Author: lenz

Upgrades provide big boosts at Eagle Ridge, Ruffled Feathers

Eagle Ridge, Illinois’ premier golf resort in Galena, has changed – and for the better – since its latest ownership change.

Capital Crossing acquired the facility in 2013 and brought in Texas-based Touchstone Golf to manage Eagle Ridge’s 63 holes and Mount Prospect-based Bricton Group to manage the rest of the resort. Touchstone manages courses in 10 states but Eagle Ridge is its only facility in the Midwest.

The bulk of Touchstone’s 36 properties are in California (16) and Texas (7). Steve Harker, formerly with American Golf, started the company in 2005. His team now includes Mark Luthman who — as regional director of operations for Chicago-based KemperSports — was a leader in the planning, pre-opening and operations of Oregon’s Chambers Bay, site of the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S. Open. Luthman is Touchstone’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Bricton, a major hotel management group, is headed by president Ed Doherty – a former Evans Scholar. Touchstone and Bricton combined to form Brickstone, the firm that oversees Eagle Ridge’s total operation, and its first order of business was to address the shortcomings on the golf side.

While the resort’s website alludes to “renovation’’ work done on its three 18-holers – The General and the North and the South courses – as well as the nine-hole East course, that’s a bit misleading. Renovations generally connote total revamping of a course and usually include design changes. That wasn’t needed at Eagle Ridge.

All four courses were designed by one-time Chicago-based architect Roger Packard, with two-time U.S. Open champion Andy North helping out on The General – the showcase course. All four courses – which opened between 1977 and 1997 — are blessed with the “wow factor’’ thanks largely to the elevation changes throughout the 6,800-acre property.

While Packard’s designs have remained intact, the work done since Touchstone arrived has still been extensive.

“There wasn’t any construction on the fairways,’’ said Reagan Davis, the director of golf. “Packard did a great job, but a lot of places were overgrown and a lot of the tees and landing areas were claustrophobic. The native areas were overgrown, and a lot of the trees weren’t trimmed. People would measure a round on The General by how many balls they lost.’’

That’s not the case anymore. Davis estimates that $700,000 was spent on cleaning up the courses.

“We went in and trimmed all the trees we could,’’ said Davis. “We pushed back the tee boxes and tried to make the courses like they were originally. It speeded up play on The General. We picked up 35 minutes of time (per round).’’

On a busy day a round might have gone 5 hours 25 minutes before. Now it’s more like 4 hours 30 minutes, and rounds are rarely over 5 hours.

The General also got a new restaurant. “Spikes’’ is gone and has been replaced by WoodStones, which features a $30,000 oven that can cook a wood-fire pizza in four minutes. The restaurant is even featured on the more dramatic welcoming signs at the main entrance.

“We wanted something more for the community and not so much for the resort or the golfers,’’ said Davis. “We keep it open about 10 months out of the year, and it’s done well.’’

There’s some other newcomers at Eagle Ridge as well – 30 goats. They’ve been brought in to roam the steep slopes where mowing equipment can’t be used.

ANOTHER NEW LOOK: Ruffled Feathers, in Lemont, has completed its own major renovation project. Dallas-based Arcis Golf has unveiled its $2 million renovation of the only Pete Dye-designed course in the Chicago area. Both the course and clubhouse underwent extensive upgrades, and Arcis has announced it will spend $50 million in major capital improvements at its 66 public and private facilities nation-wide.

As for the Ruffled Feathers work, general manager Victor Rodarte described it as “a true revival of the entire property.’’

Arcis also operates five other Chicago area courses – Fresh Meadow, in Hillside; Mill Creek and Eagle Brook, in Geneva; Tamarack, in Naperville; and Whitetail Ridge, in Yorkville.

LOOK OUT FOR SOBB: August won’t be as busy a tournament month as July was, but there will be two section championships conducted by the Illinois PGA and Ivanhoe’s Jim Sobb could wind up in contention for two player-of-the-year awards when they’re done.

The IPGA Senior Championship is Aug. 8-9 at Whisper Creek, in Huntley, and the IPGA Championship proper is Aug. 29-31 on Olympia Fields’ South course. Sobb, who was the overall player-of-the-year in 2000, is sixth in the standings now behind leader Travis Johns, of Medinah. Last year Sobb was eighth, so he’s remained consistently competitive after passing the age of 50.

He was also the senior player of the year in both 2014 and 2015 and ranked second behind Mistwood’s John Platt in the senior standings at the time of this printing.

BITS AND PIECES: The Chicago golf community lost two giants from the club professional ranks with the passing Leon McNair and Hubby Habjan in a span of a few days in July. McNair, 75, led in the development of Fox Bend, in Oswego, and Habjan, 84, was a long-time head man at Onwentsia, in Lake Forest. Both are members of the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame.

The LPGA’s UL International Crown may be over but its Legends Tour will hold its main event not far away – at Indiana’s French Lick Resort from Aug. 18-21. The Legends Championship festivities will include the inductions of Elaine Crosby and Sandra Haynie into the Legends Hall of Fame that is permanently housed at the nearby West Baden Springs Hotel. Crosby and Haynie will become the seventh and eight members of the Hall, joining Jan Stephenson and Kathy Whitworth, who went in in 2013; Nancy Lopez and Jane Blalock, who were added in 2014; and Joanne Carner and Rosie Jones, who were inducted last year.

