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.

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.

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.

Commissioner Mike Whan announced that the first LPGA Senior Championship will be played July 10-12 – Monday through Wednesday – at French Lick Resort in southern Indiana. Most pro golf events conclude four days of competition on Sunday, but it was difficult to find weekend dates for the LPGA’s senior members, former stars now in the 45-plus age group.

To compensate the LPGA – at the suggestion of French Lick chairman Steve Ferguson and director of golf Dave Harner – put two of its smaller tour events together. The LPGA’s developmental circuit, the Symetra Tour, will hold a 54-hole event on French Lick’s Donald Ross Course from July 7-9 immediately before 81 senior members battle for a $600,000 purse the next three days on the acclaimed Pete Dye Course. There will be no cut in the senior event. The Symetra tournament, also played at 54 holes, will have a $200,000 purse with $30,000 going to the champion.

The Ross was the site of Walter Hagen’s win in the 1924 PGA Championship and victories by Mickey Wright and Betsy Rawls in the LPGA Championships of 1959 and 1960. The biggest event on the much younger Dye layout — it opened in 2009 — was Colin Montgomerie’s victory in the 2015 Senior PGA Championship.

Scheduling gets even more complex for senior women than just the assignment of weekday dates. The first LPGA Senior Championship follows one of the circuit’s regular major championships – the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship Sept. 30 to July 2 at Olympia Fields Country Club — and the U.S. Women’s Open will be played the following week at Trump National in New Jersey.

It also could mean the end of The Legends Championship, a previous brainchild of the French Lick staff who had been working with Legends Tour executive director Jane Blalock. Blalock created that circuit – acknowledged as the “official’’ senior tour of the LPGA – in 2000. The LPGA and Legends, though, operated independently.

“We’ve had a close relationship with the Legends Tour for four years,’’ said Harner. “We felt this was the right thing to do, to give the senior ladies a major event.’’

Last year’s Legends Championship, in which Scotland’s Trish Johnson whipped defending champion Juli Inkster in a dramatic six-hole playoff, had a purse of $325,000. In its four-year run The Legends Championship couldn’t get any television coverage. The first LPGA Senior Championship will have six hours of coverage on The Golf Channel. Both French Lick and The Golf Channel have multi-year agreements with the LPGA on the new senior tournament.

The Legends Hall of Fame is located at the West Baden Springs Hotel in French Lick, and the Legends Championship has been the biggest event on Blalock’s circuit. For now, the tourney announced on Tuesday mainly amounts to a name change but the future of The Legends Championship is in doubt. Harner said it won’t be held at French Lick if it is held at all.

In addition to Inkster and Johnson, the Legends roster has included such prominent names as Nancy Lopez, Beth Daniel, Patty Sheehan, Joanne Carner, Jan Stephenson and Pat Bradley.

Harner is hopeful that Annika Sorenstam will end her long break from competition and join those stars at French Lick. Sorenstam wasn’t mentioned at Tuesday’s televised announcement, however. Michelle McGann, a seven-time LPGA winner, represented the senior players.

“This is amazing,’’ said McGann. “I went on tour when I was 18 and never thought I’d be playing in an LPGA Senior Championship. I’m so excited. French Lick has a fabulous golf course, and the people there have been so supportive of our Legends Tour.’’

Senior women had been the lone segment of the golf population largely ignored by the sport’s organizing groups until recently. The U.S. Golf Association announced in 2015 that it would conduct at U.S. Women’s Senior Open, but that event won’t debut until 2018 at Chicago Golf Club.

BIT AND PIECES: Tiger Woods announced that he would play in the PGA Tour’s Genesis Open Feb. 13-19 at Los Angeles’ Riviera Country Club. It was the site of his first PGA Tour event in 1992, when Woods was a 16-year old amateur.

Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray, long the only Chicago player on the LPGA Tour, could wind up playing in both the Symetra and senior events at French Lick. She’s one of only two players to earn money on all three women’s circuits in 2016. Jeray has full status on the Symetra in 2017 and expects to get into most of the Legends tournaments as well, but she fears conflicts with the accompanying pro-ams may limit her to playing one or the other tournament at French Lick. The first LPGA Senior Championship also includes pro-ams on the Friday and Saturday of the Symetra tournament.

