Luke Donald was, for 40 weeks in 2011 and 2012, the world’s No. 1 golfer. Then, by his own admission, his game tailed off – except when he plays in the RBC Heritage Classic on the Harbour Town course in Hilton Head, S.C.
Donald was the runner-up there for the fifth time on Sunday, losing to Wesley Bryan by one stroke, and he also has two third-place finishes at Harbour Town in the last nine years.
“I’ve done everything but win,’’ said the former Northwestern star who has maintained close ties to golf in Chicago despite living in Jupiter, Fla., now. “I just keep trying. Obviously it’s a place I feel comfortable. I’ve got to just keep pounding away and hopefully I’ll get there.’’
Harbour Town has the smallest greens on the PGA Tour and Donald has always been a short game wizard. He also likes the “family-oriented vibe’’ that Hilton Head offers. His three daughters were on spring break and joined him at the tournament last week. That apparently was a tonic for a game that had been misfiring.
Donald had missed the cut at Florida’s Valspar Championship, where he was a past champion, and didn’t qualify for either the Masters for the World Golf Championship Match Play event. To offset those events usually on his schedule Donald entered the Shell Houston Open the week before the Masters, though he never had much success in previous visits there. He didn’t this time either, finishing in a tie for 69th place.
Then, after sitting out the Masters, came the always welcome return to Harbour Town. Donald led alone after a first-round 65 and was tied for the lead after a 67 in Round 2. A third round 72 dropped him down the leaderboard and a double bogey on the par-5 second hole – one of the easiest on the course – dropped him further back early in Sunday’s final round.
Donald, however, rallied on the back nine. He holed a bunker shot for birdie at No. 11 and spent time sharing the top spot on the leaderboard before Bryan held him off. Still, the runner-up finish was Donald’s first top 10 of 2017 and he’s hoping for another strong finish this week at the Valero Texas Open.
“I still believe I have the ability to win a major and win more tournaments,’’ he said. “I’m not hanging up the clubs yet. I’m committed to working hard on my game and get past a little lull in my results the last couple years.’’
He looks on Sergio Garcia’s victory in the Masters as incentive. They played junior matches when both were 12-year olds and were frequent partners for Europe in Ryder Cup matches.
“I grew up knowing him,’’ said Donald. “He came to my wedding, and I’ve been invited to his. He’s in a great place now. He proved to himself he could do it.’’
Now maybe it’s Donald’s turn to do the same.
“I still believe I’m good enough,’’ he said. “Anyone who can get to No. 1 in the world for over a year has the ability to bounce back, and hopefully I will.’’
Kevin Streelman, the PGATour regular from Wheaton, is also in the field at the Valero Texas Open. He’s coming off a two-week break, will play tournaments in six in the next seven weeks and won’t return to his Arizona home until that busy stretch is over. He’ll attend his niece’s wedding during the week he’s off from tournament play.
Here and there
A critical week looms for the women’s teams at Northwestern and Illinois. Both compete for the Big Ten title starting on Friday at TPC Rivers Bend in Mainville, Ohio, then will await the April 27 NCAA selection announcement for the start of its national championship. The finals are May 19-24 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.
Dylan Meyer and Nick Hardy of the Illinois men’s team are among nine semifinalists for the prestigious Ben Hogan Award. They’re the third and fourth Illini golfers accorded that honor, following Charlie Danielson and Scott Langley.
Dave Erickson of St. Andrews, Billy Rosinia of Flagg Creek and Eric Ilic of the Merit Club formed the winning team in the Illinois PGA’s first event of the season – the Pro-Pro-Pro competition at Chicago’s Harborside International. The IPGA holds its first stroke play event next Monday (APRIL 24) at Weaver Ridge in Peoria.
Tin Cup, a golf-themed pub, has opened at the Hilton Chicago/Oak Brook Hills Resort.
The Cherry Grove skyline spices up the view from Tidewater’s No. 12 — a memorable par-3 MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina – This is one golf milestone that certainly shouldn’t go unnoticed. Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Back in 1967 Myrtle Beach was by no means the golf mecca that it is today. It had only nine courses then. Now the number of courses on the 60-mile Grand Strand from Pawley’s Island to just across the state line into Brunswick County, N.C., is nearly 90 and every relevant public course in that area is a member of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday.
Finding they couldn’t market their courses individually, the owners of Myrtle Beach’s courses started thinking about a marketing strategy as early as 1962. Thanks to the support of local hotels they made the Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday a reality five years later and that corresponded to the rise of golf packages, now the most popular way for golfers to find courses while on vacation most anywhere.
The original nine courses were Pine Lakes, The Dunes Club, Conway Golf Club, Winyah Bay, Carolinas Country Club, Surf Golf & Beach Club, Whispering Pines, PineHills Course at Myrtlewood and Litchfield Country Club. Winyah closed in 2005.and Carolinas doesn’t exist under that name. The owners of them all, though, started something that turned out very good. The Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame is part of the ambience at Pine Lakes, the first course in the area.
“It’s amazing what they created,’’ said Bill Golden, president of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday. He joined up 19 years ago after working for Golf Digest magazine and never regretted it.
“At the time I arrived in the late 1990s that was the peak of growth here,’’ said Golden. We had a Senior PGA Tour event and an LPGA Tour event. It was a great opportunity for me, and this has been a great place to live. You have a good quality of life.’’
The golf’s been pretty good, too, for one very important reason: just like the Holiday founders, the course owners have been able to work together.
