PALM HARBOR, FL. – The final round of the PGA Tour’s four-week Florida Swing was an unusual one.  Taylor Moore won the Valspar Championship on Sunday, but Adam Schenk and Jordan Spieth – paired in the final group – created all the drama.

It was their shortcomings on the three tough finishing holes at the Copperhead Course – the stretch is called the Snake Pit – that allowed Moore to win and Schenk and Spieth to have animated talks with their caddies  at critical moments. They were evident as TV cameras zeroed in.

That wasn’t unusual for three-time major champion Spieth, whose relationship with bag-toter Michael Greller has been well publicized, but Schenk has a special caddie, too.  David Cooke was a two-time Illinois Open champion, and Schenk regularly brought him into post-round discussions with the media during the tournament.

“David and I did about as good as we could have done with how I hit it (on Sunday),’’ said Schenk, who finished one stroke behind Moore in second place and one ahead of Spieth.  “I told David I wasn’t worried about the field.  I wasn’t worried about Jordan.  I wanted to play my game. I wanted David and I just to do the best that we could do from what we did. We did that.’’

Unfortunately for the Schenk-Cooke team, a bad drive on the last hole prevented both from claiming a first PGA Tour victory.

Schenk led the tournament most of the way and provided more subjects for conversation than just his caddie.  His wife Kourtney, expecting their first child in a month, made an overnight trip from Indiana the night before the final round in hopes of seeing Adam win. She walked the final 18 with Spieth’s wife,  Annie, but neither could celebrate a win when the tournament was over.

Cooke, who grew up in Bolingbrook, and Schenk were golf teammates at Purdue when they were freshmen.  Then Cooke transferred to North Carolina State for his final three collegiate seasons and Schenk finished at Purdue.

While still an amateur Cooke won the 2015 Illinois Open by five shots after shooting a final round 63 at Royal Melbourne in Long Grove.  The win came just eight months after his brother and sometimes caddie Chad had died for a heart disorder playing a pickup basketball game.

Three years later, after turning pro, Cooke won the Illinois Open again – this time by four shots over current PGA Tour player Nick Hardy at The Glen Club in Glenview.

That win was special, too, as Cooke hurried from there to his wedding and then took his new bride, Clair, to Europe where he made a short – and unsuccessful – bid to earn a place on the pro tour there. It was during that year that he altered his career plans.

“I loved Europe but played terrible,’’ Cooke said then.  “I love caddying and getting exposure to the PGA Tour.’’

Only four players – Gary Pinns, Mike Small, Dick Hart and Marty Schiene – have won more Illinois Opens than Cooke, but he was on the bag of PGA Tour player Chesson Hadley when his title defense approached. Cooke opted for the steady job as a caddie and stuck with it.

His hookup with Schenk is a comfortable one.  Schenk grew up and still lives in Vincennes, Ind., and he remains a Hoosier at heart. His swing instructor is Anthony Bradley, at French Lick Resort, and he’s represented another Indiana facility, Victoria National.

Though that first big win eluded him, Schenk – who played his 10^th straight week of tournaments at the Valspar — wants Cooke by his side as their PGA Tour adventure continues.

“We have a lot of discussions.  I love working with David,’’ said Schenk.  “We know our trouble areas, we know what we’re good at, and we just try to play to our strengths.’’

That philosophy is working.  Schenk has won $6 million since joining the PGA Tour in 2018.  This season he has made 12 of 17 cuts, including seven of his last eight starts.

Life on the PGA Tour hasn’t been easy for the Chicago-connected players, but that could change this week.

Luke Donald, Doug Ghim, Nick Hardy, Kevin Streelman and Dylan Wu are all in the field for the Valspar Championship, the last of the four tournaments on the circuit’s Florida Swing.

With a paint company as the title sponsor, the Valspar bills itself as “the most colorful tournament on the PGA Tour’’ and it has some other unusual features.

All five courses at the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, just outside of Tampa, were designed by legendary Chicago architect Larry Packard and the resort’s owner is Sheila Johnson, who went to Proviso East High School and the University of Illinois.

The Chicago fivesome  in the field will battle for a share of the $8.1 million in prize money when the tournament tees off on the Copperhead Course on Thursday. Donald (2012) and Streelman (2013) are past champions.

Only Wu, the former Northwestern star, has played well lately, however. Hardy has missed his last four cuts, Ghim has missed seven of his last eight and Streelman three of his last four.