Deerfield’s Vince India has regained his place on the PGA’s Web.com Tour. He finished third in last week’s qualifying school in Winter Garden, FL.

Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Good has been at least temporarily thwarted in its well-publicized bid to launch its new Triton driver. The club’s development was the focal point of a nationally-televised golf reality series, but the U.S. Golf Association says the club doesn’t conform to its rules. Wilson is working to correct the issue.

The John Deere Classic, despite having new dates and a weakened field due to the return of golf to last summer’s Olympics, was named the PGA Tour’s Tournament of the Year.

Illinois men’s coach Mike Small will be inducted into the Golf Coaches Hall of Fame on Wednesday night in Norman, OK.

Tournament organizers have announced that tickets are now on sale for the NCAA Championships at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove; the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship; the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, IL; and the U.S. Open at Erin Hills in Wisconsin.

CHASKA, Minnesota – The last Ryder Cup played on American soil came four years ago at Medinah. The next one is here this week at Hazeltine National. Though Medinah and Hazeltine aren’t rivals, there’s bound to be comparisons on and off the course as the 41st Ryder Cup unfolds.

In a meltdown of epic proportions the U.S. blew a 10-6 lead on the last day of singles matches at Medinah and lost to the Europeans – something that’s happened eight times in the last 10 meetings.

The Medinah Ryder Cup also represented a breakthrough in terms of magnitude. Never had the event been such a bonanza in terms of corporate involvement.

Whether the U.S. team – with the same captain, Davis Love III, returning – learned from the meltdown at Medinah won’t be determined until the matches begin on Friday. On the preparation side, however, the lessons from Medinah have been utilized already. Hazeltine has sold even more corporate chalets than Medinah did and has the biggest merchandise tent..

“On the big picture side, the best thing Medinah did for us was setting a high bar,’’ said Patrick Hunt, Hazeltine’s Ryder Cup chairman. “We’re competitive. We always want to beat previous records, and they set all the records at Medinah.’’

Hazeltine set its own goals and that turned the Medinah success into healthy motivation. Hunt and his Hazeltine crew had one challenge that Medinah didn’t have. Golf was added to the Summer Olympics program for the first time since 1904, and that meant a 72-hole tournament for top players in Brazil a month before the Ryder Cup came to Hazeltine. One of Europe’s stars, Justin Rose, won the gold medal and another, Henrik Stenson, took the silver in Brazil.

That might not bode well for the U.S. chances in this week’s matches but the Olympics but weren’t a problem in Hazeltine’s preparatory effort.

“I never thought the Olympics would be a distraction or a negative,’’ said Hunt. “It created a more compacted schedule, but at the end of the day the competition was a good thing.’’

Crowds will be about the same as Medinah, with 250,000 expected for the week.
“We learned from (previous host clubs) Valhalla, Medinah and Oakland Hills, but Hazeltine is an ideal venue to host a Ryder Cup because of the resources available,’’ said Jeff Hinz, in his first stint as a Ryder Cup tournament director at Hazeltine. “The club had experience hosting events and, with the land that they have and the vision of the club to host championships, that was critical.’’

The Hazeltine Ryder Cup will be the first to have on-site signage for its main corporate partners. It also conducted a national trophy tour and will have the largest merchandise tent in golf history. New twists in marketing were also evident, most notably the use of the 1980 U.S. Olympic gold medal-winning hockey team as ambassadors

Hazeltine is even better qualified historically to host this Ryder Cup than Medinah was four years ago. Hazeltine didn’t even open until 1962, roughly 40 years after Medinah, but it has already hosted two U.S. Opens (1970, 1991), two U.S. Women’s Opens (1966, 1977), two PGA Championships (2002, 2009), the U.S. Senior Open (1983) and the U.S. Amateur (2006).

The Ryder Cup is all that’s missing from the club’s resume, and that will soon be corrected. Only one club has hosted all those big events plus the Ryder Cup. That would be North Carolina’s Pinehurst No. 2, which opened in 1907 – 55 years before Hazeltine.