“In golf space we’re very unique,’’ said Golden. “Golf has been so important here, and people have been supportive. The owners are competitive on one level, but if they didn’t work together this wouldn’t have worked out. They’ve taken the attitude that if it’s better for everybody, let’s do it. That’s refreshing, and it’s been a great lesson to learn.’’
Golden readily admits that “it’s never been easy…the golf industry has gotten so complicated.’’ Pine Hills has a beautiful, stately clubhouse that complements a course that was built in 1927.
But, in Myrtle Beach, it’s still been able to become big business. The Myrtle Beach area attract nearly 1 million golfers every year and Golden reports that the area courses together have 3.3 million rounds annually. That’s a lot of rounds.
Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday has a staff of seven headed by Golden, a former collegiate player at Villanova. Four members of the staff focus on tournaments with Jeff Monday directing that group.
Though the pro tour stops are gone, the Holiday tournament group runs some far-reaching events. The Myrtle Beach World Amateur Handicap Championship has been played for 33 years. This year’s version tees off on August 28 and runs through September 1. It is played on 60 courses in the area and draws over 3,000 players. Every state in the U.S. except Alaska and South Dakota had players in the last World Am and 24 countries were represented in the field. Founders Club at Pawley’s Island has waste areas on every hole as a substitute for cart paths.
The World Am is biggest event but the staff stages six others and helps with some put on by other groups. The Holiday events started as early as February this year, when the Preseason Classic drew 200 players from 22 states. The March Championship has drawn over 70,000 players in its 32-year history.
Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday also hosts the Palmetto Championship, the nation’s largest high school tournament, and the Dustin Johnson World Junior, which is played at TPC Myrtle Beach – where the world’s current No. 1-ranked golfer has many of his trophies on display.
No area of the country can match Myrtle Beach for the destination’s quantity of quality courses. There are lots of them. Some are part of multiple-course facilities; some stand-alone. Some offer lodging, some don’t. Some are part of resort groups. Some have single ownership. The cost to play each one varies dramatically. Still, the course operators have stuck together and made Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday the sport’s largest non-profit marketing consortium. Possum Trot’s logo ball stands out.
First course in the area was Pine Lakes, which opened in 1927 to complement the Ocean Forest Hotel, which catered to that era’s rich and famous. Pine Lakes is celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2017 and it’s also known, for obvious reasons, as The Granddaddy.
Of all the Myrtle Beach courses Pine Lakes is the richest in history. The original holes were designed by Robert White, a native of St. Andrews, Scotland, was also the first president of the PGA of America. The facility once had 27 holes but lost nine during the Great Depression.
The existing 18 is pretty close to what White designed. It’s a good walking course and golfers can see the clubhouse from every hole. Not many courses anywhere can make that claim.
Though the course has undergone regular updating, only Nos. 4 and 5 were notably altered during a 2009 redesign by architect Craig Schreiner. The course has certainly withstood the tests of time and its clubhouse reflects its rich past with its history wall adorned with memorabilia photos and newspaper clippings.
Among the artifacts is artwork provided by the noted magazine Sport Illustrated, which was founded at Pine Lakes by a group of executives in 1954. The Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame is also based at the club. The only alligator we saw in four rounds was this one, at Founders Club.
Pine Lakes may have come first, but the course that really put Myrtle Beach on the map was The Dunes Club, which opened as the area’s second course in 1948. The architect was Robert Trent Jones Sr., who wasn’t famous then but is now looked on as one of the great course designers of all time. His sons Rees and Robert Trent Jones Jr. are now among the world’s foremost course architects.
The Dunes has hosted tournaments on all the major tours as well as many top amateur events. This year it will be the site of the U.S. Golf Association Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
Myrtle Beach offers an embarrassment of riches for golfers. Twelve of its courses have been ranked on Golf Digest’s list of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses and more than half of the Golf Holiday member facilities have been given 4-star or better rankings in that publication’s Best Places to Play Guide.
As a six-time visitor to Myrtle Beach over a span of about 20 years, I’ve seen how much the area has grown over the years and can appreciated first-hand the variety of golf offered. Every visitor will have a favorite course, but I’ve found mine changing with each visit. Railroad ties were worked into the design in several places at Possum Trot.
The Caledonia Golf & Fish Club generally stands out with all who have visited but its companion course, True Blue, is a beauty, too.
Our most recent visit took us – in addition to Pine Lakes – to Founders Club at Pawley’s Island, Tidewater and Possum Trot.
Founders Club, among the courses celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pawley’s Island, has perhaps the most unusual design in Myrtle Beach. Once called The Seagull, its redesign virtually eliminated standard cart paths. Waste areas on every hole take their place.
Tidewater is one of the area’s most scenic courses, to be sure. Its location – between the Intracoastal Waterway and Cherry Grove – provides views of the city skyline and marshes as well as the natural beauty of the Grand Strand. It’s now right up there with my Myrtle Beach favorites.
So is Possum Trot, but for different reasons. No doubt this short, sporty well-conditioned layout with 560 palm trees – a surprising number for a course that isn’t in Florida — deserves its claim to being the “Friendliest Course on the Beach.’’ Possums disappeared long ago, but I love this layout’s logo and other special touches as much as the fun golf the course offers.
