On Sunday Luke Donald finished third in the Dubai World Championship and became the first golfer to win money titles on both the U.S. and European PIA Tours while holding membership in both.

This is something for the history books, and the feat hasn’t gotten the attention it should have from the sports media both in and away from Chicago. When you factor in what went on both on and off the course I believe Donald’s 2011 topped the accomplishments of all athletes, in all sports.

First he rises to No. 1 in the world, then pads his lead. When Webb Simpson threatened to claim the money title on the PGA Tour Donald added a late-season tournament and won it. When Rory McIlroy had a chance (however slim) to get the European money title Donald responded with a solid third-place showing with all that historical significance on the line.

He may still be without a major championship, but Luke was consistently good and at his best when the going was toughest.

All that success on the course came with two life-changing developments off the course — the birth of a daughter and the death of his father. It wasn’t so long ago, either, that Donald made a difficult decision — parting company with his brother as his caddie — that also factored into his extraordinary 2011 season.

Personally I feel an attachment to the Donald saga because I’ve seen a lot of it develop from up close. He was the leader of a Northwestern golf team that brought the Wildcats national prominence. I’ll also recall his victory in the Chicago Open at Beverly Country Club in the midst of the 9/11 tragedy. Luke was just an amateur playing against regional pros then, and I’m not sure the event should even have been held, given the circumstances facing the entire country at the time, but Donald emerged the champion and gave an early hint about where his golf career was headed.

Not long after that I had a lengthy sitdown with Luke and his brother in their Evanston apartment for a golf magazine profile on golfers with promise. Luke certainly fulfilled his, and remained an extraordinarily strong supporter of the NU program while doing it.

In the near future Donald will like learn if he gets his wish from the Western Golf Assn. He has made it known that he’d like the BMW Championship be moved to Conway Farms, his home course in Chicago, in 2013. I’m not so sure he’ll get his wish on that one. The WGA has been mum on that subject, though Conway would make a viable venue for that tournament.

The Chicago District Golf Assn. and Western Golf Assn. have made major announcements in their tournament sites just a few days apart.
In announcing its tournament slate for 2012 the CDGA revealed that Cantigny, the 27-hole public layout in Wheaton, will host the concluding four-day match play portion of the CDGA Amateur. That’s significant because the finals haven’t been held on a public course since 1991. Last year the prestigious tourney wrapped up at Medinah, with the final on that club’s No. 3 course that will host the 2012 Ryder Cup matches.
Kokopelli, in Marion, will host the CDGA’s biggest tourney of the season — the 82nd Illinois State Amateur. That site marks a milestone as well, since Kokopelli will be the southern-most course to ever host the tourney. It’s about 25 miles further south than Rend Lake, in Whittington — the site of the 1998 championship.
“This is only the second time ever that the Illinois State Amateur has ventured to the southern portion of the state, and we couldn’t have found a better course,’’ said Nick Scillia, the CDGA manager of competitions and rules.
Rend Lake was the host venue when current PGA Tour player D.A. Points won the second of his three Illinois Am titles.
The WGA made a schedule switch for the 2013 season, dropping Olympia Fields as the site of the Western Amateur and moving the event to The Alotian Club in Arkansas.
After ending a 28-year run at Point O’Woods in Benton Harbor, MIch., the WGA had planned to base the tourney in the Chicago area and the first three tourneys in that run — Conway Farms in 2009, Skokie in 2010 and North Shore in 2011 — were successful. The year’s Western Am will be at Exmoor, a tradition-rich private club in Highland Park.
The Chicago run, though, will end with the move to The Alotian Club, a Tom Fazio design that is owned by Augusta National member Warren Stephens. Alotian Club has been well-received since its opening in 2004 and its two Evans Scholars, Joe and Kevin Evans, are Northwestern students.
The Chicago run is scheduled to resume in 2014 at Beverly and is targeted for Rich Harvest Farms in 2015 and Knollwood in 2016.
Olympia Fields has been Chicago’s busiest tournament site in recent years, the highlight coming when it hosted the 2003 U.S. Open. Olympia also hosted the U.S. Girls Junior in 2011 and is gearing up for the U.S. Amateur in 2015, which will highlight the club’s centennial celebration.
Vince Pellegrino, tournament director for the WGA, said the decision to end the Chicago run came after the invitation from The Alotian Club.
“We discussed a possible change with Olympia Fields officials, and we then made a joint decision to move the championship,’’ said Pellegrino. “We appreciate the club’s flexibility in agreeing to the move, which will allow us to broaden our reach and mission to other markets, particularly to a venue that also has been very supportive of our Evans Scholars program.’’
With the WGA still without a site for its biggest event, the BMW Championship, in 2013, there was speculation that Olympia Fields might host that event, but that isn’t expected to happen now. The WGA is focusing on courses in the northern suburbs for that event, though a return to Cog Hill in Lemont is still a possibility.