Hazeltine looks much different than Hazeltine. Medinah has the bigger clubhouse but Hazeltine has the newer one. It was built in 2010.

Medinah has three courses on its premises. It also offers a variety of other activities for its members – like tennis, swimming and skeet and trap shooting. Hazeltine is all about golf. Though it has only one, very respected, course there is plenty of open space around the club and that makes it a most desirable tournament venue.

Robert Trent Jones designed the Hazeltine course, but it won’t play as he envisioned it for the Ryder Cup. The hole rotation has been altered since the 2009 PGA was played there to accommodate the construction of chalets for corporate hospitality. The last four holes of each nine were switched to make for a better spectator experience.

At Medinah overall course conditioning was a major problem leading right up to the start of play, but all went well in the end. At Hazeltine there wasn’t as much tension. What there was came in the installation of a new bunker system. Work on that was completed in the dead of winter, two months before the course even opened for play.

Bunkers are a key part of the Hazeltine playing experience, and the course has 108 of them. They account for the same square footage as the putting surfaces – about three acres each. That’s an eye-catching statistic, because bunkers typically are about one-third the size of the putting surfaces.

I’m not sure I would have taken up this sport – one that I love with a passion but don’t play very well – had it not been for Arnold Palmer.

It was back in the mid-1950s when my family lived on Chicago’s Northwest side. I was about 11 years old and my mother wanted me to see an exhibition event at Medinah. (Actually, I think she wanted to mainly see Arnold, the most charismatic athlete of our time).

We went, he didn’t win but the day was enjoyable. My mother took me out to play on a course shortly thereafter, and a life-long love affair with the game began.

Over the years I covered some of his tournaments, the first being the 1968 Western Open at Olympia Fields – my first PGA Tour event as a golf writer working for a major metropolitan newspaper. Palmer didn’t win that one, either, but he was accessible to the dozen or so media that attended. The media crowd and the galleries would, of course, grow considerably from those days.

On the professional level, my best up close and personal experience with Palmer came in Boston. I was sent there to cover something else, but wanted to do a feature on Palmer in advance of the budding Senior PGA Tour (now called the Champions Tour) planning a Chicago visit. A few other writers from around the country had the same idea, and we gathered at a restaurant where Palmer was planning a private dinner with friends.

He knew we’d be there, and we expected a brief, friendly chat. We’d get a story and he’d be back with his friends in a few minutes. Not so. He stayed and talked with about half dozen scribes he barely knew for a good hour as his friends waited (I hope) patiently.

Much more recently we visited Palmer’s Bay Hill Club in Orlando, FL, as part of golf/travel-writing adventures in 2015. Palmer was there, dining with his guests, getting his picture taken, just being Arnie. I have a treasured piece of golf art from that visit signed by the king himself.

Palmer’s competitive career was winding down when I came on the golf-writing scene. He won his last PGA Tour event in 1973, but he kept playing – and that’s a big reason the golf kept growing and the Champions Tour became a viable part of the pro sports scene.

In 49 years playing the PGA Tour Palmer earned $1,784,497 and won 62 tournaments including seven major titles. He earned much more than that in endorsements and other ventures, of course. His income from 2014, for instance, was reported at $42 million by one respected business publication.

Palmer is certainly not about money, though. He walked with kings and played golf with presidents, but he never lost touch with more common folks.

Rather than dwell on his playing record and businesses success, I thought you might enjoy some tidbits – provided in no particular order — about Palmer’s life that I feel tell more about this extraordinary man:

After winning the 1954 U.S. Amateur he served three years in the U.S.Coast Guard, a stint that interrupted but hardly stymied his plans to be a touring pro.

He beat prostate cancer himself and created the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, which is ranked among the best such hospitals in the world. His grandchildren called him “Dumpy.’’

One U.S. president, John F. Kennedy, sent Palmer a picture of his swing in hopes he would critique it. Another president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, flew to Palmer’s home in Latrobe, Pa., to make a surprise appearance at his birthday party. The day after Gerald Ford left the presidency he had a golf game with Palmer.

