA women’s golf championship, the finals of which will be played at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove next month. To get to Rich Harvest, however, both teams must survive regional tournaments. Coach Emily Fletcher’s Northwestern team was awarded the No. 3 seed in a regional ...

ORLANDO, Florida – Tuesday is usually the quiet day at PGA Tour stops. It’s the time in between pro-am days when players have the course and practice facilities to themselves to get ready for the start of competition on Thursday. That wasn’t the case at Bay Hill Club Tuesday, as players, officials and spectators braced ...

PALM HARBOR, Florida – The Masters, the year’s first major golf championship, is just a month away and the Chicago’s top two PGA Tour players haven’t qualified as yet. This week’s stop — the Valspar Championship on Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead course –figures to give both Luke Donald and Kevin Streelman a boost, however. Neither are off ...

BOCA RATON, Florida – This week’s first full-field event on the PGA Champions circuit couldn’t come at a better place. The Old Course at Broken Sound, home to the Allianz Championship, is one of the best courses on the 50-and-over circuit. In its 11th season, the Allianz has been the Champions’ season-opening event every year since ...

Here is what’s wrong with the BMW Championship, which is coming up Sept. 8-11 at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis. For one, it’s not Chicago based. When the Western Golf Association replaced the history-rich Western Open in favor of the BMW Championship in 2007 that ended a 45-year run for Chicago being an annual PGA Tour ...

Mike Small, the very successful men’s golf coach at the University of Illinois, won another Illinois PGA Championship on Wednesday. So what else is new? Actually Small’s record 12th victory in the 94th playing of the tournament wasn’t like any of the others except for the fact that it came on the South Course at ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The longest playoff in the 16-year history of The Legends Tour and the first in the Legends Championship’s four-year run was an epic, no doubt about it. England’s Trish Johnson battled defending champion Juli Inkster through six extra holes on Sunday before an Inkster letdown handed the title and $37,700 first prize ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Becky Iverson started fast, Juli Inkster finished strong and Trish Johnson’s consistency was critical. In the end they shared the lead after Saturday’s first round of The Legends Championship on the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort. Rounds started off both the Nos. 1 and 10 tees after afternoon rains entered ...

SILVIS, IL. – This was one strange John Deere Classic. First there was the PGA Tour’s decision to schedule the 46-year old tournament opposite the Olympics instead of July as usual. Then there was the weather; numerous rain delays wreaked havoc with the tournament schedule for three days. And then there was the lack of drama ...

SILVIS, IL. – Finally, after two days of stormy weather that resulted in over three inches of rain pelting the TPC Deere Run course, the John Deere Classic is back on track and — conditions being what they are now – today’s final round is going to be a birdie-filled shootout. The JDC has always ...

SILVIS, IL. – This 46th playing of the John Deere Classic has lots of golf remaining. Because three inches of rain fell on the TPC Deere Run course over the last two days, the second round is barely half over and will have to be completed Saturday morning before the third round can begin. That aside, ...

SILVIS, IL. – The John Deere Classic doesn’t draw one of the best fields on the PGA Tour, and this week’s 46th playing of the tournament has to contend with the first Olympic Games golf competition since 1904. The JDC does have Steve Stricker, however – and that counts for a lot. Stricker has won the ...

SILVIS, IL. – Organizers of what is now established as the John Deere Classic have coped with a variety of challenges for 45 years as a small market tournament on the PGA Tour – but never was the challenge anything like this one. Golf will be contested at the Olympic Games for the first time since ...

Dylan Meyer wasn’t one of the high-profile players on the University of Illinois’ powerhouse golf teams the last couple seasons. New pros Charlie Danielson and Thomas Detry filled that role. When school resumes later this month, though, it figures to be Meyer’s turn – and on Saturday he proved ready for the challenge. About to enter his ...

Friday was not a good day for the local players who made it to match play in the 114th Western Amateur at Knollwood Club in Lake Forest. Northbrook’s Nick Hardy lost in the Round of 16 to Davis Riley, of Hattiesburg, Miss., 4 and 2 and Doug Ghim of Arlington Heights, survived his first match in ...

Just qualifying for the Sweet 16 at the Western Amateur is a great accomplishment, and Northbrook’s Nick Hardy and Arlington Heights’ Doug Ghim both did that on Thursday at Knollwood Club in Lake Forest. They were only bit players in the third and fourth round of the stroke play portion in the 114th playing of this ...

Doug Ghim lives in Arlington Heights but the Chicago area rarely gets a chance to see how good he is. Wednesday, though, was one of those days. Ghim started fast and finished strong to climb into a tie for second place after two rounds of the stroke play competition at the 114th Western Amateur at ...

Golf has been played in the Chicago area for 124 years, and – as far as local players go — there’s never been a two-week stretch quite like the one that ended with a rousing Illinois Open victory by Elgin’s Carlos Sainz Jr. on Wednesday. Those two weeks — in tournaments played on three courses ...

Usually a golfer makes his mark in the Illinois Open and uses it as a springboard to earn a regular spot on the PGA Tour. For Carlos Sainz, though, it’s been the other way around – at least for now. Sainz had a strong showing in the 2013 Illinois Open, losing the title to Joe ...

The 67th Illinois Open had two co-leaders after Monday’s first round, and neither was exactly a surprise. Christian Heavens, a touring pro from Fairview Heights near St. Louis, had the best score in the seven state-wide qualifying rounds – an 8-under-par 64 at Effingham Country Club on June 24 – and that good play carried over ...

The UL International Crown may wrap up on Sunday, but there’s no break on the area tournament calendar. The 67th Illinois Open begins its three-day run on Monday at two St. Charles clubs, Royal Fox and Royal Hawk. Defending champion is Bolingbrook’s David Cooke, who posted the best 54-hole score (199) and best score in ...

It’s official. The United States is the best women’s golfing nation. The UL International Crown was created to determine that very thing, and Team USA was up to the challenge in the second playing of the event at the Merit Club. In 2014, the event’s inaugural year, the U.S. couldn’t survive the best ball matches ...

Team USA remained in last place in four-team Pool B at the UL International Crown on Friday, but there’s still hope for the home team in this global team event that determines its champion on Sunday. Thursday’s first round of matches was a disaster, the U.S. going 0-2 against England. Friday’s second round showing against ...