Sure, Medinah’s week to host the 39th Ryder Cup is still a year away. Still, the task of getting ready for the biggest team event in golf is a major undertaking.
Michael Belot, the tournament director, and five staffers have been working feverishly from Medinah and report making great progress. Belot should know, becuase he is in his 10th year working for the PGA of America and was the tournament director for the 2006 PGA Championship, which was also held at Medinah, as well as the 2009 PGA at Hazeltine in Minnesota.
The Ryder Cup, though, is a different animal.
“With all the rich history that the club has, this will stand out as Medinah’s crowned jewel,’’ Belot said. “It’ll be the biggest golf event ever in Illinois.’’
Medinah hosted U.S. Opens in 1949, 1975 and 1990, PGA Championships in 1999 and 2006 and the U.S. Senior Open in 1988. Those were big events — but the battle between the U.S. and Europe on Sept. 25-30, 2012, will be notably bigger.
“Chicago is known for big events,’’ said Belot, “and this market has embraced this Ryder Cup.’’
Here is some evidence of that:
As of this printing 60 corporate hospitality chalets, costing between $235,00 and $500,000, have been sold.
“We started out offering 59 chalets, so now we’re adding chalets that we hadn’t expected to add,’’ said Belot. “We’ve added a village we had not expected to add, and we’re exploring whether to add more.’’
While that sales process is going on Belot’s staffers have been bidding out what’s needed for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the Ryder Cup gala, which will be held the Wednesday of tournament week.
Public ticket sales to the competition will begin at 8 a.m. on June 20 — the day after the U.S. Open concludes at Congressional. That’s when people can sign up for the random draw for tickets. That’ signup will continue for about two months. Crowds will be limited to about 25,000 per day. (For more details on the ticket situation check out the rydercup.com website).
Tickets will range from $35 for a daily ticket to $680 for the premium weekly offering. All youngsters 17 and under will get complimentary admission on the three practice days if they’re accompanied by a ticketed adult. Such a practice has never been done at a Ryder Cup.
About 3,500 volunteers will be needed to stage the competition, and Belot said about 5,000 have already called in to request assignments. Medinah members will have first crack at the voluntary positions, then what remains will be offered to the general public on July 11. A volunteer package costs $235, which includes a tournament badge, uniforms, meals, programs and other perks.
Already there’s been some notable preliminary events, and more will be forthcoming as the next Ryder Cup closes in. Biggest so far was the press conference announcing Davis Love III as U.S. captain on Jan. 20. Love and European captain Jose Maria Olazabal will have a joint press event at Medinah on Sept. 26, as the one-year to Ryder week countdown begins.
As for Medinah members, they were already treated to the unveiling of a Leroy Neiman painting that the famed artist created to commemorate this Ryder Cup.
Meanwhile, Medinah’s No. 3 course that will be used for the matches will continue to mature after its reopening last year. As part of a major renovation famed architect Rees Jones designed a new 15th hole, adding a pond to create a driveable par-4. That was the major change, but all of the tees and greens were regrassed to conform to U.S. Golf Association specifications. There won’t be any big events on No. 3 this summer to allow the latest renovation to settle in.
“This will be the first time in a long time that no bulldozers are on the golf course, and that’s a good thing,’’ said Don Larson, Medinah’s chairman for the Ryder Cup.
Larson has one concern that he wants to pass on.
“Beware of pirate hospitality groups that are billing themselves as official,’’ said Larson. “Already people are on eBay selling tickets.’’