KemperSports has taken over the management of Boughton Ridge, the nine-hole executive length course that has served Bolingbrook residents for over 35 years. KemperSports will also manage its Ashbury’s restaurant.

The Schaumburg Park District’s ninth annual Links Technology Cup has been scheduled for Aug. 10 at Schaumburg Golf Club. It includes a Taste on the Tee showcase of food and beverages on most every hole. Proceeds benefit the district’s recreation scholarship program.

Dates opposite the Olympics won’t be a big problem for the JDC

If you had asked me, I would have told you.

The PGA Tour should not have made all those changes to its mid- to late-summer schedule just to accommodate the Olympics. All that did was inconvenience tournament organizers, leave most of the players in limbo and confuse ticket-buyers who had gotten used to watching specific tournaments on specific dates year after year after year.

No PGA Tour tournament was more impacted on that front than the John Deere Classic. The lone annual PGA Tour stop in Illinois drew Aug. 11-14 dates – the same days the 72-hole Olympic men’s competition will be conducted in Brazil. The JDC had thrived with July dates the week before the British Open in recent years.

Fortunately the JDC, in its 46th year, has been a resilient event. That’s been proven over and over, when the tournament struggled for survival in one of the circuit’s smallest markets. Going way back, what’s now the well-established JDC had to deal with weak fields, sponsorship problems which resulted in a variety of title changes and moving from one course to another. But nothing, it seems, can stop the JDC now – and it certainly won’t be these Olympic Games.

The seriousness of the Zika virus notwithstanding, the continuous dropouts of top players from the Olympics – the number was at 18 at the time of this printing – suggests that tournament will be special only because it’s the Olympics and the first time golf will be contested since 1904. It certainly won’t be because of the quality of the field.

When all is said and done it wouldn’t be surprising if the JDC draws as much TV attention from golfers as the Olympics’ golf competition will. Only 60 players will be in the Olympics and at least a few of those who could have competed in Brazil may well wind up competing at TPC Deere Run.

Zach Johnson — the former Masters, JDC and British Open champion who has long been on the JDC board of directors – long predicted that the John Deere Classic would have a “late developing field.’’ Look for some big name players to enter after the last of this year’s four majors. The PGA Championship, because of all the shuffling inspired by the Olympics, was played only two weeks after Henrik Stenson’s spectacular win in the British Open at Royal Troon. The PGA – last of the majors — concluded on July 31.

Enough said about the Olympics. Suffice it to say, the JDC will do just fine even without being in the global golf spotlight. The event’s annual media day underscored that. Paul Scranton, this year’s volunteer chairman, announced that the JDC has 1,750 volunteers ready to go for a worthy cause.

Last year’s JDC raised $8.7 million that was dispersed among over 500 local charities. (In its 45-year history the tourney’s charity donations have topped $71 million).

An impact study conducted last year by sponsor John Deere and Western Illinois University determined that the tournament added over $54 million to the Quad Cities economy and this will be another big year, Olympics or not.

As for the golf, the JDC field won’t have Jordan Spieth – and his absence won’t go unnoticed. It won’t go unnoticed at Brazil, either. On JDC media day, just as tournament director Clair Peterson was about to address the assembled writers and broadcasters, The Golf Channel announced that Spieth had decided against going to Brazil. The gathering immediately grew silent, wondering if the JDC’s two-time champion might defend his title after all.

Spieth quickly put an end to that line of thought, saying he didn’t think his playing in a tournament opposite the Olympics would be “appropriate.’’ For Spieth that was the right decision.

For many others bypassing the Olympics, though, such a stance might not work. Brendon de Jonge, for instance, could have played for his native Zimbabwe in Brazil. Instead he withdrew himself from Olympic consideration citing “job security.’’ The Zika virus wasn’t the overriding factor for him. He wants to play in the FedEx Cup Playoffs and a player must be in the top 125 on the point list to make it.

The JDC will have two of its longstanding stars in Johnson and three-time winner Steve Stricker, who is coming off a surprising fourth place finish in the British Open. Other early commitments came from former major championship winners Angel Cabrera, Trevor Immelman, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink and David Toms.

Other commits among players who have won events on the PGA Tour in the last two years came from Ben Crane, Chesson Hadley, J.J. Henry, Billy Hurley III, Pater Malnati, Troy Merritt, Seung-Yul Noh, John Senden, Scott Stallings, Robert Streb, Brian Stuard, Vaughn Taylor, Nick Taylor and Brendon Todd.

With a purse of $4.8 million, a first-place prize of $864,000 and 500 FedEx Cup points on the line, the tourney is well worth playing with the lucractive Playoffs closing in.

“We’re pleased and excited about the players who have committed to play in this year’s tournament,’’ said Peterson. “Because of the compressed nature of this year’s PGA Tour schedule we know many other players will make their decisions closer to the tournament.’’