No golfer in the 86-year history of the Illinois State Amateur came close to doing what Northbrook’s Nick Hardy did this week at St. Charles Country Club. A 64-65 finish during Thursday’s concluding double round enabled Hardy to post a 260 total for the event’s 72 holes. The tournament record had been 270 by Bob ...

The 22nd Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open shaped up as a two-player duel between a pair of Big Ten players before Wednesday’s final round even began. Illinois’ Stephanie Miller and Wisconsin’ Brooke Ferrell owned a three-shot lead on the rest of the field entering the last 18 at Mistwood, in Romeoville, and they matched shots playing ...

The Chicago area was at the forefront of women’s golf long before the creation of the Ladies Professional Golf Association in 1950. The arrival of the UL International Crown this month at the Merit Club is just the latest of the big women’s events staged in this neck of the woods. Granted, the UL International Crown ...

The eight teams that will play in next months’ UL International Crown at the Merit Club were determine via the world ranks a month ago. On Monday the four players who will compete for each team were unveiled. Players had until Sunday’s conclusion of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in Seattle to get their rankings ...

Sunday’s final round of the $600,000 Rust-Oleum Championship figured to be a two-man battle. No one was within six strokes of front-runners Josh Teater and Dan Woltman at the start of play and Max Homa was even further back than that. Homa, though, didn’t see such a result as a foregone conclusion. He started the ...

The $600,000 Rust-Oleum Championship is Josh Teater’s to lose on Sunday. There’s no doubt about that. But he’d better look out for his surprise playing partner. Dan Woltman earned his spot in the final pairing at Ivanhoe Club after shooting 67 in Saturday’s third round. He stands three strokes behind Teater’s front-running 204, which is ...

Josh Teater was a PGA Tour member from 2010 until 2014, then things changed, After making 144 PGA starts and posting 11 top-10 finishes, he could get into only 11 tournaments on the PGA Tour last year. He wound up playing in 10 on the developmental Web.com Tour to supplement his schedule and that didn’t ...

Austin Cook may have come the farthest in the shortest amount of time to play in the Rust-Oleum Championship, but it paid off in Thursday’s first round. Cook completed in the Web.com Tour’s stop in the Dominican Republic on Sunday. Then came a three-plus hour flight to Memphis with a longer-than-expected layover in Atlanta. Then ...

Unfortunately Illinois female golfers don’t have the same, more-than-ample, competitive opportunities that their male counterparts enjoy. This June, though, offers the first of the annual highlights for the women’s season in the state. The Illinois Women’s Amateur will be played for the 83rd time at Forest Hills Country Club in Rockford from June 14-17. You’ve got ...

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. – This really didn’t make much sense. Rocco Mediate had failed to break 70 in all 22 of his rounds on the Champions Tour this year – and the 50-and-over circuit is known for yielding much lower scores. Not only that, but Mediate had never won a major title on either the ...

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. – Rocco Mediate may be one of the more colorful players in professional golf, but – until this week’s 77th Senior PGA Championship – he had gone eight years without contending for a major title. Mediate, despite having a solid career, has never won one of golf’s big ones. In his last ...

Very few players in Illinois PGA tournaments walk their rounds. Kyle Bauer, the 11-year head pro at the Glen View club, is one who does. He doesn’t think it puts him at a competitive disadvantage, and Thursday he proved it. Bauer captured the 65th playing of the Illinois PGA Match Play Championship at Kemper ...

PALM HARBOR, Florida – The Copperhead, one of the most popular courses on the PGA Tour, is taking on all golfers again – and this is a big, big deal. Copperhead, a Larry Packard design that opened in 1972, has hosted a professional golf tournament for the past 25 years. It was big news when a ...

The Ladies PGA confirmed a new site for next year’s UL International Crown on Tuesday. It’ll be played July 21-24 at Merit Club in Libertyville. Merit Club hasn’t been the site of a significant competition since it hosted the U.S. Women’s Open in 2000, a major event that was won by Australian Karrie Webb. “Everyone at ...

The biggest event on Chicago’s golf calendar for 2016 is off. At least the UL International Crown won’t be held as planned at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. According to a surprise announcement by the Ladies Professional Golf Assn., the LPGA and Rich Harvest Farms owner Jerry Rich “mutually agreed’’ that the event ...

Ivanhoe Club will host the Rust-Oleum Championship — a full field event on the PGA Tour’s satellite circuit – from June 6-12 in 2016. The event was played at Lakewood Country Club’s West course in suburban Cleveland the last two years. Shane Bertsch was the champion of last year’s Rust-Oleum Championship, which offered a $600,000 ...

As has been the case in all four rounds of the BMW Championship, Sunday was Jason Day’s day. He led the $8.25 million championship wire to wire, but his victory – Day’s fourth in his last six starts – had more meaning. Not only did Day stay atop the FedEx Cup Playoff standings, he also ...

It would have been asking a lot for Jason Day to keep scoring the way he had been during the first two days of the BMW Championship. After all, the 27-year old Australian led by four strokes after shooting a course record 10-under-par 61 in Round 1 at Conway Farms in Lake Forest and his ...

Jason Day’s one shot at shooting a first-round 59 in the BMW Championship fizzled Friday morning. The 27-year old Australian put his approach from the rough on the green, but not in the hole, and wound up settling for a 61 in the rain-delayed first round at Conway Farms in Lake Forest. Day still owned ...

Thursday produced a great first round at the BMW Championship – but it was a strange one, too, and it’s not quite over. Sound confusing? Well, it certainly was. Jason Day, the top-ranked player in the third tournament of these FedEx Cup Playoffs, was cruising and his playing partner, No. 2-ranked Jordan Spieth, was showing the same ...

Never has the future of professional golf been put on display as dramatically as it will be on Thursday and Friday at Conway Farms. The Lake Forest private facility has a dream threesome teeing of at 11:53 a.m. Thursday and 12:59 p.m. on Friday. That’s when Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler begin their ...

Funniest thing about the Gardner Heidrick Pro-Am, the last tuneup for the PGA Tour stars competing in this week’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms in Lake Forest. The player grabbing the most attention wasn’t one of the professional golfers. It was actor/comedian Bill Murray, a long-time favorite in such golf events. Not only did Murray ...