The Western Golf Association’s decision to move the BMW Championship out of Chicago again wasn’t a surprise. After all, the event did very well at Bellerive in St. Louis in 2008 and the PGA Tour players’ response to Cog Hill’s Dubsdread course during the 2010 tournament was less than enthusiastic.

Still, going to Cherry Hills in Denver in 2014 is hard for this Chicago golf devotee to swallow.

When the WGA took the tournament to Bellerive it was understandable. Cog Hill was undergoing a renovation.

When the WGA announced that the BMW would be played at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis in 2012 that was understandable, too. After all, the Ryder Cup matches were coming to Medinah, and that event would surely take the spotlight over an annual PGA Tour event.

In going to Cherry Hills, though, the WGA is clearly indicating its PGA Tour event will be a roving tournament again — just like it was from 1899 to 1962. The decision to base the tournament at Chicago courses then made sense and — much as I hate to admit it — the WGA’s decision to move the event around again is based in logic, too.

The WGA’s role is to raise money for the Evans Scholars Foundation and its scholarships for caddies. The PGA Tour stop does a good job of that, wherever the event is held, but it might do better with visits to more golf-starved locations. The WGA was delighted with the staging in Bellerive and expects similarly warm responses in Indianapolis and Denver.

Unfortunately, what’s good for the WGA won’t be so good for Chicago area golf fans. We’ve grown accustomed to having an annual visit from the PGA Tour, and that doesn’t figure to continue. Cog Hill has the BMW tourney this September, then who knows?

The Jemsek family had hoped to keep the event at its Cog Hill facility in 2013, and even made the effort of hiring well-respected young course superintendent Scott Pavalko during the winter to encourage a contract renewal. Whether Cog Hill, a PGA Tour stop since 1991, is under consideration for 2013 will certainly depend on how the course is received by the BMW field in September.

Frankly, when it comes to golf I’m a selfish guy. I want to see a big tourney close to home. And I remember when the WGA was forced to pull the Western Open out of Butler National after 17 good tournaments because of that club’s refusal to have women as members. No suitable course stepped forward to keep the Western in Chicago then except for Cog Hill and, last year aside, Dubsdread has been a good tournament venue.

Perhaps, if not Cog Hill, the WGA will find another Chicago course to host the BMW in 2013. That might rekindle crowd support that has admittedly lagged after the tourney dates shifted from July to September. There are plenty of course possibilities, and perhaps alternating sites from one side of the city to another (say, Olympia Fields to Conway Farms) would perk things up.

I still fondly remember the Western Open, an event I covered non-stop from 1971 to 2006. I wish it had never gone away, but it did. Now the next chapter in Chicago’s rich golf history is about to be written. Let’s hope it’s as good as the last one.