A fountain at the home hole created a memorable finish at Possum Trot.A marsh contrasts nicely with the Cherry Grove skyline at one of Tidewater’s best viewing spots.A tee shot over water on a Pine Hills par-3 hole was just one of the challenges on that layout.The Founders Club at Pawley’s Island had one of the biggest putting greens I’ve ever seen.
Luke Donald and Kevin Streelman weren’t part of this year’s Masters, which climaxed with Sergio Garcia’s pulsating playoff victory on Sunday. Chicago’s top two touring pros have had their moments at Augusta National in the past but didn’t qualify this year.
Look for both to be back in the limelight, soon, however — perhaps as early as this week’s RBC Heritage Classic at Hilton Head, S.C. Donald, once the world’s No. 1-ranked player and a top-five finisher twice in the Masters, has made the Heritage one of his favorite tournaments. Last year marked his fourth runner-up finish at Harbour Town and he also was third twice. He’s always a player to watch in that tournament.
Streelman, a past winner of the Par-3 contest at the Masters, wasn’t happy to have last week off.
“It was a bummer not playing the Masters after I’d been there five of the last six years,’’ he said. Still, Streelman won’t play this week, either. He’s making a schedule change and expecting the hot spurt that has marked his summers of the past.
“If I’d played Hilton Head it would have been five tournaments in a row,’’ he said. He deemed it too much and will play at San Antonio (the Valero Texas Open) in two weeks after a two-week break. After that he’ll compete in a revitalized tournament at New Orleans (the Zurich Classic) and play the usual weekly stops at the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, N.C., and The Players in Ponte Vedra, Fla.
The decision to go to New Orleans is interesting in that the tournament has changed its format. It’ll be a two-man team event this time, with Streelman teaming up with Russell Knox.
“It’ll be great for television,’’ predicted Streelman. “The tour was looking for something outside the box.’’
Streelman is a member of the PGA Tour policy board now, and that’s just one of the extra issues on his plate. He’s also been the main tour player using the much-publicized new driver that his equipment sponsor Wilson introduced during the winter.
“I’ve had it in and out of my bag. I’ve used it in four of my nine events (in 2017),’’ said Streelman. “I’ve been pleased with it. It’s a high-quality product but it’s a club I’m very hard on because I’m such a perfectionist. I’m still trying to dial it in.’’
As a policy board member he’s also followed the latest controversial ruling affecting all of golf – the four-stroke penalty assessed LPGA star Lexi Thompson for an incorrect mark in one of her circuit’s major tournaments two weeks ago after a fan called in to report the infraction.
“It would have ben a nightmare if the decision had been made on Monday,’’ said Streelman. “There’s a lot of inconsistencies because not everyone is on camera at the same time. I don’t like people calling in and affecting our play, but I don’t know that it’ll change on our tour for now.’’
Here and there
Chicago’s longest-standing golf radio show, Golfers on Golf, will start its 22nd season this weekend. The show, featuring a host foursome of Rory Spears, Mike Munro, Ed Stevenson and Bill Berger, will move from Sunday to a 9 a.m. start on Saturday and be carried on a new station, WNDZ (750-AM).
The Illinois PGA has decided on its alternate course for the finals of the Illinois Open. Briarwood Country Club, in Deerfield, will be used in two of the three rounds of the finals with The Glen Club, in Glenview, the sole site for the last round. The finals run Aug. 7-9 and Briarwood will be a site for the first time since 1966 when Emil Esposito won the title.
Harborside International, the premier course in the Chicago city limits, will undergo a major transformation this season that management firm KemperSports says won’t interfere with play. Nine holes will be worked on at a time, and Harborside is a 36-hole facility. Main focus will be on the bunkers with the Better Billy Bunker technology instituted to improve drainage..
PGA Tour star Jason Day will headline the Golf Gives Gala on May 22 at St. Charles Country Club. He’ll join Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps in the new event.
Registration is now open for one of the biggest annual charity events, the May 30 Illinois Patriots Day at Medinah.
A typical tee shot on Eglin’s Eagle course offers wide, tree-lined fairways NICEVILLE, Florida – Every year we’ve made a conscious effort to visit some of the 53 courses on the Florida Historic Golf Trail. This Trail isn’t like many of the others around the country. Its courses are selected for historical purposes, and more states should create such trails.
The Florida courses must be open to the public for at least 50 consecutive years. Each has an interesting history. Some have suffered, some flourished over the years but all have survived. You never know what you’re going to get golf-wise when you play a course on the Florida Historic Golf Trail, but you know you’ll get a taste of what golf was many decades ago.
We’ve played 12 courses on the Trail, the most recent being the Eagle Course at the Eglin Golf Club, which is part of the Eglin Air Force Base nearby. It’s not the best course on the Trail – El Campeon at the Mission Inn Resort in Howey-in-the-Hills rates above it – but none of the courses we’ve played on the Trail have quite the interesting history that the Eagle does.
It was built as part of a resort in 1923 by a group of businessmen from Chicago. James E. Plew, founder of the Chicago Towel Company who also built the nearby Valparaiso Inn, was the leader of that effort and his cohorts reportedly included the infamous gangster Al Capone. The course was in the town of Valparaiso then and was called the Chicago Club of Valparaiso.
The members built their own nine-hole course before bringing in the architectural team of William Langford and Theodore Moreau to design an 18-holer. After they finished it in 1927 a trainload of 200 golfers from Chicago came for the grand opening. The course went bankrupt in 1929 and the name was changed to the Valparaiso Country Club. Eglin’s clubhouse wall contains memorabilia from its early days as a get-away for Chicago golfers.