Perhaps Palmer’s biggest victory came when he rallied from a seven-stroke deficit in the final round to win the 1960 U.S. Open, but he also blew a big lead on the back nine of another U.S. Open before losing to Billy Casper in a playoff in 1966.

Palmer built the first golf course in China and designed more than 300 courses around the world. Among them are three in Illinois including Hawthorn Woods Country Club in the Chicago area.

The son of a greens superintendent, Palmer broke 100 for 18 holes when he was just 7 years old. He met his first wife Winnie on a Tuesday and asked her to marry him four days later. They were married 45 years until her death in 1999.

He signed what must be a zillion autographs and – unlike most every other athlete – his name was always provided in a legible manner. He was confident enough to wear pink before that color was fashionable.

He has a drink in his name – an Arnold Palmer, iced tea and lemonade – that is known world-wide. He also had his own winery.

He played in 50 Masters tournaments and was a major factor in the creation of The Golf Channel.

He became a pilot to overcome his fear of flying.

He has both the Congressional Golf Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the only sports figure to have both.

He attended Wake Forest, where a statue stands in his honor. In 2013 he rode into one of that school’s football games on a motorcycle.

In 2010 Esquire magazine named him one of the 75 best dressed men of all time.

Palmer had his very own Army, and it was always vocal and supportive, but Arnie’s Army isn’t the only segment of society that will sorely miss him now that he’s gone.

Another PGA Tour season ended for Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman and Luke Donald, the former Northwestern star, at Sunday’s BMW Championship in Indiana. Both failed to qualify The Tour Championship – last event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs – in Atlanta next week and won’t be competing in the Ryder Cup matches the week after that in Chaska, Minn.

Streelman and Donald tied for 39th place in the BMW at Crooked Stick, a finish that enabled Streelman to climb from 63rd to 59th in the Playoff standings and Donald to drop from 56th to 57th. They needed to be in the top 30 to play for another $8 million purse at East Lake in Atlanta.

Chicago’s top two players also finished very close on the PGA Tour season money list, Donald earning $1,634,515 and Streelman $1,601,177 in the 2015-16 wrap-around season.

Neither, though, is going into hibernation even though their tournament seasons won’t kick into high gear again until 2017.

Donald was honorary chairman for his Taste of the First Tee wine-tasting fundraiser on Monday, and he brought a special guest – BMW winner Rory McIlroy – to Medinah Country Club for the annual even benefiting the First Tee of Greater Chicago.

Streelman was happy to head home to Arizona.

“That was the end of a long run,’’ he said. “My body is pretty tired and my wife and kids were ready to be home. We’d been away for a month straight.’’

Streelman, though, is anxiously awaiting a new series televised on The Golf Channel. Created by Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Good, it’s called Driver vs. Driver and follows the trials and tribulations of aspiring golf equipment designers as they compete for $500,000 and the opportunity to have their driver concept brought to life and sold under Wilson’s name.

About 300 ideas were submitted. Tim Clarke, head of Wilson’s golf division, along with former U.S. Golf Association director Frank Thomas and ex-Bear great Brian Urlacher formed the panel of judges.

“It’s a great concept and the filming came out great,’’ said Streelman, who is one of the guest judges on the show that debuts Oct. 4. The winner will be announced on Nov. 22, and Streelman plans to have the winning driver in his bag when he returns to the PGA Tour in February HOPE check.

“Wilson is making a huge move to become one of the big hitters in golf, and this was a pretty cool idea,’’ said Streelman. “The ideas for the drivers were incredible. I was very, very impressed.’’

Illini roll on

The University of Illinois men’s team rallied to win its season-opening event, the Wolf Run Invitational played just a few miles from the BMW Championship in Zionsville, Ind. Northbrook junior Nick Hardy also won the individual title just days after Illini coach Mike Small signed a new six-year contract extension.

“It’s nice the university committed to us, and that they appreciate what we have accomplished,’’ said Small. “We have great facilities, and I’m where I want to be the rest of my career.’’

Small’s squad will host at its own tournament starting Friday at Olympia Fields Country Club – the OFCC/Fighting Illini Invitational. It’s considered one of the top collegiate competitions in the fall season.