Just qualifying for the U.S. Open is a big deal. This year 8,300 tried, and only 156 will tee off in the first round on Thursday at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md.
One of them will be Bennett Blakeman, who isn’t exactly a household name in golf circles yet — but he is a U.S. Open veteran. He made it to last year’s U.S. Open as well but finished dead last among those 156 who qualified to play at Pebble Beach in California.
On both occasions Blakeman, a former Illinois Wesleyan golfer who lives in Burr Ridge, survived the rugged local and sectional eliminations to get to the big show. This time, though, it’ll be a wiser and more experienced Blakeman who tees off Congressional’s No. 10 tee at 2:41 p.m.
Last year Blakeman was an amateur finishing up coursework at Loyola University for a master’s degree in business and health care management. For this U.S. Open Blakeman, 24, is a golf professional with a new caddie, a new swing instructor and more preparation time. After finishing up at Loyola he moved into his family’s vacation home in Scottsdale, Ariz., and spent the winter playing on the Gateway Tour, a long-time proving ground for PGA Tour hopefuls.
“The Gateway left a lot to be desired,’’ said Blakeman, “but I also made a rather significant swing change and wanted to make a strong effort to keep things in perspective. It’s all part of a process.’’
Dale Abraham became his swing coach in Arizona. Ryan Dorner, a former teammate at Illinois Wesleyan, will become his caddie.
“I’ll also have him for (PGA) Tour School and hopefully beyond,’’ said Blakeman, whose brother Brenten was on his bag at Pebble Beach and his father Brad handled that job during this year’s Open qualifiers.
Blakeman arrived at Congressional on Sunday, a day earlier than he checked in at Pebble Beach.
“I felt I was a little late last year. This year I wanted to take care of all the administrative stuff right away,’’ said Blakeman. “Last year I got a good taste of (the Open). Now I’ll know a lot more in terms of the circus atmosphere surrounding it.’’
In addition to PGA Tour regulars Kevin Streelman, Mark Wilson and D.A. Points, other Illinois qualifiers in the field at Congressional include amateur Brad Benjamin, the former U.S. Amateur Public LInks champion from Rockford and University of Illinois golfer Chris DeForest.

Surviving a rookie season on the PGA Tour is hard enough, but for Crystal Lake’s Joe Affrunti went through a nightmare in his first four months on golf’s premier circuit.
Affrunti qualified for his PGA Tour card by finishing in the top 25 on the Nationwide Tour money list last season, but that status didn’t assure him many tournament appearances. In fact, he’s played just six times. And, when he has played, he’s struggled.
In those six tournaments Affrunti survived the 36-hole cut only twice. His earnings entering this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans is just $18,837. To say he’ll have to step it up if he’s to keep his card is putting it mildly.
For Affrunti, though, the problem has been as much his health as the stern competition he’s now facing.
Five weeks ago Affrunti entered the Nationwide Tour’s Louisiana Open to get himself some competition. He felt tightness in his left shoulder, and daily massages didn’t improve the situation. That led to Affrunti withdrawing after his Saturday round — even though a paycheck would have been assured had he played on Sunday.
“I went home to see an orthopedic guy at Rush Hospital,’’ said Affrunti. “He said I had rotator cuff tendinitis, and I didn’t touch a club for three weeks.’’
Along with the rest Affrunti was given cortisone pills and an exercise program. He returned to the PGA Tour at the Valero Texas Open, shot 72-79, missed the cut again and realized his health problems weren’t over quite yet.
“I tried, but my should was super, super stiff — more of a throbbing pain,’’ he said.
At least Affrunti feels he’s now able to play, and his season could be revived over the next few weeks when he has a steady diet of tournaments.
“I’ll just suck it up,’’ he said. “I’ll play five of the next six weeks, either on the Nationwide or PGA Tour, and I hope to get things going. Then after that come the qualifiers for the U.S. Open and British Open. I’m better the more I play — hopefully.’’
The only week that Affrunti won’t be playing over the next six is The Players Championship, considered the “fifth major’’ on the PGA circuit.
“I’d be in that if I win at New Orleans,’’ said Affrunti, who starred at Illinois and won the Illinois Open in 2004. “If I do that no one will know I had a bad start to the year.’’

Rich Flores wanted to be a touring golf pro, and was –for awhile. He even played in a couple PGA Tour events in the early 1980s.

Flores’ calling, though, proved to be in teaching the game. He did that very well as director of instruction at both Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles and Mill Creek in Geneva. Flores grew up in the St. Charles-Batavia-Geneva area, played on the high school team at St. Charles and — after a stint in the military (where he played on the Fort Bragg golf team in North Carolina) and a fling on the mini-tours he settled into teaching. He was one of the first pros to use the V1 Pro Digital Coaching System, having incorporated that into his lessons 12 years ago.

While he taught players of all ages and abilities, Flores especially enjoyed working with youth, and the high school teams at St. Charles, Geneva and Batavia as well as the women’s team at Northern Illinois University have all benefitted from his knowledge of the golf swing.