It operated as a resort in the 1930s, during which it was reduced to nine holes again. In 1937 the course was renamed Eglin Field in honor of an airman who had been killed in an airplane accident. In 1942 Plew sold the course to the U.S. Government and it is now part of what is a bustling Air Force base. Under the new ownership the Eagle was restored to an 18-holer that is ranked among the best military golf facilities in the country. The course was also deemed good enough to host a pro-am event for the top PGA players in the 1960s. (Doug Ford and Mason Rudolph comprised the winning team).
The course was named the Eagle after the F-15 Eagle fighter aircraft and it received a companion course, called the Falcon with nine holes being built in 1960 and another nine in 1989. The Eagle greens underwent a renovation in 2008 and the routing was changed after a new clubhouse was built. The present Eagle has five sets of tees, with the course playing at 6,861 yards from the tips and 4,484 from the front.
Even a week after aerification procedures the course was very playable. It has spacious, undulating fairways but walkers can certainly enjoy it, too. The Eglin clubhouse is more than adequate for the wide range of golfers visiting the course.
The Masters tournament never lacks much. Even though it has the smallest and perhaps the weakest field of any of golf’s four major championships, the annual visit to Georgia’s Augusta National is arguably more popular with golf’s fan base than the U.S. Open, British Open or PGA Championship.
However, this upcoming 81st playing of the Masters — which tees off on Thursday – is lacking on a few fronts.
For one, Arnold Palmer won’t be there for the first time in 63 years. The King died in September, and he’ll be missed.
Also missing – except for the preliminary events – is Tiger Woods. This is the 20th anniversary of his first professional victory. It provided the Masters with its best-ever turnout of television viewers – 44 million. Woods, still not healthy after three back surgeries, kept hopes alive for his participation while he promoted his new book on his 1997 triumph but last Friday he made his withdrawal official.
Jason Day, one of the game’s brightest young stars, was on hand for Monday’s first practice day but his head isn’t fully into it. Worried about his mother’s health, he walked off the course six holes into his first match at the World Golf Championship Match Play two weeks ago and didn’t enter last week’s Shell Houston Open. He didn’t touch a club until last Friday, when he arrived in Augusta for early work on his game. His mother, battling cancer, had part of her left lung removed in surgery while Day was off the tournament trail.
The tournament won’t have a local hope, either, but Thomas Pieters comes close. The NCAA champion for Illinois in 2012, Pieters is in the field for the first time off his No. 18 world ranking at the end of 2016 and last week he was given a Special Temporary Membership for the rest of the PGA Tour season after posting two top-five finishes in six starts on the circuit this year.
Good weather is also lacking. Monday’s practice session was suspended by storms and the forecast is for much worse weather on Wednesday – when the popular Par-3 Contest and final practice rounds are scheduled.
One thing this 81st Masters does have is a clearcut favorite. World No. 1 Dustin Johnson has won this last three tournaments and arrived rested after his last-minute withdrawal at Houston. Johnson’s recent hot streak assured him the favorite’s designation even though Jordan Spieth’s finishes in the last three Masters were 2-1-2.
“Dustin Johnson is the guy to beat in golf no matter where you are,’’ insisted Spieth.
Rickie Fowler could also be a popular contender based on his two wins and eight top-10 finishes this season. He’s been in the top-five at all four majors and this is his eighth Masters, so he knows the Augusta National layout which is known for having the fastest greens on the PGA Tour.
The field has only 94 players, all invitees by the host club, and it includes the top 62 in the Official World Golf Rankings. The usual belief is that only 12-15 have the skills to win but several players who haven’t been in that category at the start of the week have gone on to win, most recently last year’s champion Danny Willett.
In fact, this is the 30th anniversary of the most unlikely Masters upset. In 1987 two of the game’s legendary stars — Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros — went into a playoff for the title with Larry Mize, an Augusta native. Mize beat them both with a chip-in, earning a place forever on the tournament highlights reel.
A LOOK BACK AT LEXI
Reaction to the four-stroke penalty assessed on Lexi Thompson during Sunday’s final round of the ANA Inspiration – the LPGA’s first major championship of the season – has run the gamut from the many club professionals and players who have contacted me personally as well as the golf world nation-wide.
Here’s my take on the strange ruling that led to South Korea’s So Yeon Ryu beating out Thompson for the coveted title.
My first reaction was that Thompson had simply made a sloppy mark – but that’s not to downplay the infraction. Though I’m sure Thompson made an honest mistake, the two strokes assessed for it were necessary. Players can improve their lie by moving their ball just an inch on the green to avoid ball marks and spike marks. Such a practice should be penalized, though I doubt it seldom is unless a playing partner speaks up. That rarely happens.
I have a problem with the assessment of the other two strokes Thompson was penalized, however. Her infraction came a day earlier, in the third round. She signed her scorecard without being informed of a possible infraction. A TV viewer called attention to the infraction too long after the fact.
The LPGA handled the Thompson issue better than the U.S. Golf Association handled a similar situation involving Dustin Johnson when he was en route to winning the U.S. Open last June. Johnson was told – in the middle of his round – that a penalty might be called on him for a possible infraction. To his credit he played well enough to win despite the distraction but – as Rickie Fowler noted at a Masters press conference on Monday — “We’ve seen stuff in the past year that’s not making the game look good at all.’’