Jim Furyk wasn’t happy to hear about the changes made to the Conway Farms course in preparation for this week’s BMW Championship. “Bummer,’’ he said. “Now I’ve got to learn it all over again.’’ Well, hardly. Tuesday is practice day for the 70 players who will begin the 72-hole competition at the Lake Forest layout on Thursday. ...

The PGA Tour’s visit to Chicago isn’t an annual thing anymore, but when the circuit does come it’s a big deal. That’ll be the case this week when the BMW Championship returns to Conway Farms in Lake Forest. This week’s $8.25 million event, which tees off on Thursday, is the second of three scheduled stagings ...

Jim Billiter and Matt Slowinski were cart partners in Wednesday’s final round of the 93rd Illinois PGA Championship. Slowinski called it “a good pairing’’ and said they had a “great time.’’ It was Billiter, though, who hung on to claim the $10,000 first prize in the first big tournament played on Medinah Country Club’s No. ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Two of the greatest names in the history of women’s golf were champions again on Sunday in The Legends Championship, played on the rugged Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort. Juli Inkster won the main tournament for players who have passed their 45th birthday. Jan Stephenson took the Super Legends ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Sunday’s final round of The Legends Championship is loaded at the top of the leaderboard with eight players within one shot at the top of the leaderboard. That select group includes a recently named World Golf Hall of Famer (Dame Laura Davies), a recently-named Legends Hall of Famer (Rosie Jones), the current ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The pre-tournament festivities ended Friday night. Now 58 members of the LPGA Legends Tour will battle for two days in the circuit’s biggest tournament over the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort. Players arrived here in time for practice rounds on Thursday and Friday was devoted to the day-long pro-am competition. ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. — The Legends Championship tees off at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort this week, and the defending champion is ready. Laurie Rinker arrived at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, in time for a Thursday practice round. She may be a bit on the tired side after enduring a weather delay ...

Rain delays, caddie changes, a bad tee shot at a critical moment. Nothing was going to keep Bryson DeChambeau from joining some of golf’s most elite company on Sunday. In winning the 115th U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields Country Club DeChambeau joined Jack Nicklaus (1961), Phil Mickelson (1990), Tiger Woods (1996) and Ryan Moore (2004) as ...

Only four golfers have won the NCAA individual title and the U.S. Amateur in the same year, and three of those are household names. Bryson DeChambeau can join the select group – one that includes Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Ryan Moore — with a victory on Sunday at Olympia Fields Country Club. ...

The 115th U.S. Amateur started with over 7,000 entries world-wide, and 312 qualified for this week’s finals at Olympia Fields Country Club. Now there are only four players left. Saturday’s semifinals pit Japan’s Kenta Konishi against Derek Bard, a University of Virginia golfer, and Bryson DeChambeau, the NCAA champions from Southern Methodist, against Sean ...

It didn’t take long to realize that Thursday wouldn’t be a good day for the Illinois players still competing in the 115th U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields Country Club. University of Illinois golfer Alex Burge was in the first match of the day in the Round of 32. He lost 2-up when his opponent, Kyle Mueller ...

Illinois coach Mike Small was delighted that four of his players were among the 312 qualifiers for this week’s 115th U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields Country Club. He was even more happy that two of them, Alex Burge and Thomas Detry, were among the winners in Wednesday’s first round of matches. Both had to do it ...

Alex Burge and David Cooke both won big tournaments this summer, and now they’re poised to win something much bigger. Though it’s not official yet, Burge and Cooke most likely survived the 36-hole stroke play portion of the 115th U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields Country Club and will be among the 64 qualifiers for the match ...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – No longer is Jason Day the best golfer without a major championship. The 27-year old Australian had been in the conversation for that dubious honor for several years, but he took himself out of it on Sunday by winning the 97th PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. Day had this one coming. He ...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – Featured pairings don’t always work out, but this one was a no-brainer. Rory McIlroy, the No. 1-ranked golfer in the world, played the first two rounds of the 97th PGA Championship with Jordan Spieth, ranked No. 2 after winning the Masters and U.S. Open this year. The third member was Zach ...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – American golfers could complete a sweep of the four major championships on Sunday. That hasn’t happened since 1982 – but don’t count on it happening this time. Yes, Jordan Spieth won the Masters and U.S. Open and Zach Johnson took the British Open. Though Spieth is in contention again, any thought ...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – Dustin Johnson knew the questions would be coming. After all, he blew a chance to win the last PGA Championship staged at Whistling Straits and – though that was five years ago – people into golf don’t forget. Johnson grounded his club in a bunker on the last hole of regulation play ...

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – Usually the PGA of America, PGA Tour, U.S. Golf Assn. and Ladies PGA announce their tournament sites at least five years in advance and, until Wednesday, Chicago seemed largely out of the mix. The USGA has no Chicago tournament scheduled after next week’s U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields and the LPGA had only ...

Dawson Armstrong and Aaron Wise were unlikely finalists – maybe even Sweet 16 qualifiers – when the Western Amateur teed off at Rich Harvest Farms last week. Then again, nothing much was usual in the 113th playing of the championship put on by the Western Golf Assn. Armstrong earned the title with a miracle bunker shot ...

There won’t be any player with local ties in Saturday’s conclusion to the Western Amateur. Charlie Danielson, the University of Illinois stalwart, was eliminated in Friday’s Round of 16 matches at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. With Danielson out, the coveted title in the 113th playing of the championship will go to one of ...

The sense of urgency arrived for the first time at the 113th playing of the Western Amateur on Wednesday, and that was evident with some of the scores posted at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. Most of the 156 starters were eliminated after Wednesday’s second round, as only the low 44 and ties advanced to ...

Madasyn Pettersen, at 15, was the youngest player in the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open at Mistwood, in Romeoville. She was also the best – and by a long shot. Pettersen, who enters her sophomore year at Auburn High School in Rockford in the fall, finished off the 54-hole competition with a 66 and won ...

David Cooke’s victory in the 66th Illinois Open was a run-away. His five-shot victory at Royal Melbourne, in Long Grove, was the biggest since Gary Hallberg’s triumph in 1977. Though the tourney lacked suspense, it was loaded with emotion and another historical touch. Cooke was the first amateur to win the title since Brad Benjamin ...

Monday turned out a big day for the golfers at Conway Farms – but an even bigger one for David Lawrence. The Moline golfer shot a 9-under-par 62 at Royal Melbourne in Long Grove. That’s the lowest round in the 66-year history of the Illinois Open. Lawrence, who has been playing golf’s mini-tour since attending ...