For starters, though, the JDC was given five sponsor exemptions for the seeming inconvenience of being scheduled opposite the Olympics. Two of the first five – NCAA champion Aaron Wise of Oregon and Charlie Danielson, the Big Ten player of the year from Illinois – attended media day.

The other three had good reasons for not being there. Jordan Niebrugge was competing at the British Open, having secured a spot off his sixth-place finish there the previous year, and Lee McCoy and Jon Rahm were taking advantage of sponsor’s exemptions to the Barbasol Championship, the PGA Tour stop played opposite the British. The JDC invite will give them another early start on golf’s premier circuit.

“We have a long history of introducing our golf fans to that next great class,’’ said Peterson, citing Johnson, Spieth, Justin Thomas, Camilo Villegas, Tiger Woods, Matt Kuchar, Bryson DeChambeau, Lucas Glover, Webb Simpson and Bill Haas as those “young players coming out of college that we were able to help kick-start their careers.’’

That’s an impressive list, and Wise and Danielson were most appreciative.

“The John Deere is going to be an incredible opportunity,’’ said Wise. “For us to get an exemption into a PGA Tour event is awesome. It’s what we need; it’s what we work towards.’’

“I’m just trying to play as much good golf as I can before Q-school,’’ said Danielson. “It’s just about staying fresh, staying competitive and getting ready to go get my card.’’

He expects to start his first pro season on the Web.com Tour “unless something spectacular happens.’’ Danielson shouldn’t be ruling that out. After all, the slogan for the John Deere is “Magic Starts Here.’’ It has for many players in the past and certainly could for him, Wise and the other young stars who will gather with an array of seasoned professionals at TPC Deere Run for pre-tournament activities starting on Aug. 8.

Hardy, Ghim bow out of Western Amateur; Horsfield, Meyer survive

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 19 holes but was walloped by Hardy’s University of Illinois teammate Dylan Meyer 5 and 4 in the quarterfinals.

Friday’s matches whittled the field in the prestigious championship to four players. Tourney medalist Sam Horsfield, a University of Florida sophomore from Manchester, England, will face Riley, a sophomore at Alabama, in the first semifinal at 8 a.m. and Meyer will take on Will Gordon, a sophomore at Vanderbilt from Davidson, N.C., at 8:15.

Meyer, from Evansville, Ind., needed to survive a playoff on Thursday to make it into the Sweet 16 for the match play portion of the tournament. He was sorry to see Hardy eliminated.

“We root for each other, and I we really wanted to play each other in the finals,’’ said Meyer, “but we’ll meet up again at the U.S. Amateur.’’

That’ll be the last big summer event before the collegiate stars return to their school teams. The U.S. Amateur will be played at Oakland Hills, in Michigan, starting on Aug. 15. Ghim will be there, too.

“It’s been fun testing my game against such a difficult golf course,’’ said Ghim, soon to be a junior at Texas. “I still consider this a good week, though I didn’t have my best game. I tried to be patient, but I kept burning the edges. It didn’t happen this week, but there’ll be more matches in the future.’’

Hardy started slowly against Riley and never recovered. He missed five putts inside of 10 feet on the front nine. The Meyer-Ghim match was similar, in that Meyer built a 3-up lead in the first eight holes and remained in control the rest of the way.

Horsfield, who was nine shots better than the rest of the field in the 72-hole stroke play portion of the tournament, needs to win both his matches today to become the first medalist to win the overall title since Chris Williams did it at Exmoor, in Highland Park, in 2012.

Horsfield dominates stroke play portion of Western Amateur at Knollwood

Englishman Sam Horsfield claims his reward after leading Sweet 16 qualifiers in Western Am.

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 championship, however. Sam Horsfield, a University of Florida sophomore from Manchester, England, dominated the 72-hole portion that determined the 16 who advance to match play on Friday.

Horsfield opened with a course record 9-under-par 63 on Tuesday, stumbled to a 75 on Wednesday and then cruised in with a 67-64 finish on Thursday to posted a 15-under-par 269 total for the 72 holes. That at least approached the records for the prestigious tournament. The record books are sketchy with the tourney’s Sweet 16 era going back “only’’ to 1956.

Using that as guideline, Horsfield had the fourth-best stroke play score in the history of the tournament, the best being a 265 by Aron Price at long-time host site Point O’Woods, in Benton Harbor, Mich., in 2004.

Danny Lee, the last medalist to go on to win the overall title in 2008, shot 268 at Point O’Woods and Chris Williams also posted that number at North Shore in Glenview in 2011. Their scores in relation to par and margin of victory were not available.

Horsfield, who won his qualifying medal by nine strokes over runner-up Michael DeMorat of Merritt Island, FL., was concerned with only one record.

“I knew the course record was 63 and I tried to make my birdie putt on the last hole for 62,’’ he said. That putt didn’t drop and Horsfield missed his comeback putt as well.

“Finishing bogey-bogey somewhat sucks, but I achieved my goal of making it to match play,’’ he said. “It was a special day. I had all things clicking.’’

At least that was the case most of the time. He needed a tuneup on the range between rounds on Thursday to work out a minor kink in his swing. After that it was clear sailing.