Commonsense is lacking in some of the Rules of Golf, a problem that was addressed in proposed changes that could go into effect in 2019. Until then, here’s what should be done immediately. Rules questions should be handled strictly by officials on site. TV viewers should play no part in it, and once a round is over the scores should stand. Honesty is an integral part of golf but changing scores after another round begins creates more problems than it’s worth.
Cog Hill’s Dubsdread course started with white sand in its bunkers. Now white sand is coming back back — just a different variety of it. Here’s how it’ll affect the 18th hole. (Rory Spears Photo)
HERE AND THERE
The white ProAngle sand used in the bunkers at Augusta National will be in evidence at Cog Hill’s Dubsdread course in Lemont when the former PGA Tour site for both the Western Open and BMW Championship opens on April 22. Owner Frank Jemsek said that 11 of the course’s greenside bunkers were transitioned to grass bunkers and the others will get the new, eye-catching white sand before the course opens.
A major change in the head professional ranks has Frank Hohenadel moving from an assistant’s job at Westmoreland, in Wilmette, to the head job at Mistwood, in Romeoville. Hohenadel, a long-hitting lefthanded golfer, made a big impact on the local scene when he snapped Mike Small’s record eight-year run as champion of the Illinois PGA Championship in 2011 on Medinah’s No. 1 course. Small rebounded, winning four more times in the last five years.
The PGA Tour has decided to give distance measuring devices a chance, but only in a few tournaments on its secondary circuits. One event where the devices will be allowed is the Web.com Tour’s Rust-Oleum Championship coming to Ivanhoe June 5-11.
I’m happy to announce the addition of a sixth golf website partnership for www.lenziehmongolf.com.
Jason Bruno’s LinksNation.com is our first website partner in Florida. Bruno, from West Palm Beach, founded LinksNation in 2009 and is also a contributor to GolfLife.com as a PGA Tour reporter
While LinksNation specializes in course and resort travel features Bruno’s site will particularly complement our other member sites by providing equipment and apparel reviews. He is a five-time winner of Hampton ExecGolf events. Jason Bruno and I hooked up at the Arnie statue at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
Bruno’s career in golf started in 1987 when he worked in the landscape and turf field at Atlantic Technical College in Coconut Creek, FL. He was also on the agronomy staffs for the PGA Tour’s Honda Classic from 1992-94, the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion and the 2015 U.S. Open at Chambers Bay. Bruno has also worked on course operations staffs, as a caddie and as a golf coach.
While at Atlantic Tech he also performed a redesign and construction of a par 3 practice center on the campus.
He joins our five website partnerships that have touched many phases of golf media from basically a Midwest perspective. Rory Spears’ Golfers on Golf is prominent on the radio side. Tim Cronin’s Illinois Golfer is emerging as a must-read online publication. Rory, Tim and I have functioned as a Big Three partnership since 2009 and our team has grown from there.
Cheryl Justak’s Golf Now! Chicago and Brian Weis’ comprehensive GolfTrips.com are travel-based sites with Cheryl operating from Indiana and Brian from Wisconsin. Cheryl’s upscale Golf Guide, has been produced annually for 15 years.
Dave “Links’’ Lockhart, Chicago’s premier videographer, rounds out my partnership connections. He’s been creating TV productions for over 20 years and they have they included three award-winning golf TV shows.
The Masters is next week. Even though the PGA Tour has been conducting big-money tournaments every week for three months, this is when the golf season kicks into high gear, and that’s a good thing for D.A. Points.
Points hasn’t qualified for the Masters yet, but he’s peaking at the right time and seems the best bet of Illinois’ four PGA Tour players to earn the one remaining berth in the field at Augusta National.
The last Masters spot goes to the winner of the Shell Houston Open, which tees off on Thursday. Points, from downstate Pekin, is in the field there, as are former world No. 1 Luke Donald, the ex-Northwestern star, and Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman. Elmhurst resident Mark Wilson isn’t in the field at Houston.
While Donald and Streelman have played much better than Points the last few years, it’s Points – down to No. 254 in the Official World Golf Rankings — who has the momentum going now. He won the Puerto Rico Open on Sunday with an unusual final round – birdies on the first five holes and on four of the final six to offset some rough spots in between.
Points also is a past champion at Houston, having won the second of his three PGA Tour titles there in 2013. His other PGA Tour win was in 2011, a spectacular week in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am when he not only captured his first victory on golf’s premier circuit but also teamed with comedian Bill Murray to win the team title.
Champions of the top PGA Tour event each week get spots at Augusta. The Puerto Rico Open, though, was played opposite the more prestigious World Golf Championship-Dell Technologies Match Play in Texas. The Masters berth went to the winner there, though champion Dustin Johnson – the current world No. 1 – had already earned his spot via other qualifying criteria.
Still, Points regained his PGA Tour playing privileges for two more years through his victory and also earned spots in The Players Championship and PGA Championship. He will also get into the Memorial and Colonial – lucrative small field invitational events.
“I can’t begin to tell you what this means,’’ said Points, who won the Illinois State Amateur three times between 1995-99 before turning pro. “I had a couple really awful years. I pretty much hit rock bottom. I put my family through a lot.’’
His sudden revival in Puerto Rico was triggered by his changing to a left hand low putting stroke. His 20-under-par for 72 holes there left him choked up, but also optimistic about his chances at Houston. He got into the 2013 Masters (where he finished tied for 38th) by virtue of that win at Houston.