SPRINGFIELD, IL. – A year ago Naperville’s Ray Knoll and Northbrook’s Nick Hardy battled through four playoff holes before Knoll won the Illinois State Amateur title. Knoll couldn’t repeat this year, and Hardy didn’t win, either, but nobody played better than those two during this year’s final round at Panther Creek Country Club on Thursday. ...

SILVIS, IL. – Bring on the British Open. Jordan Spieth is more than ready to claim the third leg of what could be the first modern day golf Grand Slam. The 21-year old Masters and U.S. Open champion won the John Deere Classic for the second time without his best stuff on Sunday, then boarded ...

SILVIS, IL. – Another John Deere Classic hasn’t been won yet and the British Open – the third leg of golf’s Grand Slam — is next week’s target. Still, Jordan Spieth’s game is good enough right now to win them both, no doubt about it. That was underscored on Saturday when the 21-year old Masters and ...

SILVIS, IL. – Second-guessers abounded when Jordan Spieth announced he would return to the John Deere Classic for his last tuneup tournament before next week’s British Open. A large segment of the world-wide golf community felt Spieth was short-changing himself by not heading to Europe a week ahead of his bid for a third straight major ...

The U.S. team in the Palmer Cup certainly didn’t want a repeat of the epic collapse the country’s professionals had in the 2012 Ryder Cup matches at Medinah. In that Ryder Cup the U.S. took a 10-6 lead into the final day’s singles matches and blew it. In the Palmer Cup, a similar team event ...

Beau Hossler vowed even before the Palmer Cup matches began that he wouldn’t be looking ahead to his title defense in August’s Western Amateur. Both competitions are being played at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. The Palmer Cup is a 19-year old team event pitting the college stars of the U.S. against their counterparts ...

Just two weeks ago Thomas Detry was on the popular side, a key player in the University of Illinois’ drive to the semifinals of the NCAA golf tournament in Florida. Now, as a member of the European team in the Palmer Cup matches at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, he’s trying to do in the ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Hinsdale’s Jeff Sluman made a run at the title in the final round of the 76th Senior PGA Championship on Sunday. After making five birdies in his first 10 holes Sluman even thought he had a chance to catch front-runner Colin Montgomerie. “I just played excellent golf, which you have ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The Senior PGA Championship has been played for 75 years and only four players have successfully defended a title. Colin Montgomerie could be the fifth on Sunday. The Scotsman enjoyed a solid career on the European and PGA Tours but never won a major title. That changed when he joined ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Scores were much higher than usual over the first two rounds of the 76th Senior PGA Championship at the Pete Dye Course, but not all the Champions Tour players were suffering. Tom Lehman, who will defend his title in July’s Encompass Championship at North Shore in Glenview, claimed the 36-hole lead after ...

Jim Billiter, a 10-year assistant pro at the Merit Club in Libertyville, won the 64th Illinois PGA Match Play Championship on Monday, climaxing a week in which nothing went as expected at Kemper Lakes in Long Grove. The first major tournament of the Chicago season figured to be another duel between Curtis Malm, the head pro ...

Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman won the traditional Par-3 Contest that precedes the Masters tournament on Wednesday. That’s not necessarily a good thing, because players consider winning the Par-3 a bad omen. No Par-3 winner has ever gone on to win the Masters. In Streelman’s case, though, things might turn out differently. He didn’t take his participation ...

The Illinois PGA, in an effort to stimulate more entries in its biggest annual tournament, announced major changes in the Illinois Open on Friday. For the first time the finals in the 65-year old tournament will be played at two sites – Royal Melbourne in Long Grove and Hawthorn Woods Country Club. The field will also ...

OCALA, FL. – The first event of the LPGA’s 66th season wasn’t held very far from the site of the circuit’s very first tournament, in 1950. That one was at Palma Cella Country Club in Tampa. The 2015 debut also wasn’t far from the organization’s headquarters. It was played at Golden Ocala Golf & ...

WINDERMERE, FL. – Tiger Woods’ return to competitive golf figured to be the most noteworthy event in the sport last week. Now, maybe it wasn’t. Woods played hurt, and tied for last in his Hero World Challenge at Isleworth. Just an hour away his niece, Cheyenne Woods, earned her playing privileges on the LPGA ...

Carlos Sainz Jr., the new PGA Tour member from Elgin, was in position to defend his Chicago Open title Tuesday and Mike Small, the University of Illinois men’s coach, had a chance to win, too. He jumped into a tie for the lead after making five birdies in a row in a furious back nine ...

WEST POINT, MS. – Given the Americans’ lack of success in the last three Ryder Cup matches and the last two Solheim Cups, Sunday’s U.S. victory in the ISPS Handa Cup represented a breath of fresh air. The U.S. had struggled in the previous two Handa Cups, the premier team event put on by the LPGA ...

WEST POINT, MS. – Juli Inkster received a rude welcome in her debut on the LPGA Legends Tour on Saturday. Winner of seven major titles in a Hall of Fame career on the LPGA circuit, Inkster partnered with Meg Mallon in both of her matches in the ninth annual ISPS Handa Cup at Old Waverly Golf ...

WEST POINT, MS. – The ninth playing of the Handa Cup begins Saturday at a most appropriate location. Old Waverly Golf Club is the first site used for the LPGA Legends Tour’s premier team event that had previously hosted a U.S. Women’s Open. Old Waverly hosted the 1999 U.S. Women’s Open 11 years after opening ...