Here and there

Next big local event is the Illinois Senior Open, which begins its two-day run on Monday at McHenry Country Club.

Steve Sawtell and Michael Natale combined to win the Merit Amateur, a 54-hole event conducted in a modified Stableford format at Merit Club in Libertyville. Mark Esposito and Ted Zurkowski won the senior division.

Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, will host the men’s and women’s NCAA finals next spring and that won’t be the only national collegiate championship event played in Illinois. TPC Deere Run, the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic site in Silvis, has landed next May’s National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics tournament.

Indiana’s French Lick Resort has signed on to sponsor next February’s Chicago Golf Show in Rosemont.

The Chicago District Golf Association will combine with Odyssey Golf Club to host the Fore Our Veterans outing on Sept. 28 in Tinley Park.

Only three events remain in the PGA Tour’s 2015-16 season, and all will have very select fields.

This week’s BMW Championship, at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Ind., will feature the 70 survivors in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The top 30 after it’s over advance to The Tour Championship Sept. 22-25 at East Lake in Atlanta and then the season concludes with the Ryder Cup – the high-profile competition between 12-player teams from the U.S. and Europe – Sept. 29 through Oct. 2 at Hazeltine National in Minnesota.

The BMW could well be the season-ender for both Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman and Luke Donald, the former Northwestern star. They remained in the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings after the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston concluded on Monday but need great weeks at Crooked Stick to be among the 30 who will tee it up at East Lake, where a $10 million bonus awaits the playoff champion.

Donald was bypassed in the selections for Europe’s Ryder Cup team and Streelman is a highly unlikely candidate for the four wild card spots available on the U.S. squad. Captain Davis Love III will announce three after the BMW Championship and his final one after The Tour Championship.

Both Streelman and Donald survived the final 36-hole of the season at the Deutsche Bank Championship, but that was about all. Streelman tied for 57th place and Donald tied for 65th. Both dropped in the FedEx standings because of those finishes, Donald from 53rd at the start of the week to No. 60 and Streelman from 57th to No. 63.

Still, both are assured big paydays this week, as there’s no 36-hole cut in the BMW Championship. The 70 qualifiers will share the hefty $8 million prize fund — the purse at all four of the playoff events.

The BMW Championship, conducted by the Chicago-based Western Golf Association, rotates in and out of Chicago every other year. Last year it was played at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest, with Jason Day winning the title. It’ll be back at Conway in 2017 and the only other future sites that have been determined are Aronimink in Pennsylvania in 2018 and Medinah in 2019.

Crooked Stick, a Pete Dye design in the Indianapolis suburbs, hosted the BMW Championship in 2012 with Rory McIlroy winning. A suddenly revived McIlroy also won the Deutsche Bank title on Monday after putting a new putter in his bag and hiring a new putting coach. Going 19-under-par in his final 69 holes he overcame a six-stroke deficit in the final round to climb to No. 4 in the FedEx standings.

Any player ranked in the top five who wins at East Lake will also pocket the $10 million bonus. The top three going in are Patrick Reed, Day and Dustin Johnson while Adam Scott is No. 5. If none of the top five win The Tour Championship the top prize will be up for grabs.

As for Streelman and Donald, both will have to play their best at Crooked Stick and hope that’ll be good enough to get into the top 30. Dramatic climbs in the standings are possible in the volatile scoring system, however. Billy Hurley, for instance, improved from 77th to 51st with a strong showing at Boston and Hudson Swafford climbed from 82nd to 61st.

Here and there

The start of the Web.com Tour Playoffs will coincide with the BMW Championship. First of the four events, which bring together the top 75 from the Web.com circuit and those ranked between 125 and 200 on the PGA Tour, is the DAP Championship at Canterbury in Cleveland. The field includes Elmhurst’s PGA veteran, Mark Wilson, and former University of Illinois golfers Luke Guthrie and D.A. Points.

Bloomington’s Todd Mitchell won the 24th Illinois State Mid-Amateur for the fifth time last week at Flossmoor Country Club. The fifth title pulled Mitchell into a tie with Jim Frisina for most wins in a single state amateur championship. Frisina won the Illinois State Amateur five times between 1942 and 1958.