“The way I’m playing, there’s no reason I can’t be in the hunt again,’’ he said.
Points started his collegiate career at Clemson but transferred to Illinois after two seasons. His game got tour-ready there and he could be playing with two other former Illini products, Belgium-born Thomas Pieters and veteran Steve Stricker, if he gets to Augusta. Pieters qualified for the Masters off his No. 18 world ranking in 2016 and Stricker by finishing in the top four in last year’s British Open..
Donald and Streelman come to Houston well-rested. Neither qualified for the WGC Match Play event and both opted to skip the alternate event in Puerto Rico.
Masters Week officially starts on Monday (April 3) with the tournament rounds Thursday-Sunday, April 6-9. There will be plenty of early activity at the course this Sunday, however. That’s when the nationally televised Drive, Chip & Putt finals are held to climax a year-long series of nation-wide qualifiying competitions for youngsters in the 7-15 age range.
Last year the Chicago area had an age group winner, Vernon Hills’ Christian Kim in the Boys 10-12 division. This year there will be two more local finalists hoping for the same result – Naperville’s Lisa Copeland in the Girls 7-9 division and Buffalo Grove’s Chelsea She in the Girls 10-11 category.
Lisa survived a local elimination at Cog Hill and Chelsea did the same at Randall Oaks. Then they earned their spots at Augusta by advancing through a sub-regional at Bolingbrook and a regional final at Medinah.
Chelsea played in the PGA Junior League program at White Deer Run and Lisa plays out of both Cog Hill and Mistwood.
Rain — thanks to a $75,000 movable canopy — can’t stop practice sessions at PGA Learning Center. PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida – The PGA Golf Club, with its four courses, has no trouble attracting golfers. There’s more to the place than those four courses, however.
Most notably, there’s the PGA Center for Golf Learning and Performance. This is where the really serious golfers hang out. Very few golf facilities have anything like it.
“We’re not a driving range. We’re a practice facility,’’ said Patrick Brosnihan, the director of operations. “There aren’t a lot of these facilities.’’
There is only one bigger one than the PGA Golf Club’s Center for Golf Learning and Performance. That’s at Orange County National Golf Center & Lodge in Orlando, FL. It’s spread over 45 acres and features a circular range that is the place to be on Demo Day, the traditional opening of the annual PGA Merchandise Show in January.
The PGA Center for Golf Learning and Performance is on just 35 acres but it has something its rival doesn’t have — the official connection with the PGA of America. Club-fitting, club repair and fitness and video programs are housed in Learning Center headquarters.
“I’m representing what the PGA badge stands for,’’ said Brosnihan. “It’s the biggest sports organization in the world.’’
The PGA of America has 28,000 members and PGA Golf Club is their winter home. They wanted a practice center on the premises and got one about four years after the first two courses – then called North and South and now the Wanamaker and Ryder, both designed by Tom Fazio – had opened for play.
Dedication for the Learning Center was on Aug. 16, 2000, and the third PGA Golf Club course, the Dye, also opened that season. (The fourth, now called St. Lucie Trail, became part of the resort facilities in 2014 after existing as a private club for 26 years).
Many of those PGA members make good use of the Learning Center facilities, but for a variety of reasons. There’s a lot to digest when you visit this place. Patrick Brosnihan has been the operations director at the Learning Center the past two years.
On one end of the property is the 23,650-foot square foot PGA Education Center. Opened in 2001 as a training forum for PGA apprentice professionals, it can accommodate over 400 students with its nine classrooms and 1,600 square-foot computer testing and club repair laboratory. Budding club professionals must go there to meet their certification requirements.
“You get eight years to finish,’’ said Brosnihan “It reminds me of residency requirements for a doctor.’’
The smaller building next to the Education Center is the Rotunda. It once housed a small museum of golf memorabilia but now is used for social gatherings.
Dominating the complex is the Learning and Performance Center and all that goes with it. Basically it’s a golf park.
The indoor portion is dedicated to technology. There are two monitors devoted to club fitting. They can provide numbers relative to such things as launch and spin-rate. Want to see if the clubs you own – or are considering for purchase – are right for you? This is the place to go. All the top equipment manufacturers have their products available.
“You can’t fit clubs without the numbers,’’ said Brosnihan. “Eighty-five percent of golfers aren’t fitted properly. I can understand why some people don’t want to be inside. They want to see where the ball goes outside, but there’s so much more technology inside. We want to get the (club-fitting) numbers first.’’ The sand comes in all types and colors at the Learning Center’s bunker practice area.
Video equipment as well as the fitness area directed by performance coach Tommey Lyons is also under the roof as is the club-repair operation, which works with between 300 and 400 clubs a week during the heart of the season. A golf psychologist isn’t on the staff yet, but adding a mind coach is under consideration.
There are all sorts of options for instruction and practice options outdoors. Brosnihan’s teaching staff is headed by lead instructor Jamie Fordyce and Billy Ore, who was working on the club-fitting side during our visit. There’s also three independent contractors who teach there, headed by Nancy Quarcelino, rated among the nation’s Top 100 teachers by Golf Magazine.
In addition to giving lessons, they put on a one-hour clinic every day but Sunday, with each focused on one segment of the game – pitching and wedges, driver and fairway woods, irons and hybrids, bunker and lob shots, chipping and putting. All models of equipment are available for players who want to go through club-fitting procedures.