WEST POINT, MS. — This week in golf isn’t all about the Ryder Cup. The LPGA Legends Tour will have its premier team event, the ISPS Handa Cup, going on at the same time. The Handa Cup isn’t as old as its male counterpart, but the U.S. teams in both are in precarious positions. ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The final round of the LPGA Legends Championship was impacted by weather for the second straight year Sunday, and this time it prevented a ball from being struck. Anticipating weather problems, Legends officials scheduled a 7:30 a.m. start of play off both the Nos. 1 and 10 tees, but a night of ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Sherri Steinhauer posted a round for the ages on the LPGA Legends Tour Saturday, but – as good as her 9-under-par 63 was – it wasn’t good enough to give her the lead going into Sunday’s final round of the $500,000 Legends Championship, played on the tricky Pete Dye Course at ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – There’s a tie at the top of the leaderboard after Round 1 of the LPGA Legends Championship, and the co-leaders couldn’t be much more different. Rosie Jones and Lisa Grimes both covered the Pete Dye Course in 3-under-par 69. Jones is one of the stalwarts on the Legends circuit and won last ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The Legends Championship, which made its debut on the Pete Dye Course here last year, is bigger and better for its second staging. It begins on Friday as the climax to a week of festivities designed to celebrate women’s golf. The two-day Alice Dye Invitational drew 112 amateur players from throughout ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – No major golf tournament ever ended quite like the 96th PGA Championship did on Sunday. The finish came in darkness with players from the last two twosomes clustered around the 18th green playing much like a foursome would. There could have been some controversy, but both Phil Mickelson nor Rickie Fowler ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – It’s certainly not a case of Rory McIlroy being unable to win his third straight tournament and second major championship in a row on Sunday. The world’s No. 1-ranked golfer owns a one-stroke lead going into the final round of the PGA Championship at Valhalla. The challenge of closing out another tournament, ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The 96th PGA Championship is only at the midway point, but its two weekend rounds will be lacking something. Tiger Woods won’t be around when the pursuit of front-running Rory McElroy resumes on Saturday. Woods missed the cut after shooting his second straight 74 in Friday’s second round at Valhalla, and that could ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – If you were expecting the big-name American golfers to jump into immediate contention at the 96th PGA Championship on Thursday you would have been disappointed big-time. Tiger Woods, after his dramatic late arrival at Valhalla on Thursday, shot 74. He admitted “that wasn’t very good,’’ but at least he had a better ...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The suspense is over. Tiger Woods showed up at Valhalla on Wednesday, just a few hours before Thursday’s start of the 96th PGA Championship. After a brief practice session promised he’d tee off in Thursday’s first round. Woods left the Bridgestone Invitational after nine holes on Sunday after injuring his back. He returned ...

Rarely, if ever, have Illinois golfers made as big an impression at the Western Amateur as they did last week in the 112th staging of the prestigious tournament at Chicago’s Beverly Country Club. Doug Ghim, of Arlington Heights, tied the course record with a 63 in stroke play qualifying and was the tourney’s medalist – the ...

The 20th Illinois Women’s Open may have seemed like a ho-hum affair. Emily Collins started the final round with a five-stroke lead and won by nine. It wasn’t quite that easy for the University of Oklahoma graduate, however. Collins, in her second tournament as a professional, started double bogey-bogey and her playing partner, Michigan ...

Mistwood’s recently renovated course has proven a tough challenge for the players in the 20th Illinois Women’s Open – with the exception of Emily Collins, that is. Collins, a recent University of Oklahoma graduate preparing for the LPGA qualifying school, posted a 4-under-par 68 in Tuesday’s second round to open a five-stroke lead entering Wednesday’s final ...

Only seven players have won titles in both the Illinois State Amateur, which has been played for 84 years, and the Illinois Open, which just completed its 65th staging. Brad Hopfinger, a Lake Forest resident who attended the University of Iowa before turning pro, was the latest and he joined a selected group – David Ogrin, ...

University of Iowa golfers have won three of the last five Illinois State Amateur golf titles. Now another Hawkeye is poised to claim the Illinois Open crown. Brian Bullington, a Frankfort resident who will be a senior at Iowa in the fall, coped with windy conditions at The Glen Club in Glenview on Tuesday to ...

Monday’s first round of the 65th Illinois Open was full of surprises, the most notable of which was provided by Michael Davan. Davan, from downstate Hoopeston turned pro after playing collegiately at Indiana-Purdue Indianapolis. Starting late in the day he shot a 6-under-par 66 to take a one-stroke lead into Tuesday’s second round at The Glen ...

The reign of college players continued in the 84th Illinois State Amateur on Wednesday, but this time it took a four-hole playoff to decide the champion. Deer Park’s Chadd Slutzky, a 36-year old financial trader, took a two-shot lead into the 36-hole finale of the tournament at Cantigny, in Wheaton. He wilted, finishing solo fourth ...

Chadd Slutzky, a 36-year old financial trader from Deer Park, is in position to reverse a trend in the 84th Illinois State Amateur golf tournament on Thursday. College players have won the prestigious title every year since 2003 but Slutzky was better than all of them in the first two rounds at Cantigny, in Wheaton. ...

SILVIS, IL. – Local heroes Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker were in the hunt and the weather couldn’t have been better. That assured the John Deere Classic its best year for attendance and revenue since tournament director Clair Peterson invited Michelle Wie to spice up the field eight years ago. Johnson and Stricker, though, couldn’t ...

SILVIS, IL. – If ever there was a day for low scoring it was in Saturday’s third round of the John Deere Classic. The course was softened by an overnight downpour, and the lift, clean and place rule was put into effect. Only a light breeze factored into the playing conditions on what has ...

SILVIS, IL. – The John Deere Classic isn’t Zach Johnson’s personal showcase. It just seems that way at times. Johnson, from Cedar Rapids, has long been Iowa’s premier touring pro. He got his start thanks to sponsor exemptions offered by the JDC and he used them well at his closest hometown tournament . Eventually Johnson won ...

It may have been too little too late, but Russ Cochran took more than a mediocre paycheck away from the Encompass Championship on Sunday. The left-handed golfer claimed the tournament 18-hole record with an 8-under-par 64. The previous low round in the Champions Tour event was 65 posted by 2013 champion Craig Stadler and Bob ...

Kirk Triplett wasn’t excited about his Saturday round in the Encompass Championship at North Shore Country Club in Glenview, even though it was a good one. Triplett, an early starter, posted his second straight 5-under-par 67 and his 10-under 134 is three strokes behind leader Tom Lehman entering Sunday’s final round. “If you drive the ball well ...

Kenny Perry won the Champions Tour’s Charles Schwab Cup last year and was the circuit’s only player in action last week when he tied for 28th in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, N.C. At 53 he was the oldest player to make the cut at the Open, but he wasn’t so good in his return ...

The first day of Chicago’s only pro tour stop of the year certainly had its share of twists on Friday. So many, in fact, that Tom Lehman’s 7-under-par 65 was almost an after-thought. Here’s a sampling: In the middle of the first round Tiger Woods announced on his Facebook page that he’s ready to compete again. ...