“In the afternoon I was in control of my game’’ he said. “Once I got to 3-under after nine I had nothing to worry about. My caddie and I decided to look at the rest of the round like it was a practice round.’’

Horsfield reached 17-under and led by 11 at one point on the final nine but that was incidental.

“If somebody told me I’d get to 17-under before the round I wouldn’t have believed it,’’ he said. “I told my girlfriend I wanted to get to 15-under, and once I was there I kind of just hit it around.’’

Earning medalist honors in no way guarantees that match play will be a similar walk in the park.

“Match play is a different animal,’’ said Horsfield, who was also a Sweet 16 qualifier last year. “You’re not playing the golf course, you’re playing your opponent. A lot of great names have won the medal. It’s a pretty neat accomplishment, but it’s over. I came here to win the tournament.’’

Hardy, the reigning Illinois State Amateur champion, finished 71-69 and tied for fourth. Ghim went 73-70 on Thursday and ended in a tie for sixth. They’ll be in the first round of match play, which starts at 8 a.m. on Friday. Winners will play in the afternoon quarterfinals, and the four survivors will decide the title on Saturday with semifinals in the morning and the title match in the afternoon.

Hardy will host Davis Riley, of Hattiesburg, MS., in the Round of 16 while Ghim will take on Max McGreevy, of Edmond, Okla. Horsfield’s opponent is Joaquin Niemann of Chile, who survived a six-man playoff for the final five spots in match play.

Among the other playoff survivors was University of Illinois golfer Dylan Meyer, who will face DeMorat. Four members of the Sweet 16 are foreigners.

Ghim is in the hunt again in Western Am after 2 rounds

Doug Ghim doesn’t play in many Chicago tournaments — but he’s ready for this one.

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 Knollwood Club in Lake Forest. Posting scores of 69 and 71, he trails England’s Sam Horsfield by one stroke entering Thursday’s 36-hole session, which will decide the 16 qualifiers for the match play portion of the competition on Friday and Saturday.

The field was cut from Tuesday’s 156 starters to the low 44 and ties for Thursday’s double round. Ghim is tied with four others, among them Todd Mitchell — the 38-year old veteran from Bloomington – at the 36-hole mark. Northbrook’s Nick Hardy is also in the mix, two strokes behind Ghim.

Ghim has taken an unusual path to success. He skipped high school competition at Buffalo Grove after his freshman year, preferring instead to play in national junior tournaments. Then, rather than attend college close to home, he opted for the perennial powerhouse program at Texas.

Both Ghim and Hardy are entering their junior seasons. Hardy is at Illinois, and he has enjoyed a great summer. He won the Illinois State Amateur by 10 strokes and finished as low amateur at the Illinois Open in the last three weeks. Ghim didn’t play in either one.

“I wanted to play the State Am but was late for registration,’’ he said, “and I didn’t have time to qualify for the Illinois Open, which was a bummer. I wanted to play. I wish I could have given Nick a run for his money but I just totally forgot that I wasn’t exempt for those events. It didn’t even cross my mind that I’d have to qualify.’’

The No. 9-ranked amateur in the world, Ghim has a loftier status than Hardy, who is No. 24. They could meet in the Western Am, but both have to survive Thursday’s 36-hole session to qualify for the Sweet 16 first.

“It might seem like I’m not trying to play locally, but I love playing around here, where I can sleep in my own bed,’’ said Ghim. “It’s nice to have this big tournament, with the best players in the world, in my hometown.’’

Ghim is used to big tournaments. He played for Team USA in the Palmer Cup in England this summer and also competed in tournaments in Pittsburgh and San Francisco.

Very little golf will be played at Knollwood after the Western Am ends on Saturday. After a members event on Sunday and an outing on Monday the course will be closes to enable a re-grassing of the greens. Those surfaces are a big challenge for the field in the Western Am.

“I’ve been drawing off my experience of two years ago (when he was the Western Am medalist at Beverly Country Club in Chicago),’’ said Ghim. “The courses are similar, and the greens may be firmer than those at Beverly.’’

“They’re a lot like Beverly’s, maybe even faster,’’ chimed in Hardy. “They’re not hard to read, just hard to putt. I love how they have Knollwood in this condition and, if I can win, it’d be my biggest win ever. But we’ve still got to get to match play. Then it’s anyone’s tournament.’’

Knollwood welcomes Western Am — golf’s most physical tourney test

Ten straight days of major tournament action in the Chicago area comes to an end on Wednesday with the conclusion of the Illinois Open at Royal Fox in St. Charles, but the break won’t be a long one.

The 114th Western Amateur tees off next week, starting with practice rounds on Monday at Knollwood Club in Lake Forest. No tournament is as physically demanding as the Western Am. There will be 18-hole rounds Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 2-3, before the 156-man starting field is whittled to the low 44 and ties.

Those players will go 36 holes on Thursday Aug. 4, and the top 16 will advance to match play to decide the champion. There will be two rounds of matches on Friday, Aug. 5, with the semifinals and final on Saturday, Aug. 6.

Few non-professional tournaments carry the prestige of the Western Am, and only two are older – the British Amateur, which dates to 1885, and the U.S. Amateur, which was first played in 1895. Past Western champions include Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Curtis Strange, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods.