Their lessons can also be tailored to individual preferences. Individual, group, father-son, husband-wife — you name the type of lesson you want and the staff can fit your needs. There are also a wide variety of golf schools available as well as a Sports Academy that offers an eight-week program of activities that includes other sports as well as golf.
“It’s whatever you want. We can create anything,’’ said Brosnihan.
His mainstay staffers aren’t the only ones giving lessons, though. About 80 PGA club professionals from other areas of the country rent private practice areas, called pods, on the back end of the facility and bring their students to Florida for more focused training than might be possible at their home clubs.
The facility will also be used by 20-25 college teams and six-10 high school teams during the winter months. They come to train and play in tournaments on the nearby courses. The most celebrated of the Learning Center regulars is also the youngest. Jessy “The Rocket’’ Huebner, age 7, has won over 60 age group tournaments, most notably the 7-and-under division of the U.S. Kids Championship in 2016. Well-regarded teaching professional Nancy Quarcelino gets a daily clinic session underway
If you are looking for tour players, you won’t find any at the Learning Center – with the possible exception of Jim Herman. While most of the many Florida-based tour players are based in nearly Jupiter, Herman worked at the Learning Center for years, still comes occasionally for Sunday games and has been given Lifetime member status.
Brosnihan admits that the Learning Center would be hard-pressed to stay alive without the nearby courses. They have driving ranges, but not the extensive facilities offered at the Learning and Performance Center. A challenge is getting the players using the courses that are just a mile or two away to test it out.
Teaching pods are all set up for professionals who want to bring their students to the PGA Learning Center.
PGA Golf Club is more than halfway through an upgrading program that involves the courses and their clubhouses as well as the Learning Center, which has been somewhat restructured. Director of agronomy Dick Gray, recently named the TurfNet Superintendent of the Year nation-wide, created a new practice chipping area and the other areas were spruced up as well.
They include a 7,000-square foot putting green, built to U.S. Golf Association specifications, and over 100 full-swing practice stations. Movable canopies are available to facilitate practice even in rainy weather.
The bunker practice area once was billed as having specific types of sand in each bunker to accommodate players from all parts of the country. That claim is no more. Now they’re just bunkers, though the color and texture of the sand varies.
“We did have all types of sand in our bunkers, but we couldn’t guarantee what type of sand each one was,’’ said Brosnihan. “We didn’t want to mis-represent.’’
And then there’s the three practice holes at the far end of the facility. They’re not always in operation but can offer an on-course experience for those wanting that after working at the other practice areas. Purchase of a one-day pass will allow you to do that. Video analysis is just one method that Learning Center instructors use to teach their students.
Tournament sponsor MasterCard commissioned this statue of Palmer, now a landmark for golfers. 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 for the first Arnold Palmer Invitational without Arnold Palmer. The golfing legend passed away at age 87 in September.
“It’s a very different week with Arnold not being here with us,’’ said Henrik Stenson, the Swedish star who now lives in Orlando and finished in the top 10 of the last four API events without getting a victory. “He’s meant so much to the game of golf, and this being his own tournament on his own golf course. He’ll be dearly missed, and we will do our best to make it a very successful week without him.’’
Bay Hill opened in 1961. Palmer played it during the height of his career, loved it and worked hard to eventually buy it in 1970. Now a statue of Palmer, measuring 13 feet in height and weighing 1,400 pounds, stands in front of the pro shop. With no golf to watch on the course spectators made it a gathering point for photographs and conversation on Tuesday.
Everyone had an Arnold memory. I certainly have mine, starting with my first interview with him in 1968. He was battling for a Western Open title at Olympia Fields that week but was eventually beaten by his long-time rival, Jack Nicklaus. Through the years Palmer has been the focal point for many more interviews, and we were guests at Bay Hill for a few days in recent years. The tone for this Arnold Palmer Invitational is evident from this view at Bay Hill’s front gate.
It was at Bay Hill that you could get one of the best glimpses of the man who inspired an army. Indeed every golf fan on hand Tuesday was a member of Arnie’s Army at one tournament or another. At Bay Hill, though, he wasn’t just the athletic legend. He was a guy who dined with his wife and friends right along with the club’s guests. He played cards with them, indulged in friendly conversation and posed for what must have seemed like unending picture-taking. That’s what made Bay Hill a very special place.
Bay Hill is nice 27-hole facility in a comfortable neighborhood. In no way is it ostentatious, like the residential areas that so many athletes seem to prefer once they accumulate enough money to buy in.
No player has done as much to popularize golf as Palmer did, and the PGA Tour made sure that this week’s tournament will be a celebration of his extraordinary life rather than the start of a sad farewell for a tournament that could be in decline.
The PGA’s Florida Swing isn’t what it used to be. This year the four events that usually filled the March portion of the PGA Tour schedule were down to three. The stop at Donald Trump’s Doral in Miami was dropped in favor of a stop in Mexico. Not only that, but the PGA Tour botched the scheduling. Mexico was inserted in the week between the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens on the East coast and the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor on the West. The fields at both the Honda and Valspar suffered, as players struggled with awkward travel options.
That wasn’t the case this week. The Palmer stop was made more enticing with a hike in prize money and the availability of more FedEx Cup points. Still, three top ones missed it – leading money-winner Dustin Johnson and two of his most popular pursuers, Phil Mickelson and Jordan Spieth. That trio skipped the entire Florida Swing, feeling that might be the best way for them to prepare for next month’s Masters. All golfers have their Arnie memories. Here’s mine, taken in 1970 during an exhibition at Rolling Green Country Club in Arlington Heights, Ill.