BENTON HARBOR, MI. – The rap on Colin Montgomerie was that he couldn’t win the big ones. That changed on Sunday at Harbor Shores. Montgomerie finally won a major title and finally won on American soil. In his Hall of Fame career he had done neither until his four-stroke romp in the 75th ...

BENTON HARBOR, MI. – Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie is in the World Golf Hall of Fame, but he has yet to win a tournament in the United States. That could change Sunday when he takes a one-shot lead over Germany’s Bernhard Langer into the final round of the 75th PGA Championship at Harbor Shores. Montgomerie ...

BENTON HARBOR, MI. – Little known foreign players won the last two titles in the Senior PGA Championship, and that could happen again. Japan’s Kiyoshi Murota shot the best score of Friday’s second, holing from off the green twice en route to a 6-under-par 65 – and is in a six-way tie for the lead at ...

Illinois saw its five-year reign as men’s Big Ten golf champion come to an end two weeks ago, but the Illini still have a longer run going. They qualified for the NCAA finals for the seventh straight time on Saturday by winning the Central Regional at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. Coach Mike Small’s ...

Curtis Malm hadn’t even been born when Bill Ogden won three straight Illinois PGA Match Play titles from 1970-72. That’s the last time any player scored a three-peat in the section’s first of four major championships. Malm ended that dryspell when he took a 1-up victory over Medinah teaching pro Travis Johns in the 63rd ...

OLD HICKORY, Tenn. – It took eight tries, but the LPGA Legends Tour finally witnessed a breakthrough in its premier team event on Sunday. The Legends’ U.S.-born players had won the ISPS Handa Cup six straight times and retained it last year after the matches ended in a 24-24 tie at Reunion Resort in Orlando, Fla. ...

OLD HICKORY – Some golf history could be made on Sunday at the LPGA Legends Tour’s ISPS Handa Cup. The World team was winless in the first seven stagings of the team competition that matches LPGA players 45 and over from the U.S. against their Legends counterparts who were born internationally. The U.S. won the ...

. OLD HICKORY, Tenn. – The ISPS Handa Cup is one of the premier events on the LPGA’s Legends Tour and its eighth staging at Hermitage Golf Club on the outskirts of Nashville figures to be something special. In fact, it could result in a breakthrough for the World team. It has never won the Handa ...

HANDA CUP: U.S. Legends have never lost to the World team OLD HICKORY, Tenn. – The biggest season in the 13-year history of the LPGA Legends Tour reaches a climax this week with the eighth playing of the ISPS Handa Cup at Hermitage Golf Club. The international team event features some of the biggest names in women’s ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Lorie Kane let a victory slip away on the LPGA Legends Tour two weeks ago when she lost in a five-hole playoff to Rosie Jones in the Harris Charity Classic in Maine. There was no such negative carryover to Sunday when Kane put herself in position to win again, however. The ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The wind blew harder and from a different direction in Saturday’s second round of the LPGA Legends Championship. Some of the pin positions at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort were more difficult, too. “Add in that Pete Dye designed this place, and that raised it another notch,’’ ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The biggest reason the top golfers on the PGA Tour will be at Conway Farms in Lake Forest this week isn’t because of the $8 million in prize money that’ll be on the line. The Western Golf Assn. conducts its BMW Championship to raise money for its Evans Scholars Foundation. While the 72-hole tournament doesn’t start ...

There were possibilities for Chicago golfers to make significant history in Friday’s final round of the 19th Illinois Women’s Open at Mistwood in Romeoville. Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray tried to become the first professional to win event three times. Burr Ridge’s Samantha Postillion hoped to give her family a fourth IWO titles, her mother Kerry having ...

ILLINOIS WOMEN’S OPEN: Another Jeray-Postillion duel – but with a twist The story lines couldn’t be more appropriate going into Friday’s final round of the 19th Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open at Mistwood in Romeoville. Nicole Jeray, the LPGA Tour veteran from Berwyn, is poised to join amateur Kerry Postillion as the only three-time champions of Illinois’ ...

There were lots of doubts about who would win the 64th Illinois Open during Wednesday’s final round at The Glen Club in Glenview. In fact, no one did. Antioch’s Joe Kinney, who’s been laboring on golf’s mini-tours, clearly showed who was best in the three-man three-hole cumulative score playoff that determined the champion, however. Kinney, 26, ...

Deerfield’s Vince India played his college golf at Iowa and started his professional career this spring on the PGA Latino-American circuit, where his tournaments were in Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. India was right at home on Tuesday in the 64th Illinois Open, however. Opening with a 20-foot putt for eagle ...

ROCKFORD – Tee-K Kelly had an inkling this would be his week at the 83rd Illinois State Amateur golf championship at Aldeen Golf Club. “I told my Dad on the first day that this was the most nervous I’ve been in a long time, because I knew I had a shot to win,’’ he said. ...

SILVIS, IL. – It’s not unusual for golfers to get their first PGA Tour victory at the John Deere Classic. Jordan Spieth became the 19th player in the tourney’s 43-year history to do it on Sunday. Spieth’s win, though, was different from all the others – a lot different. Still two weeks away from his 20th ...

SILVIS, IL. – Could Sunday bring a changing of the guard at the John Deere Classic? Saturday’s developments at TPC Deere Run certainly suggested that’s a strong possibility. Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker, the poster boys for the PGA Tour stop over the last four years, fell off the pace in the third round as ...

SILVIS, IL. – Zach Johnson is not only on the board of directors for the John Deere Classic, he’s also the defending champion. Those roles might seem a burden for the PGA Tour’s leading member from nearby Iowa, but so far Johnson’s kept his focus. He tacked a second round 66 to the 64 he ...

ILL. WOMEN’S AMATEUR: Youngest champion in 80 years is just 16 The Illinois Women’s Golf Assn. has conducted a state amateur championship for 80 years, and this year’s version produced its youngest-ever champion. Bing Singhsumalee, 16, won the tourney in spectacular fashion, chipping in for birdie on the first hole of a sudden death playoff to defeat ...

Craig Stadler’s first Champions Tour win in eight years seemed a foregone conclusion for awhile on Sunday. After all, he had a five-shot lead after playing his first six holes at North Shore Country Club in Glenview. That lead wasn’t so safe, though. A combination of Fred Couples’ birdies and Stadler’s own shaky play turned the ...