Donald, 45, and Streelman, 44, are PGA veterans who won when the tournament had other names.  It was the Transitions Championship when Donald won and the Tampa Bay Championship when Streelman took the title.

Wu, though, has blossomed in the last two months.  He had strong finishes in his two starts in Florida, tying for 10^th in the Honda Classic and tying for 35^th at last week’s Players Championship.  He was the last player to make the field at The Players, getting in off his position on the FedEx Cup point list.

In addition to earning $114,166 in in one of golf’s best-playing tournaments Wu was up close to the excitement as Aaron Rai, his third-round playing partner, made one of the tourney’s three holes-in-one.

At the end of the 72 holes Wu matched the score of Sam Burns, who will be in the spotlight this week at Innisbrook.  Burns will be going after his third straight title on the Copperhead course.

Only nine players have won a PGA Tour event three straight years since World War II.  Tiger Woods did it four times at four different tournaments, last accomplishing the feat in 2007.  Arnold Palmer did it at two events in the 1960s.

Last player to notch a three-peat was Steve Stricker, who ruled the John Deere Classic from 2009-11. Other three-peaters since World War II were Gene Littler, Billy Casper, Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Stuart Appleby.

None of the Chicago fivesome has qualified for the Masters yet, and time is running out.  Each will probably have to win a tournament to play at the year’s first major tournament at Augusta National starting on April 6. The Valspar and Valero Texas Open are the only tournaments before then that advance champions to the Masters.

The Valspar has a stronger field than usual, despite the PGA Tour’s creation of “elevated’’ tournaments to lure the top stars.  Valspar is not an “elevated’’ event but this week’s field includes Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick and Jordan Spieth. They have rarely competed in previous Valspars.

Thomas (PGA Championship) and Fitzpatrick (U.S. Open) will defend major titles later this year. Spieth, who has wins in the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open, won the Valspar in 2015.

HERE AND THERE:  Mark Hensby, had wins at the Illinois State Amateur, Illinois Open and John Deere Classic earlier in his golf career.  Now, at 51, he’s making a splash on PGA Tour Champions.  Hensby tied for third in the Cologuard Classic in Arizona on Sunday, and that was his second top-three finish in three starts on the 50-and-over circuit in 2023.

Dylan Wu, the former Northwestern star, won’t look back on last week’s Honda Classic because it was the event’s last-ever playing on the PGA Tour.  He’ll remember it as the spot where he notched his first top-10 finish on golf’s premier circuit.

Wu won three college tournaments while at NU and compiled the second-best scoring average in school history behind Luke Donald, who parlayed his college success into a stint as the world’s No. 1 golfer during his early years on the PGA Tour.

Donald, the current Ryder Cup captain for the European side, missed the cut in the last Honda — a tournament played near his Florida home — but there’s still a big difference between Donald and Wu on the professional level.

Wu, 26, turned pro in 2018 after his college career ended.    After a brief stint on the Canadian PGA tour Wu earned a spot on the Korn Ferry circuit and won an event before earning his PGA Tour card for the 2022 season. He barely retained it for this year, finishing No. 150 in the FedEx Cup standings as a PGA rookie. That’s the last spot to earn a tour card.

In his two seasons on the circuit Wu made 18 cuts in 36 starts and earned $834,286.  He’s improving, though.  In the 2022-23 season he’s made six-of-nine and the 66 he shot in the final round of the Honda matched his best round of the year.

NEXT UP: BAY HILL – Despite his strong finish last week at PGA National Wu won’t be in the field for the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the second of the four-week Florida Swing.  It tees off on Thursday in Orlando and is one of the newly designated Elevated Tournaments, meaning it has more prize moy than most events and is guaranteed most of the game’s top stars. Masters champion Scottie Scheffler is the defending champion.

Wu, Donald and Northbrook’s Nick Hardy were the only Illinois-connected players cing at PGA National.  Donald and Hardy are in the field at Bay Hill along with Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman, Illinois alum Thomas Detry and Northwestern alum David Lipsky.

Wu will compete in the PGA’s alternate field event, the Puerto Rico Open, along with Pekin’s D.A. Points, who won that event in 2017.