Next big event on the state calendar is the 30th Illinois State Senior Amateur, which runs Monday through Wednesday (SEPT 12-14) at Bloomington Country Club. Mistwood’s McWethy Cup is also on tap for Monday in Romeoville.

Mike Small considers himself a coach first and a still-competitive player second. Next week, however, those roles may be blurred a bit.

The University of Illinois men’s coach goes after his 12th title in the 94th Illinois PGA Championship. The event begins its three-day run on Monday on the South Course at Olympia Fields Country Club.

Next month Small returns to Olympic Fields as a coach, as his Illini host the 11th playing of the OFCC/Fighting Illini Invitational. It’ll be a highlight of the fall season for the Illini, who will also make another Chicago appearance on Oct. 9-10 in the Northern Intercollegiate event at Beverly Country Club.

First things first, though. Small has won his 11 IPGA titles since 2001 and he captured the crown both times during that stretch when it was played at Olympia Fields, of which he is a member. He is in the rare position of not being the defending champion this time, however. Small tied for seventh in last year’s IPGA Championship at Medinah’s No. 1 Course. Jim Billiter, assistant pro at Merit Club in Libertyville, won the title there.

Small, who won his last two IPGA Championships back-to-back in 2013 and 2014, goes into this one standing second to Glen View’s Kyle Bauer in the section’s player-of-the-year race. Small has been player-of-the-year three times, but a limited tournament schedule related to his coaching duties has hampered his chances in recent years.

Bauer leads the standings, largely off his win in the first of the section’s four major events – May’s IPGA Match Play Championship — while Small’s tournament season has featured a tie for ninth in the Illinois Open and a tie for 43rd on the national level at the U.S. Senior Open.

Two former players of the year, Medinah’s Travis Johns and White Eagle’s Curtis Malm, are third and fourth in the standings behind Bauer and Small. Maximum points are on the line in the IPGA Championship, so next week’s results will go a long way to determining this year’s player of the year.

Donald got hot at the right time

Luke Donald, the former Northwestern star and world’s No. 1-ranked golfer, couldn’t have picked a better time to play his best tournament of this PGA Tour season. He finished solo second, behind 21-year old South Korean Si Woo Kim, in the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., on Sunday.

The Wyndham was the last tournament offering FedEx Cup points. The lucrative four-tournament FedEx Cup Playoffs begin on Thursday with The Barclays at Bethpage Black in New York.

In finishing second Donald improved his place in the FedEx Cup standings from No. 99 to No. 48. No player made a bigger climb in the Wyndham, which had a field full of players hoping to position themselves for a playoff run.

By getting to No. 48 Donald seems assured of spots in the first three FedEx events – the Barclays, the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston and the BMW Championship — played this year at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis. All three are $8 million tournaments. Only the top 125 on the FedEx list qualified for The Barclays. The top 100 after Sunday’s finish advance to the Deutsche Bank and the top 70 after that compete in the BMW Championship.

Not only did Donald climb in the standings last week, he also made a hole-in-one during the event. That earned him a lifetime of Wyndham vacations as well as a one-week vacation for his caddie.

Here and there

Eagle Brook, in Geneva, has announced the completion of a $2.5 million improvement project that started in January. The clubhouse underwent an extensive renovation, changes were made to the golf course and a new fitness center and wellness studio were created.

Baltimore Country Club has been named the site for the 2017 and 2018 Big Ten men’s championships. A site for 2017 has not been determined.

The Arlington Amateur has been scheduled for Sept. 10-11 on Arlington Lakes’ recently-renovated course.

Deerpath, in Lake Forest, celebrated its 90th anniversary on Sunday with the event also marking the start of a master plan renovation.

John Blumenshine, playing out of Cantigny in Wheaton, was the only player under par in the 4th Chicago District Super Senior Amateur. He posted a 2-under 69 at Biltmore, in Barrington.

Next event on the CDGA schedule is the 24th Illinois State Mid-Amateur, which begins a two-day run at Flossmoor Country Club next Tuesday.