ENCOMPASS CHAMPIONSHIP: Stadler’s a surprise leader entering final round Who would have expected Craig Stadler to be the 36-hole leader of the Encompass Championship? Well, certainly not Craig Stadler. The veteran long ago nicknamed the Walrus hasn’t won a tournament since 2004 and hasn’t even been in contention in one since 2007. Three months ago he was on ...

A 3-hour 28-minute rain delay disrupted the return of the Champions Tour to Chicago on Friday, but it didn’t interrupt the season-long duel of the circuit’s two top players. Bernhard Langer, the season money leader and No. 2 in the season-long battle for the coveted Charles Schwab Cup, posted a 5-under-par 67 at North Shore ...

No golfer ever has had the success that Hale Irwin has enjoyed on Chicago courses. Not Fred Couples, not Mark O’Meara, not Bernhard Langer, not Tom Lehman, not even Illinois Golf Hall of Famer Jay Haas or Nick Price – the last winner of back-to-back Western Opens at Cog Hill back in the early 1990s. All ...

ST. LOUIS – Who would have expected this? Three of the top stars in American golf were in position to win the 74th PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club on Sunday. None did. The first major title of the year on the Champions Tour instead went to Kohki Idoki, a 5-foot 5-inch 136-pound Japanese golfer ...

ST. LOUIS – It’s not unusual for the PGA to pair friends in the first two rounds of its tournaments. That’s why Kenny Perry and Russ Cochran played together in the first two rounds of the 74th PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club. The results, though, don’t always come out they did on Thursday and ...

Curtis Malm won both player-of-the-year awards handed out by the Illinois PGA last year, and – judging by what happened in the first of the section’s four major championships of 2013 – there’s no reason to think he won’t pull off another sweep this season. Malm became the first player in 25 years to win back-to-back ...

Luke Donald was a three-time All-American and an NCAA champion for Northwestern before he went on to his brilliant career as a professional, which included his earning the status of the world’s No. 1 golfer. One of Donald’s most cherished collegiate records went by the wayside on Tuesday when NU junior Jack Perry posted a 54-hole ...

GALENA, IL. – It was a rarity when Steve Orrick won the Illinois PGA Championship in August. He was the first non-Chicago area club professional to take that title in 60 years. It wasn’t so unusual for Orrick, the head man at Country Club of Decatur, to rule the last of the section’s four major ...

Germany’s Martin Kaymer changed his attitude. For that he was rewarded Sunday with the honor of assuring the Ryder Cup would remain in Europe for two more years. Kaymer hadn’t been playing well leading into this year’s Ryder Cup. In fact he skipped the last qualifying tournament for Team Europe even though he held the ...

Luke Donald did his job perfectly for Team Europe on Sunday. With his team trailing 10-6, captain Jose Maria Olazabal sent former world No. 1 and Northwestern alum Donald out first in Sunday’s singles in hopes of building some quick momentum for his team. Donald didn’t disappoint. His opponent, long-hitting Bubba Watson, had been a ...

There may be no better match play competitor in Ryder Cup history than England’s Ian Poulter. He’s kept Team Europe alive – at least barely – through two days of the 39th staging of the event at Medinah, and he gave a pulsating finish to Saturday’s session. After playing partner Rory McIlroy made birdie at ...

Opening day at the 39th Ryder Cup didn’t go well for Team Europe on Friday, but the gang that won four of the last five competitions did win one battle. The two captain’s picks made by European captain Jose Maria Olazabal were twice as productive as the four captain’s picks made by U.S. captain Davis Love ...

Pittsburgh’s Nathan Smith made U.S. golf history Thursday en route to earning another coveted invitation to next April’s Masters tournament. Smith became the first four-time winner of the U.S. Mid-Amateur – the national championship for players 25 and over — with a tense victory over Canadian Garrett Rank in the 36-hole final at Conway Farms, in ...

No golfer in the 32-year history of the U.S. Mid-Amateur has won the tournament four times. Nathan Smith could be the first to do it today at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest. Smith, from Pittsburgh, won the national championship for amateurs 25 and over in 2003, 2009 and 2010. He advanced to another final ...

CARMEL, Ind. – Sunday’s wrapup to the BMW Championship didn’t bode well for the U.S. team’s chances in the upcoming Ryder Cup matches at Medinah. Two members of the European Ryder Cup team, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood, played together in the next-to-the-last twosome and finished at the top of the leaderboard with McIlroy reinforcing his ...

CARMEL, Ind. – Phil Mickelson was a reluctant competitor when the Western Golf Assn. held the Western Open and its successor, the BMW Championship, at Cog Hill in Lemont. He just didn’t like the course, and said so. The results showed it, too. From his first appearance in 1992 until the final staging at ...

The likelihood of Steve Orrick winning the 90th Illinois PGA Championship Wednesday didn’t seem good. No club professional from outside the Chicago area had won the event since Mike Sipula in 1952, and Orrick had two better established playing partners in the final threesome at Stonewall Orchard in Grayslake. Illinois coach Mike Small had ...

MARION, IL. – The college players’ domination of the Illinois State Amateur golf tournament is over. Collegians had won eight straight times until Glenview’s Quinn Prchal came through with rounds of 66-69 on Thursday at The Links at Kokopelli to notch a two-stroke victory over Derek Meinhart of Mattoon. Prchal went through the three-day ...

The Western Golf Assn. went to its present format for its Western Amateur Championship in 1956,. Calling for 72 holes of stroke play qualifying and then four rounds of match play, the 110-year old tourney is one of the most grueling in golf and few players handled that immense challenge as well as Chris ...

Chris Williams set the Western Amateur scoring record for 72 holes when he went 16-under-par last year at North Shore Country Club, in Glenview. This year, with the 110-year-old tourney moving to Exmoor, in Highland Park, he did even better. The University of Washington senior buzzed around Exmoor in 66-67 in Thursday’s 36-hole session to ...

The men’s Illinois Open is limited to in-state residents, the women’s version isn’t. The impact of that was clearly evident in Friday’s final round of the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open at Mistwood in Romeoville. For the first time in the tourney’s 18 stagings the title was decided in a playoff with Michigan amateur Samantha ...

In its 17 previous stagings the Illinois Women’s Open has never had a high school champion. That could change today when Stevenson’s Stephanie Miller enters the final round as the co-leader. Miller, 17, also has a great pairing for the shootout at Mistwood, in Romeoville. She’ll play with the other co-leader, Chicago amateur Nora Lucas. ...