CAPTAIN’S COURAGEOUS: Donald had an interesting pairing in his two rounds at the Honda.  He played with Padraig Harrington, European’s Ryder Cup captain when the U.S. scored its record victory at Whistling Straights in 2021, and Zach Johnson, who will be Donald’s rival U.S. captain in this year’s Ryder Cup in Italy.

Johnson knows he won’t be able to use players competing on the  controversial Saudi-backed LIV Tour but Donald isn’t sure. The European powers that be have been non-commital.

“There is some differences, some subtle and some substantial between what he’s going through and I’m going through,’’ said Johnson.  “I don’t even understand it all with his team, but I don’t need to.  I feel for him.  It’s not the easiest thing to navigate. And  I’m not sure what clarity I really have, to be honest with you,  because it’s ever changing.’’

FLORIDA DILEMMA: Florida native Billy Horschel was not happy that the Honda – the longest-running title sponsor on the PGA Tour – won’t return in 2024.  The tournament began in Ft. Lauderdale, as the Jackie Gleason Inverarry Classic, in 1972.  Honda was the title sponsor since 1982 and PGA National was the site since 2007.

“We used to have two tournaments in South Florida – here and Doral,’’ said Horschel.  “Now we only have one, and we’re not going to lose this one.  I’ve been told we’re going to stay here.’’

Difficult dates led to weak field for the Honda in recent years.

“You’ve got 30 to 40 PGA Tour pros who live within a couple miles of this place, and only a handful played last week.  That’s disappointing.  The PGA Tour needs to make sure this event is put in the right spot (on the schedule) so they get all the top players here on a regular basis.’’

Like Horschel, Jack Nicklaus – whose nearby children’s hospital was the Honda’s main beneficiary – also believes the tournament will be back at PGA National once new sponsorship is finalized.

For 37 years the Chicago Golf Show was considered the unofficial start to the Chicago golf season.  And then the pandemic hit.

The show was cancelled in 2001 and 2022 because of pandemic concerns, but it’s back this weekend in full force at the Stephens Convention  Center in Rosemont. It’ll feature Colt Knost, an on-course TV reporter for CBS, and Paige Spiranac, a prominent social media influencer on golf, sports and fitness.

Knost is one of the most decorated amateurs in golf history, having won the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Public Links and was a member of the U.S. Walker Cup team in 2007.  He won the Public Links title at Cantigny, in Wheaton, then played on various pro tours before retiring in 2020.

Spiranac and Knost will appear together on the show’s Daily Herald Main Stage at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday and Knost will also be there at 11 a.m. on both days.

Show visitors can also sign up for free rounds at the 13 Chicago area courses operated by SportsVisions and Illinois PGA professionals will be offering free lessons.  There will also be deals available on equipment, apparel, shoes, golf bags and balls, swing aids, indoor putting greens and range finders.

Show hours are noon to 6:30 p.m. on Friday 9 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sunday.

IPGA MAJORS ARE SET:  The Illinois PGA has announced its 2023 schedule and its two oldest and biggest major championships will have major venue changes.  The Illinois PGA Championship, first held in 1922, will make its first appearance at Thunderhawk, in Beach Park, Aug. 14-16 and the 74^th staging of the Illinois Open will be at Flossmoor July 31-Aug. 2.

The Illinois PGA was played at a first time venue last year, at Makray Memorial in Barrington, when player-of-the-year Brian Carroll edged 13-time winner Mike  Small for the title.

Flossmoor hasn’t hosted the Illinois Open since 1984 when former PGA Tour player Lance Ten Broeck won the title.  That south suburban club also was the site for Bob Harris’ victory in 1955.

First of the section’s four majors, the Match Play Championship, will make its second appearance in three years at Bull Valley, in Woodstock, May 8-11 and The Players Championship will conclude the big events Oct. 9-10 at Twin Orchard, in Long Grove.

HERE AND THERE: Thomas Pieters, who grew up in Belgium before starring collegiately at Illinois, will reportedly join the LIV Tour this week.  He was the 2012 NCAA champion for the Illini and holds a No. 34 world ranking after spending most of his professional time on the European tour. The LIV circuit begins its second season on Friday in Mexico.

Arlington Heights’ Doug Ghim snapped a string of six straight missed cuts on the PGA Tour at last week’s Genesis tourney in Los Angeles.  He finished in a tie for 62^nd place.  Northbrook’s Nick Hardy missed his second cut in eight starts at the Genesis event.  He’ll play in this week’s Honda Classic, the start of the PGA’s Florida Swing.