University of Illinois product Thomas Pieters is in, and former Northwestern star and world No. 1 Luke Donald is out.

That summed up Tuesday’s announcement of the European team’s three captain’s picks for the 41st Ryder Cup, coming up Sept. 27 through Oct. 2 at Hazeltine National in Minnesota. Darren Clarke, captain of Team Europe, revealed his picks in England and two of the selections – Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer – were obvious. On a team loaded with six Ryder Cup rookies, those two provide much-needed experience.

Then it came down to Pieters, Scotland’s Russell Knox (ranked No. 20 in the world), Donald and Graham McDowell – another veteran Ryder Cupper.

Clarke ruled out Donald and McDowell, saying on The Golf Channel that “Neither is firing on all cylinders.’’ Then it came down to Pieters, from Belgium, and Knox.

“I had to go with my gut feeling,’’ Clarke said. “When I told (Pieters) he was over the moon. He’ll be a world No. 1 at some stage.’’

Pieters, 24, is one of the many budding professional stars to come through coach Mike Small’s powerhouse program at Illinois. After starring for the Illini Pieters opted to play predominantly on the European PGA Tour where he has won three times, the most recent win coming on Sunday in Denmark.

Donald, who last played the Ryder Cup at Medinah in 2012, jumped into contention with a solo second place finish two weeks ago in the Wyndham Classic. He had a dismal final round on Sunday, shooting 75 to drop 26 places into a tie for 53rd place at The Barclays – first of the four FedEx Cup Playoff events in New York.

The last day at The Barclays was also difficult for Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman. He also shot 75 after being in contention for three rounds and wound up tied for 22nd place. Both, though, remained well into the top 100 in the FedEx overall standings and are in the field for the Deutsche Bank Championship, which tees off on Friday in Boston.

Donald is No. 53 and Streelman No. 57 entering the second $8 million playoff event and they must remain in the top 70 to play in the third – the BMW Championship, which will be played Sept. 8-11 at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis.

Pieters’ Ryder Cup selection culminates a big week for ex-Illini golfers. Brian Campbell clinched his PGA Tour card for the 2016-17 season by finishing 15th on this season’s Web.com Tour money list. Thomas Detry, another Belgian, won the European Challenge Tour’s Bridgestone event in England on Sunday by a whopping 12 strokes. He opened that event with a 60 en route to claiming his first professional victory.

Ryder Cup visits Cog Hill, Wrigley

The first-ever Ryder Cup Trophy Tour, a month-long 5,000-mile journey to promote the team matches between the U.S. and European stars, will include stops at both Cog Hill, in Lemont, and Wrigley Field.

Cog Hill’s PGA Junior League will welcome the trophy on Sept. 7 and it will be at Wrigley Field Sept. 16 during the Cubs-Brewers game. A day later the trophy will be in South Bend, Ind., during the Notre Dame-Michigan State football game. Those represent three of the 20 appearances the Cup will make in 13 American cities.

IPGA, Mid-Am wrap up

The final rounds of both the 94th Illinois PGA Championship and the 24th Illinois State Mid-Amateur Championship are on tap for today (WEDNESDAY).

The IPGA Championship ends its 54-hole run on Olympia Fields’ South Course while the final 18 of the 36-hole Mid-Am concludes at Flossmoor Country Club, the tourney site for the sixth straight year.

Here and there

Emily Fletcher, the very successful coach of the Northwestern women’s team, will receive the coveted Woman of Distinction Award from the Women’s Western Golf Association at the organization’s annual meeting Oct. 6 at Indian Hill in Winnetka

Brian Payne and his wife Elizabeth, both former Northwestern golfers from Flossmoor, qualified for their respective U.S. Mid-Amateur national championships. The men’s and women’s finals will be played Sept. 10-15 at courses in Pennsylvania.

Batavia club manufacturer Tour Edge has named Australian John Craig as its executive vice president effective Jan. 1.

The American Junior Golf Association named Megan Furtney, of South Elgin, as one of 20 players in the 12-15 age group to its 15th Junior All-Star team. The team consists of players from nine states and three countries.