Wednesday’s final round of the 63rd Illinois Open didn’t have the spectacular shots that were so abundant in Round 2, but it certainly had more drama. Recent Notre Dame graduate Max Scodro and Eric Meierdierks, the tourney’s 2010 champion, waged a two-man duel all day long at The Glen Club in Glenview before Skodro took the ...

Wilmette’s Eric Meierdierks shot 68s in both the first and second rounds of the 63rd Illinois Open at The Glen Club in Glenview. His second 18, on Tuesday, was the more notable on a day in which the weather was so hot players were allowed to wear shorts for only the fourth time in the ...

SILVIS, IL. – Steve Stricker’s bid for an historic four-peat at the John Deere Classic fizzled on Sunday, but the end result was almost as good for an emotionally-drained gallery at TPC Deere Run. Zach Johnson, almost as popular as Stricker in the Quad Cities, got the win in one of the strangest playoffs in PGA ...

SILVIS, IL. – As far as the multitudes of fans pouring into the John Deere Classic are concerned the leaderboard couldn’t be any better than this for today’s final round. Steve Stricker, going for an historic fourth straight title, is in the final twosome. Iowa resident Zach Johnson, a long-time tournament board member who has spurred ...

SILVIS, IL. – Steve Stricker is still very much in contention for an historic fourth straight win midway through the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic, but the battle lines were more clearly drawn on Friday. Stricker, hoping to become only the fifth player in professional golf’s last 140 years to win a major tournament four straight ...

SILVIS, IL. –If Steve Stricker is to make golf history by winning the John Deere Classic for a fourth straight year he’ll have to pick up his game on the front nine of TPC Deere Run. Stricker struggled badly on the front nine in Thursday’s opening round, the shot 6-under-par on the back side to post ...

KOHLER, Wis. – There was a poignant moment midway through the final round of the 67th U.S. Women’s Open on Sunday. Se Ri Pak, who won the tournament at Blackwolf Run in 1998, was finishing her round just as two other Korean golfers – Na Yeon Choi and Amy Yang – were making the turn for ...

KOHLER, Wis. – There doesn’t seem to be a question about whether a South Korean golfer will contend for the U.S. Women’s Open title. After all, four players from that little country won the biggest tournament in women’s golf in the last seven years. Now the question is, which one will win it ...

KOHLER, Wis. – Finally Michelle Wie is back – well, at least for a day. Long touted as the next superstar of women’s golf, Wie fired a 6-under-par 66 in the second round of the 67th U.S. Women’s Open at Blackwolf Run on Friday, an indication that her lengthy run of mediocre play might ...

Friday’s 36-hole championship match of the 93rd Chicago District Amateur was interrupted by a 2-hour 40-minute rain delay, and the break had a big impact on the outcome. Michael Davan and David Lawrence, two players who just completed their collegiate eligibility with plans to turn pro in the fall, were locked in a tight battle when ...

BENTON HARBOR, MI. — To put it mildly, it’s hard to fathom Roger Chapman’s victory in the Senior PGA Championship on Sunday. In 16 full seasons (and parts of a few others) on the European PGA Tour Chapman had just one victory – in a tourney called the Brazil Rio De Janeiro 500 Years Open ...

BENTON HARBOR, MI. – If you look at golf’s big picture, there are two significant stories brewing going into Sunday’s final round of the 73rd Senior PGA Championship. The more obvious one is Roger Chapman, the English pro who tied the record at the new Harbor Shores course with a 7-under-par 64 on Saturday to ...

BRADENTON, FL. — The current Northwestern men’s team was no match for the Wildcats’ alumni, but taking a pasting from world No. 1 Luke Donald and his cohorts did have its upside. It prepared the Wildcats well for another un at the Big Ten Match Play Championship. Despite winning the title the previous two years, the ...

LEMONT, IL. — Wire-to-wire champions were rare in the 20 years that Cog Hill has hosted the PGA Tour, and European winners of the BMW Championship and its longstanding predecessor, the Western Open, were rarer still. England’s Justin Rose met both criteria Sunday after holding off his Australian playing partner, John Senden, on what’s expected to ...

SILVIS, IL:. — Steve Stricker had 10 previous wins on the PGA Tour, but none had quite the flair of Sunday’s three-peat at the John Deere Classic. Stricker, now the 20th player to win a PGA Tour event three years in a row since World War II, had a five-stroke lead entering the back nine only ...

GLENVIEW, IL. — Patrick Cantlay was the world’s top-ranked amateur golfer entering Saturday’s championship match of the 109th Western Amateur at North Shore Country Club in Glenview. The UCLA sophomore was low amateur at this year’s U.S. Open and a top -25 finisher in three PGA Tour events. Not only that, but Cantlay had eliminated Chris ...

GLEN ELLYN, IL. — The Illinois State Amateur seems to be turning into the Iowa Invitational. At least over the last two year’s the big event for Illinois players ended up as a showcase for the University of Iowa’s golf program. In 2010 Deerfield’s Vince India was a seven-shot winner of the State Am at Beverly ...

HAWTHORN WOODS, IL. — Wilmette’s Philip Arouca hadn’t done much in professional golf — until he teed off in the 62nd Illinois Open at Hawthorn Woods Country Club. Then he couldn’t do much of anything wrong. Arouca, 26, opened 65-67 in the 54-hole tournament, then held off a challenge by Libertyville’s Michael Schachner to take a ...

ROMEOVILLE, IL. — Wheaton’s Jenna Pearson became the first golfer to win the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open as both an amateur and a professional when she captured the 17th staging of the event at Mistwood in Romeoville. Pearson, in her fourth year as a touring pro after a solid collegiate career at South Carolina, posted ...

MEDINAH, IL. — The 92nd Chicago District Amateur took an unusual twist. The championship match was played on a different course than all of the preliminary competition, but no one was complaining. Medinah Country Club played host to the tournament, and the 36-hole stroke play qualifying competition was to be played on its Nos. 1 and ...

OLYMPIA FIELDS, IL. — Ariya Jutanugarn was the easily the medalist at the 63rd U.S. Junior Girls Championship at Olympia Fields, but she was leery about getting into a match play situation with the title on the line. “I don’t like match play, because you don’t know when you’re going to lose,” the 15-year old from ...