This year’s elite invitational field has representatives from 20 countries. The defending champion is Dawson Armstrong of Brentwood, Tenn., a sophomore at Lipscomb University. Armstrong emerged the surprise champion at Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, when he overcame Aaron Wise in a playoff that went 20 holes.

Wise went on to become the NCAA medalist and lead Oregon to the team title. He recently turned professional and will play in next month’s John Deere Classic on a sponsor’s exemption.

Six members of this year’s Western Amateur field played in the U.S. Open at Oakmont in June and nine qualified for at least one of golf’s major championships played over the last two years.

“The depth of our field is what has made the Western Amateur one of the most prestigious amateur golf championships in the world for more than a century,’’ said Vince Pellegrino, senior vice president of tournaments for the Western Golf Association.

The WGA also conducts the Western Junior and BMW Championship, a PGA Tour event coming up at Crooked Stick in Indiana in September. The Western Am, though, provides more golf than either of those. The finalists will play the equivalent of two 72-hole tournaments plus a practice round in a five-day period.

That’s what makes it special, according to Adam Wood, a junior-to-be at Duke from Zionsville, Ind. He won the Western Junior in 2012 and was a Sweet 16 qualifier in last year’s Western Am.

“We love to have longer tournaments,’’ said Wood. “The players love a format like this one. The more golf you can play, the better.’’

Local entries are headed by Northbrook’s Nick Hardy, who played in the last two U.S. Opens, was a Western semifinalist last year and won the Illinois State Amateur with a stunning 28-under-par performance last week. Also likely to contend are Arlington Heights’ Doug Ghim, a junior at Texas; Wheaton’s Tee-K Kelly, the State Am runner-up and a two-time winner of that title; and Bolingbrook’s David Cooke, the 2015 Illinois Open winner..

Here and there

Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman has the last tee time (2:15 p.m, EDT) off the first tee in the PGA Championship’s first round Thursday at Baltusrol, in New Jersey. Luke Donald, the only other player with local ties in the field, has a more attractive pairing. He’ll go off with Matt Kuchar and Danny Lee at 1:05 p.m.

Dennis Johnsen, general manager and head professional at Pine Meadow in Mundelein, has been named the recipient of the PGA of America’s National Youth Player Development Award.

Medinah will host the second playing of the Bush Cup, a Walker Cup-style match between Army West Point and Northwestern, on Oct. 14. In last year’s first Bush Cup West Point and Yale played to a tie at Winged Foot, in New York. David Feherty will receive the Bush Foundation’s Humanitarian Award at the event’s dinner.

The Illinois PGA seniors and assistants will hold stroke play events on Monday (AUG 1) at Flossmoor Country Club.

The Chicago District Golf Association will conduct qualifiers for the U.S. Mid-Amateur at Willow Crest in Oak Brook on Thursday and Cantigny, in Wheaton, on Monday. The CDGA Amateur Four-Ball Championship will also begin a four-day run at Eagle Brook in Geneva on Monday.

Beloit Club is just the latest feel-good story in Wisconsin golf

Par-3 holes like this one are the trademark of the Beloit Club’s most charming layout.


BELOIT, Wisconsin – The last two decades have done wonders for golf in Wisconsin. Look no further than the creations of Blackwolf Run, Whistling Straits, Erin Hills and – most recently – Sand Valley. And don’t forget the recent major upgrades at SentryWorld and Lawsonia.

The Beloit Club should count in that mix as well, though it doesn’t have a high-profile tournament course and isn’t open to the public, either.

A private facility since its opening in 1909, the Beloit Club’s transformation in just the last two years has carried over to most positive changes in the town of 30,000 in which it resides. Golf is just part of it.

Prior to taking on its present name in 2014 the Beloit Club was known as the Country Club of Beloit. Its course was designed by Tom Bendelow, who seems to have designed a vast majority of the layouts that went up in the Midwest in the early 1900s. Bendelow’s designs were pretty basic things but, surprisingly, many are still most relevant now – though renovations and upgrades were inevitable. That’s been the case at the Beloit Club.

Stanley Pelchar, who designed courses mainly in the 1920s, is also listed among the architects of record as is Bob Lohman, who started his successful Illinois firm in 1984.

Beloit Club GM Kent Instefjord has been up close and personal with the golf boom in Wisconsin.

The city of Beloit, just over the Illinois line from Rockford, was one of many that struggled in the economic downturns of the last decade and its only private golf club did as well. The club’s membership dipped to 115 before help from life-long area resident Diane Hendricks was requested.

Hendricks, a billionaire who deemed a private golf club a necessary amenity in her community, decided she’d simply purchase the club. That’s when exciting things started to happen. Hendricks, whose ownership of some 65 companies began when she and her late husband Ken took over ABC Supply — the largest wholesale distributor of roofing and siding materials, has invested $15 million in the Beloit Club project.

Every building on the property — from the clubhouse to the swimming pool to the maintenance facility and cart barn — is now brand new. Oliphant/Haltom was brought in to manage the golf course and that led to the removal of 500 trees in what was largely a cleanup effort.