In an effort to offset Palmer’s absence the tour named five ambassadors for this year’s API – players Curtis Strange, Graeme McDowell, Peter Jacobsen and Annika Sorenstam and Tom Ridge, the former U.S. secretary of homeland security.
Wednesday’s speakers prior to the Opening Ceremony will include new PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, defending API champion Jason Day, current stars Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler and Sam Saunders, a PGA Tour member who was also Palmer’s grandson.
This is one of those rare sports events in which the 72-hole competition itself, which begins on Thursday, may well be overshadowed by the preliminary buildup. The players will have decals of Palmer’s umbrella logo on their golf bags.
Still, there is concern that Palmer’s passing will negatively impact both his small hometown of Latrobe Pa., as well as the annual tournament at Bay Hill. The passing of Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Dinah Shore led to the decline of their golf tournaments and keeping the Palmer atmosphere around Bay Hill won’t be easy.
It’s well worth a try, though, and for now we should just enjoy his tournament and be thankful for the memories he created. Those colorful umbrella logos, Palmer’s trademark, were always in evidence at Bay Hill. These bleachers at Bay Hill’s first tee will be packed once the tournament tees off on Thursday. Palmer quotes were on display throughout the course — a good way to remember the man.
Luke Donald (left) and Kevin Streelman are already on Innisbrook champions’ wall. (Rory Spears Photo) 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 to a notable start this season. Donald, the former Northwestern star, has made four of six cuts with $221,185 in earnings. That puts him 125th on the season money list. Streelman has made six of 10 cuts and has earned $505,886, good for 68th place.
To get into the Masters, though, they’ll likely have to either win one of the tournaments leading into it or boost their world rankings into the top 50 the week before the Masters tees off. Donald is No. 88 in the world rankings now and Streelman is down in the 134th spot. That’s the bad news.
The good news is that both have played well in Masters of the past, both are coming into Thursday’s start of the Valspar Championship well-rested and both have wins here. Those ingredients should count for something.
So could Innisbrook’s extraordinary connection to the Chicago golf scene. The resort’s owner, Sheila Johnson, is a University of Illinois graduate who grew up in Chicago, and all of the resort’s four courses were designed by the late Larry Packard, a Chicago golf architectural legend. All that should add to the comfort zone for Donald and Streelman.
In the case of both players, their victories on the well-regarded Copperhead layout had major implications career-wise. Donald’s victory came in 2011 when the tourney was called the Transitions Championship. He was involved in a head-to-head duel with Rory McIlroy for the No. 1 spot in the world rankings at the time and the win pushed Donald into the No. 1 spot, a position he held for 56 weeks.
Streelman’s win came the following year, the first in which Valspar was the tourney sponsor. It was the first of the Wheaton golfer’s two PGA Tour titles, though the second drew more attention. No. 2 came at Hartford in 2013, with Streelman making birdies on the last seven holes to claim a more spectacular victory.
Neither player qualified for last week’s lucrative World Golf Championship event in Mexico, but that may not be a bad thing. The PGA Tour substituted the Mexico event for the longstanding stop at Doral, in Miami, and it wreaked havoc with all the players’ scheduling.
Those who played in the no-cut tourney in Mexico endured some difficult travels. In the last four weeks the PGA Tour had tournaments in Los Angeles, then the Honda Classic in Florida, then Mexico and now it’s back to Florida. The dropping of Doral “destroyed’’ the traditional Florida Swing, according to no less an expert than Jack Nicklaus who said the schedule change “hurts all the Florida events.’’
The circuit goes to the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando after the Valspar. The quality of the Honda field was down slightly, and Valspar has just four players in the top 15 of the World Rankings – Henrik Stenson (6), Justin Thomas (8), Patrick Reed (12) and Bubba Watson (15).
Stenson, the reigning British Open champion, withdrew from the Mexico stop after 11 holes due to illness and admitted here that “I’m not 100 percent.’’ He was fourth at the Valspar in 2015 and tied for 11th last year when South African Charl Schwartzel won the title.
Stenson insisted the addition of the Mexico tourney didn’t affect the Florida events, but he was in the minority.
“It’s just a busy time of the year,’’ said Stenson. “It’s six, seven, eight good tournaments in a row. You’re not going to get all the guys playing the same weeks. It’s more down to scheduling and preferences, how many do you want to play in that time span. You can’t really be disappointed that certain players take certain weeks off, because that’s the way it’s always going to be.’’
HERE AND THERE: The Valspar field also includes two Illinois alums. Steve Stricker, now eligible for the Champions Tour, will compete after announcing his choices for assistant President Cup captains earlier this week here. Charlie Danielson made the field through the qualifying round on Monday.
Defending champion Schwartzl has already had a tough week. One of his playing partners hit a shot off a tree in Wednesday’s pro-am and the ball hit Schwartzel on the wrist. His hand went numb and he quit play after 10 holes. He was still hopeful of teeing off in Thursday’s first round.
Matt Kuchar, who will make his 10th appearance in the Valspar, generally likes the U.S. Golf Association’s recently proposed rule changes designed to simplify the game. “I have tons of friends that fudge here and there,’’ said Kuchar. “You want the game to be enjoyable, and simplifying the rules only helps make the game more understandable. It’s a good idea they are working on.’’