Four Illinois players were in the 78-man field in last week’s PGA Tour Champions Chubbs tourney in Florida where Bernhard Langer tied Hale Irwin’s record for most wins on the 50-and-over circuit.  Mark Hensby tied for 18^th, Jeff Sluman tied for 25^th and Illinois Golf Hall of Famers Gary Hallbeg and Jay Haas tied for 66^th and tied for 70^th respectively.

Palatine Hills has landed a qualifying round for the U.S. Women’s Open.  The qualifier, one of 26 nationwide, will be held on June 7 and the main event will be July 6-9 at California’s Pebble Beach.

NAPLES, FL. – Bernhard Langer now shares the honor of being the winningest golfer in the 43-year history of PGA Tour Champions.  In winning the Chubbs Classic on Sunday Langer notched his 45^th win on the 50-and-over circuit to pull even with Hale Irwin.

The 36^th playing of the Chubbs was like a home game for Langer, who has lived in nearby Boca Raton for over 30 years.  Langer has won the Chubbs five times and came into Sunday’s final round on the Tiburon Golf Club’s Black course as the defending champion.

Moving ahead of Irwin could come as early as the next tournament, the Cologuard Classic in Tucson, Ariz., in two weeks. Langer has won there in the past, but he was savoring win No. 45 Sunday without looking past that.

“It was extremely special because I never thought it would happen,’’ said the 65-year old Langer, who extended his record of being the oldest Champions Tour winner to four events.

Irwin won the first of his 45 tournaments in 2007, the same year that Langer won his first.  Irwin got his 45 in 217 starts and Langer has made 319.

Langer was tied for the lead after the first round on the Black Course at Tiburon Golf Club and led by one after Saturday’s second round.  He bettered his age in posting a 64 on Friday and matched his age with a 65 on Sunday.  His 17-under-par SCORE resulted in a three-stroke victory margin but the historic win wasn’t that easy.

Fred Couples knocked Langer out of the lead by making four birdies in the first six holes on Sunday.  When he cooled off Padraig Harrington shot 29 on the front nine to take the lead and Dicky Pride, in the field as a sponsor’s exemption, used a hole-in-one at No. 10 to also move into the top spot.

Langer wasn’t aware what was happening to them as the back nine unfolded, but it was to his benefit.

Harrington put his tee shot near a pond at No. 14 and needed three more shots to just get out of the hazard.  That led to a double bogey, and Harrington was done.  Steven Alker, one of Langer’s playing partners, threatened until putting a fairway bunker shot into the water at No. 13. That also meant a double bogey and finished Alker.

Pride his tee shot tee deep in the woods on No. 17 and finished bogey-bogey. That left Langer a stroll to the finish, where the gallery piled in behind him in appreciation of his accomplishment.

“My whole life has been an improbable story,’’ said Langer after the celebrating had died down.  “I should have died as a kid when I had an extremely high fever.  Doctors told my mother not to have a child, but she got pregnant anyway.  They told her to abort me, but she decided not to take a chance of killing herself and me.  We both survived.’’

Then came his start in golf.

“I was just a German kid from a village of 800 who started as a caddie,’’ he said.  “Nobody started a career in golf in Germany.  They thought I was crazy.  Just to earn a living at it was incredible.  Maybe some day we can make a movie about it.’’

That may take a while, as Langer has no intention of cutting back on his tournament schedule any time soon.

David Glod has boosted the profile of his 36-year old Batavia-based Tour Edge golf club company in recent years by building an advisory staff around players on PGA Tour Champions, and none of Glod’s signing was more important than Bernhard Langer.

Eight competitors on the 50-and-over circuit are Tour Edge ambassadors, and they include former major championship winners in Langer (1985 and 1993 Masters),  Mike Weir (2003 Masters) and Tom Lehman (1996 British Open).

The spotlight is only on Langer now, because he’s on the brink of a major historical accomplishment.

Hale Irwin holds the Champions record with 45 tournament victories from 1995 to 2007. Langer, with 44, could tie Irwin with a win at the Chubbs Classic, which begins its 54-hole run Friday (FEB 17) at Tiburon, in Naples, FL.  Langer, 65, is the defending champion. He’s also won at least two times every year since 2011, so he could well pass Irwin during the 2023 campaign.