The course, which measures 6,847 yards from the back tees and 5,160 from the front, is great for walking and fun for players of all abilities. The square-shaped tee boxes and mowed paths from greens to tees enhance a most pleasant setting. Best of all, though, are the four par-3s – Nos. 3, 7, 10 and 16. Taken collectively, I can’t recall seeing a better combination of short holes – though I’ll admit that’s an argumentative appraisal.

The building of the Beloit Club’s very attractive new clubhouse was completed in just five months.

Kent Instefjord, the Beloit Club’s general manager, arrived when the upgrading began but he was already well versed in the spectacular golf growth in the Badger state. Raised in nearby Janesville, he worked at Blackwolf Run before a stint as head professional at Whistling Straits from 1998 to 2003 and was also general manager and director of golf at Erin Hills from 2006 to 2010. Instefjord had similar roles at high profile clubs in Missouri (St. Albans) and Arizona (LaPaloma) before returning closer to home for the Beloit Club revival.

Since his arrival the membership has climbed to 380 – with 100 coming just this year –and the upgrading is far from finished. An expansion of the lockerrooms and pro shop and the creation of a spa and lodge to accommodate overnight guests is also in the works.

The next new thing, though, will come off the Beloit Club property. The Ironworks Golf Lab has a scheduled October opening in Beloit’s soon-to-be-bustling downtown area. It’ll be open to the public and offer, among other things, three indoor golf simulators with the Beloit Club staff running the operation.

This may not look like much now, but it’ll soon be an indoor golf facility in downtown Beloit.

JDC could benefit from some significant last-minute entries

At first glance it appeared the John Deere Classic got a bad deal when the PGA Tour moved the tournament off its usual July dates and scheduled the tourney opposite next week’s Olympics’ golf competition in Brazil.

Subsequently, though, a large contingent of top players – among them JDC defending champion Jordan Spieth and world No. 1 Jason Day – pulled out of the Olympics citing concerns over the Zika virus. That diminished the quality of the field in Brazil and opened the door for at least some of the potential Olympians to play at the JDC instead.

None have entered as yet, but – with the four tourney rounds beginning next Thursday, Aug. 11 — they still have until Friday afternoon to do it. Even without any of the players opting to skip the Olympics, the JDC won’t be suffering with its new, temporary dates. Next year the tourney will return to its familiar place on the schedule, the week before the British Open.

“This year has been a little different,’’ said JDC director Clair Peterson. “It’s given us a little extra time for setup and sponsors and volunteers have stuck with us. Plus, ticket sales are about the same as they were last year at this time.’’

In a normal year the JDC, played at TPC Deere Run in Silvis on the outskirts of Moline, would fall in the middle of the four major championships. Because of the compressed schedule the last of the four majors for this year ended on Sunday with Jimmy Walker’s victory in the PGA Championship.

JDC mainstays Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker will be in next week’s field and more big name players might consider entering with FedEx Cup Playoff and Ryder Cup points still on the line. Those events fall after the last putt drops in the first Olympics’ golf competition since 1904.

To compensate in part for the date change Peterson was given more sponsor exemptions this year. He’s always used them wisely, and this time he invited five college stars who just turned professional – NCAA medalist Aaron Wise (Oregon), Big Ten player of the year Charlie Danielson (Illinois), Jon Rahm (Arizona State), Lee McCoy (Georgia) and Jordan Niebrugge (Oklahoma State).

On Monday Peterson added a promising Chicago area player, Frankfort’s Brian Bullington, to the list. He played at Lincoln-Way East High School and the University of Iowa before joining the PGA’s Latinoamerica Tour after turning pro a year ago.

Bullington, who finished 25th in last week’s Illinois Open, has lots of experience at TPC Deere Run. He played in four tournaments there – but all came before he even entered high school. The Plantation Junior Golf Tour held an annual event there.

“I played for the first time there when I was 9 years old, so I’ve come pretty much full circle to play my first PGA Tour event there,’’ said Bullington.

“We’ve been the launching point for the careers of players coming out of college, and we like that,’’ said Peterson, mentioning Johnson, Day, Spieth, Justin Thomas, Camilo Villegas, Tiger Woods, Matt Kuchar, Bryson DeChambeau, Lucas Glover, Webb Simpson and Bill Haas among the players who were given kick-starts to the pro careers via JDC sponsor exemptions.

This year’s commitment list includes five players (in addition to Johnson) who have won major titles: Argentina’s Angel Cabrera (2007 U.S. Open and 2009 Masters), South African Trevor Immelman (2008 Masters), Lucas Glover (2009 U.S. Open), Stewart Cink (2009 British Open) and David Toms (2001 PGA).

The JDC – now in its 46th year and the only PGA Tour event played annually in Illinois – offers $4.8 million in prize money with the champion getting $864,000. There’ll be free admission to the Monday and Tuesday practice rounds. A pro-am on Wednesday, Aug. 10, will precede the four days of tournament play.

Here and there

The Western Amateur field will shrink from the 156 starters on Tuesday to the low 44 and ties after Wednesday’s round at Knollwood, in Lake Forest. The 16 qualifiers for the match play portion of the tourney will be decided after Thursday’s 36-hole session and two rounds of matches are on tap for both Friday and Saturday.

David Impastato, owner of Studio 59 Golf Learning Center in Batavia and former director of golf operations at Cog Hill and head professional at St. Charles Country Club, has been named an instructor for Golf Channel Academy.

The 15th Chicago District Senior Amateur begins its three-day run on Monday at Wynstone, in North Barrington, and the Illinois PGA Senior Championship will be conducted Monday and Tuesday at Whisper Creek, in Huntley.

The SpeedGolf World Championship will return to The Glen Club in Glenview on Oct. 17-18.

HERE AND THERE: World Am Handicap deadline is closing in

Before the month is out golfers will pour into the World’s Largest 19th Hole in Myrtle Beach.


The entry number is already over 2,900 from 25 countries, but there’s still room for more in the 33rd annual Myrtle Beach World Amateur Handicap Championship. The deadline to enter the event, labeled “Every Man’s Major,’’ is Aug. 6 and the competition runs from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2.

Nearly 60 of Myrtle Beach’s best courses participate in the event, which includes four rounds of golf, a gift bag and nightly entry into the World’s Largest 19th Hole – which features free food and drinks, live entertainment, a golf expo and other attractions at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.

Golfers are assigned flights based on gender, age and handicap. At the conclusion of four rounds all flight winners and ties advance to the 18-hole championship playoff where the overall champion is crowned. Players with handicaps as low as three and as high as 34 have won the overall title.

Opening near for Hilton Head’s newest course

Atlantic Dunes gives Hilton Head a new look. (Photo, The Sea Pines Resort/Rob Tipson)

The Ocean Course may have been the most historic layout at Hilton Head, S.C., but it is no more.

Love Golf Design, founded by U.S. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III and his brother Mark, have directed a complete reconstruction and recreation of the first course built on Hilton Head. It’ll be known as Atlantic Dunes when it opens for play in October.

Atlantic Dunes will feature a pronounced seaside ambience accented by coquina shells and seaside grasses. The design goal was to incorporate elements of the surrounding beachfront along with the area’s bounty of native pines and oaks lining the fairways.

Love and lead architect Scot Sherman entirely rebuilt some holes to accommodate modern shot values. The course will benefit both visually and strategically from restoration of natural sand dunes as well as the creation of new dunes. Tens of thousands of indigenous plants have also been installed in these areas.

Michigan’s Gull Lake View will soon have a sixth course

Gull Lake View has welcomed golfers for over 50 years.

Way back in 1963 Darl and Letha Scott built a nine-hole course in Southwest Michigan. Very soon the family-run operation will have its sixth 18-holer.

Stoatin Brae – which means Grand Hill in Scottish Gaelic – will be only the second course of the six not designed by members of the Scott family. It’s billed as a departure from the other five that have holes cutting through the trees and hills on the area’s natural rolling land in the town of Richland, near Kalamazoo.

Eric Iverson, Don Placek, Brian Schneider and Brian Slawnik – all senior associates for Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design of Traverse City, Mich. — worked with the Scott family on determining the site for Soatin Brae. Doak was not involved in the project.

The new course is on a site located atop an open grassy bluff overlooking the Kalamazoo River Valley and there’s one point where golfers scan see 15 flagsticks on a clear day. The course’s restaurant, named Blue Stern after a native grass that is growing on the course, will open at about the same time as the par-71, 6,800-yard layout.

Island Resort is adding second course

Island Resort & Casino in Harris, Mich., has begun construction on its second course. Tony Mancilla, general manager of the resort in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, said the layout will be called Sage Run. The name references 10 holes that will run significantly downhill on the course.

Paul Albanese is the course architect. He also designed Sweetgrass, the resort’s other course that is the site of the Symetra Tour’s Island Resort Championship.

Nine fairways of Sage Run will be planted beginning this month and the other nine in the spring. A soft opening is planned for the fall of 2017 and a grand opening in 2018.

Mission Inn plans Centennial celebration

The passage of time has only made El Campeon a better golf course.
The El Campeon course at Florida’s Mission Inn Resort and Club turns 100 in 2017 but the celebration will start early. The “100th Anniversary Golfers Getaway Package’’ will be offered beginning in October and will run through Jan. 15, 2015.

Designed by George O’Neil, a golf professional and architect from Chicago Golf Club, El Campeon was originally known as the Floridian when it opened in Howey-in-the-Hills near Orlando. It was one of the first courses in Florida to feature grass greens rather than the oil-sand greens common a century ago. It was also one of only two courses in the state built to what was then considered the “regulation’’ length of 6,300 yards.

The course took its present name when the Beucher family, transplants from the Chicago area, bought the resort in 1964. The course has 85-foot elevations changes, a rarity for central Florida layouts.

Reynolds Lake Oconee welcomes AJGA

The American Junior Golf Association and Reynolds Lake Oconee, in Greensboro, Ga., has announced a five-year partnership on a new championship event – the AJGA Junior All-Star Invitational. It’ll cap a season-long Road to Reynolds sequence of events for players ages 12 to 15 participating in the AJGA’s American College Development Services Series.