Still a full-time player, Langer believes he “has a few more wins in me,’’ and he’s quick to point out his Tour Edge equipment as a key to his success.

“I love it,’’ he said.  “It’s a great company. I signed with them two or three years ago and just renewed for another two years. The company is phenomenal.  They make a great product and it’s getting better. I just tested their new hybrids, and they brought out a new set of irons that Mike Weir immediately put into play.  I loved just looking at his, so I’m getting mine hopefully in Naples.’’

Irwin was a frequent winner in Chicago (1990 U.S. Open at Medinah, 1975 Western Open at Butler National and three Champions Tour events – 1995 at Stonebridge and 1998 and 1999 at Kemper Lakes). The Stonebridge win was Irwin’s last on the 50-and-over circuit and came in the same year that Langer won for the first time on the Tour. He had 42 wins on the European Tour but only three on the PGA, including his two Masters.

He is off to a slow start with the seniors this year, with a tie for 10^th in Hawaii in January and a tie for 39th in Morocco last week.  Langer, a Florida resident for over 30 years, feels more comfortable heading to Tiburon.

“I think I have a slight advantage living in South Florida, being used to the grasses, mostly Bermuda,’’ he said.  “To me it feels like a home game.’’

Home game or not, he has no plans to reduce his tournament schedule.

“If I’m healthy, if I enjoy the game and have fun doing it and am somewhat successful, I’m probably going to continue,’’ he said. “ I do have my aches and pains, but I enjoy being out there with my colleagues, and I’m still fairly good at it.’’

Though Langer didn’t play well in last week’s Trophy Hassan II event in Morocco the event had some surprise results by Illinois players.  Mark Hensby won the Illinois State Amateur in 1994 and the Illinois Open in 1996 shortly after arriving from Australia and then captured the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic in 2004 after earning his PGA card.  His career hasn’t been as promising since then, but Hensby finished second in Morocco – his best finish in 11 Champions Tour starts since he turned 50.

Long-time Chicago resident Jeff Sluman, basically retired from tournament golf over the last three years, showed up in Morocco and tied for 19^th in the 66-player field.  Sluman won’t be playing in Naples but Hensby and Illinois Golf Hall of Famers Jay Haas and Gary Hallberg will.

HERE AND THERE:  The 38^th Chicago Golf Show returns to the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont Feb. 24-26.  The show was cancelled due to pandemic issues in 2021 and 2022.

Three Illinois PGA members received national honors from the PGA of America at the recent PGA Merchandise Show in Florida.  Jamie Nieto, of The Preserve at Oak Meadows, received the Deacon Palmer Award, Nick Papadakes of Onwentsia the PGA Professional Development Award and Cog Hill’s Kevin Weeks the PGA Teacher and Coach of the Year Award.

A $5.9 million renovation at Canal Shores, the 103-year old course that winds through Evanston and Wilmette, will begin in June.  A youth golf facility and caddie academy will be created with architect Todd Quitno overseeing the project.  Some of the holes will remain open until Aug. 1 with the project to be completed in the summer of 2024.

Top level men’s professional golf has been hard to find in the Chicago area in recent years. That won’t be the case this season.

The upstart LIV Golf League finally announced its schedule on Tuesday and it included a return to Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove.  That means the top men’s players will be visiting twice in 2023.

The PGA Tour hasn’t had a tournament in the area since Medinah hosted the BMW Championship in 2019, though the sport’s premier circuit has had the annual John Deere Classic as a fixture in downstate Silvis.

This year, though, the PGA Tour will come back to the Chicago area with the BMW Championship, a FedEx Cup Playoff event, scheduled at Olympia Fields. Then that circuit won’t be back for any event until 2026 when Medinah hosts the President’s Cup team event.

LIV’s return to Rich Harvest wasn’t a surprise.  It hosted one of the controversial Saudi-backed circuit’s most successful events in its inaugural 2022 campaign with Australian Cameron Smith winning the title.  LIV held eight tournaments last year and will have 14, spread across the world, this year.

Tuesday’s announcement was delayed until a television contract was finalized, and that was accomplished when The CW Network agreed to terms last week.

There was also a question on Greg Norman’s status as LIV’s chief executive officer and commissioner.  PGA Tour leadership, notably Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, wanted Norman out but his role has been expanded instead after former managing director Majed Al-Sorour was dropped down to a member of the board of directors.