The event, to be held for the first time in 2017, will have an international field of 96 male and female players determined by the Polo Golf Rankings. They’ll compete over 54 holes. The Rolex Tournament of Champions, an international event for top-ranked boys and girls in the 12-18 age group, will also return to Reynolds Lake Oconee in 2021.

Bits and pieces

French Lick Resort, in southern Indiana, will host the LPGA Legends Championship for the fourth straight year from Aug. 18-21 on its Pete Dye Course. Sandra Haynie and Elaine Crosby will be inducted into the Legends Hall of Fame as part of the tourney activities.

The Inn on Woodlake, the boutique hotel for Wisconsin’s Destination Kohler, is expanding. Plans call for the Inn to get a combination of four-bedroom and two-bedroom units along with additional single rooms. The Inn is a popular spot for golfers coming to play Whistling Straits — home to three previous PGA Championships and the Ryder Cup site in 2020 — and/or Blackwolf Run, which has hosted two U.S. Women’s Opens.

Oglebay Park, in Wheeling, W. Va., announced that its courses were not affected by the recent floods that devastated the state. Oglebay has two 18-holers – The Speidel Golf Club, designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. and Arnold Palmer, and the 5,600-yard original course called the Crispin.

Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Golf & Spa Resort, in Los Cabos, Mexico, is expanding with the creation of The Towers at Pacifica, three new structures featuring distinct accommodations, enhanced amenities and first-class personalized services.

Cobble Beach, in Kemble, Ontario, has announced an “Unlimited Golf’’ special– $99 from Monday-Wednesday, on its Doug Carrick-designed course that has been ranked among the best public courses in Canada. After 4 p.m. the price drops to $69.

Sainz smashes Illinois Open scoring records in 5-stroke victory

Illinois PGA president Jim Opp presents Illinois Open trophy to Carlos Sainz Jr.

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 in St. Charles that are only a few miles apart – produced record victories in both the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open. Those events are the biggest events annually for local players.

The epic two weeks started with Nick Hardy, a University of Illinois junior-to-be from Northbrook, devouring the field in the Illinois State Amateur with a 28-under-par performance over 72 holes at St. Charles Country Club. The State Am has been played for 86 years and Hardy’s 260 score for 72 holes erased a record that had stood for 46 years and his relation to par score eliminated a record that had been standing for 32 years.

Hardy was only part of the supporting cast on Wednesday, however. He hung on for low amateur status in the Illinois Open, edging playing partner Branden Mounce of El Paso and Kevin Flack of Belvidere by one stroke. The Open was played on two St. Charles courses, Royal Fox and Royal Hawk, and Hardy was fourth overall.

Sainz shot shot 67-65-65, with the last two rounds one off the course record in the eight Illinois Opens played at Royal Fox. Flack and Wheaton’s Tee-K Kelly, runner-up in last week’s Illinois State Amateur, also posted 65s on Wednesday but Sainz was clearly the star of this show.

He played like a PGA Tour player — which he was last year and hopes to be again – against the best professionals and amateurs who also reside in Illinois. The tourney had 638 entries and the 156 in the finals were determined after seven state-wide qualifying tournaments.

The Illinois Open, which has been played for 67 years, is contested over 54 holes. Sainz was a five-stroke winner over long-hitting Christian Heavens, a mini-tour pro from Fairview Heights near St. Louis. Like Hardy the week before, Sainz rewrote the tournament record books with his 17-under-par 197 performance. The records he erased weren’t as longstanding as those made irrelevant by Hardy. Bolingbrook’s David Cooke set the old records – 15-under 199 for 54 holes over the Royal Melbourne and Hawthorn Woods courses just last year.

“This was big – something I’ve wanted to win as a pro the last four-five years and almost did the last time I played it,’’ said Sainz, who was also low amateur in the tournament before turning pro.

Sainz was on a role in 2013. He won for the first time on the Canadian PGA Tour, flew to Chicago that night and three days later made it into a playoff in the Illinois Open that was eventually won by Antioch’s Joe Kinney. Sainz was exhausted after seven straight days of pressure-packed tournament golf but returned a few weeks later to win the now defunct Chicago Open.

The momentum gained from those tournaments helped Sainz get playing privileges on the PGA Tour in 2015 but he didn’t earn enough money to keep his tour card. He hopes to get it back, and Wednesday’s win was a step in the right direction. He’ll rejoin the Canadian circuit – now called the Mackenzie Tour – next week in preparation to another crack at the PGA’s fall qualifying school.

“When you’re playing well you’ve got to feel you’re going to win the tournament. That’s how I feel at the Illinois Open,’’ said Sainz. “Now I’ve got to learn to do it at the national level, and on bigger stages.’’

He has shown signs of doing that. He was 20-something under par in a similarly handy win in South Florida last winter.

“But that was a long time ago,’’ said Sainz. “It’s nice to have a solid week again.’’

He had this Illinois Open in hand from the get-go after owning a four-shot lead to start the final round. That lead grew to as many as six strokes as he made birdies on four of the first six holes and then coasted in. The highlight of his final round were 25-foot birdie putts at the third and 16th holes.

“I felt great all day and controlled my emotions well,’’ said Sainz, who picked up $17,500 for his victory.