The Olympia Fields and Rich Harvest events will be a month apart, setting up a big fall climax to the Chicago season. The BMW is Aug. 14-20 and the LIV stop in Sugar Grove is taking a new date, Sept. 22-24.

Both are well clear of golf’s four major championships, the British Open being the last to wrap up on July 23.  The Rich Harvest event will be played opposite the PGA’s Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi.

One interesting scheduling issue surfaced with LIV’s announcement.  LIV has a new event, at Orange County National in Orlando, FL., on tap a week before the first major, April’s Masters. There will be LIV players competing in the Masters against PGA Tour stars.  Orange County National has been the regular host of the Demo Day at the PGA Merchandise Show and was in that position when the show teed off on Tuesday.

LIV again has three of its events scheduled at courses owned by Donald Trump, but that third – a climax to the 2022 season – has been scaled down to a regular event instead of the team championship, which will now be played Nov. 3-5 in Saudia Arabia.

Obviously LIV isn’t going away any time soon and its court battle with the PGA Tour figures to become an increasingly heated one.

The first LIV event of the year will be Feb. 24-26 at Mexico’s Mayakoba Resort. The stars that bolted the PGA Tour for the big money offered by LIV – notably Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Patrick Reed, Bubba Watson and Sergio Garcia – return to the LIV roster and more stars need to be added since the team competition has been expanded for the second season.

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Northbrook’s Nick Hardy will be a more colorful player when he begins the 2023 portion of his second season on the PGA Tour at this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. It’s  the circuit’s first full-field event of 2023.

The 26-year old University of Illinois alum signed last week as the PGA Tour ambassador for Swag Golf, a five-year old company that produces putters and club headcovers. Its headquarters are also in Northbrook.

Swag has named the hand-crafted putter that Hardy tested in the final months of 2022 as the  “Hardy Prototype.’’  It apparently works, as Hardy made eight straight birdies with it (one off the PGA Tour record)  in his second tournament with the new blade at Mexico’s Mayakoba course in November.

His new clubhead covers, though, will be more noticeable when Hardy arrives at the first tee this week. Hardy has collected headcovers for years, now having about 60 over multiple brands. His new ones will be among the most colorful on tour and could be the most coveted among collectors.

Hardy will be rotating headcovers each week, and the first set will have an Hawaiian theme. Hardy’s favorite cover is one featuring former Bears’ coach Mike Ditka.

Swag’s founder, Nick Venson, focused on creating putters at first.  He was a Scotty Cameron enthusiast before working at putter manufacturer Bettinardi. The headcovers, though, were an immediate hit when U.S. captain Steve Stricker ordered some for his winning team at last year’s Ryder Cup.

“I don’t switch things,’’ said Hardy.  “I have the same driver shaft, same iron shaft and had the same putter for eight years before this one. Their putters are already great, and we’ve dialed in something I love even more. They make the best covers I’ve ever seen, and I want to make more of a collection.’’

Hardy needed a strong showing in a three-tournament, season-ending playoff series to retain his PGA Tour card, then made cuts in the first five events of the wrap-around 2022-23 campaign before missing in the final event.

HERE AND THERE

Jaravee Boonchant, the Thailand golfer who won this year’s Illinois Women’s Open at Mistwood by seven shots, has earned her LPGA card.  The Duke University player earned her spot on the premier women’s circuit by finishing in the top 45 at the recent Qualifying School.

Jeff Sluman, a long-time Hinsdale resident and six-time winner on both the PGA  Tour and PGA Tour Champions, has been nominated for a three-year term on the U.S. Golf Association’s Executive Committee. He’ll join Chicago’s Tony Anderson, who is in the process of serving his second term.

The Winnetka Park District has named Northbrook-based KemperSports to manage its nine and 18-hole courses, both of which will be closed in 2023 to facilitate an extensive renovation led by Libertyville architect Rick Jacobson. Both courses will re-open in 2024.

The Chicago District Golf Association has announced an 89-event schedule for 2023.  The key dates are for the 92^nd Illinois State Amateur, July 18-20 at Bloomington Country Club, and the 103^rd CDGA Amateur, June 26-29 at Lake Shore in Glencoe.

Eagle Ridge Resort, in Galena, has announced that it’s all new Stonedrift Spa is now open at a new location, where the General Store had been located.