Unfortunately, Flores got a bad break this year. He was diagnosed with Primary Amyloidosis. It’s not considered cancer, but it’s similar — and it is very serious. Suggested treatments include chemotherapy, which is also used to treat cancer patients.

Flores has been battling this usual disease for the past few months. That included a 33-day hospital stay and during the healing process his weight dropped from 168 to 138 pounds. Not surprisingly, his treatments were expensive — a fact that was readily apparent to his many friends and family members.

Flores’ brother-in-law, Tom Ryan of Batavia, and Richard Ross, a long-time close friend, led the efforts to do something to help. They organized a July 25 golf outing in Flores’ honor, and it was unbelievably successful. It was supposed to be held just at Pheasant Run, but the resort couldn’t accommodate all who wanted to participate. Mill Creek was pressed into service as well. Over 290 participated in the outings and over 550 attended the dinner afterwards.

“I don’t think anybody expected half that number — especially on a Monday night,’’ said Ross.

Ross and Ryan organized the outing and dinner after Ross and his wife, Yvonne, created a website that informed others of Flores’ situation. Their efforts led to such an extraordinary turnout.

“It was amazing,’’ said Ross. “Every time we talked to someone, they’d give us a referral. There was no one who didn’t know Rich. He’s a fighter.’’

That outpouring of support brought tears to the eyes of Dennis Johnsen, the long-time head pro at Pheasant Run. Now in charge at Pine Meadow in Mundelein, Johnsen worked with Flores at Pottawatomie course in St. Charles when he was a youngster. Later Johnsen hired him during his 25-year stint in charge at Pheasant Run.

“Rich ended up wanting to teach, and he specialized with kids,’’ said Johnsen. “Everybody loves the guy. I knew he was doing well and giving lots of lessons.’’
So, Johnsen was understandably one of the first to learn of Flores’ illness and was immediately willing to participate in the outing. He wasn’t ready for the outpouring of support for Flores, though.

“What hit me was the amount of people he has impacted,’’ said Johnsen. “It hit me about what an impact a PGA professional can have on a community. It’s huge. This is what a PGA professional is. A lot of guys do this (teaching), but don’t realized it.’’

The much-larger-than-expected outing raised about $130,000 to help cover Flores’ treatment costs, and others outside of golf have pitched in on that end as well. Flores reflected on the success of the outing on his website blog.

“My wife and I still cannot get over the awesome event,’’ he said. “My goal is to play nine holes of golf, carrying my bag, by the end of the summer.’’

Flores had some good news to report in his latest post. His weight is up to 143 pounds and results from a bone marrow biopsy showed no cancer cells.

“That means it’s in remission, and I’m good to go for awhile,’’ he reported. Flores said he’s been hitting some chip shots and is ready to resume his golf lessons, and Ross said Flores has been seen mowing his lawn.

So, while things are looking up, Flores is still battling his medical issues and Ross said his hospital and doctor bills will run close to $1 million. Those who want to keep up with Flores’ progress and help out his cause can do so by checking the website, www.FriendsofRichFlores.org.

Davis Love III’s selection as the 27th U.S. Ryder Cup captain on Thursday was no surprise, but he wasn’t ready for all the questions he faced during his introduction at Medinah Country Club.

Medinah, which has already hosted three U.S. Opens as well as the PGA Championships of 1999 and 2006, will be the site of the next battle between the golf stars of the U.S. and Europe on Sept. 28-30, 2012.

“We couldn’t ask for a better home-field advantage than Medinah,” said Love. “It’s withstood the tests of time, and has a hugely passionate membership. We’ll grab the Bears’ momentum.”

Being a Ryder Cup captain means dealing with a variety of unusual issues, and Love is glad to have some time to work on them.

“I couldn’t do this job by myself,” he said. “I need to go back to all our former captains — whether they won or not. They all did a fantastic job.”

Love wasn’t so sure about who his assistant captains would be or how he wants Medinah’s No. 3 course, which underwent another renovation last year, should be set up for the match play spectacle. He also became choked up when questioned about his late father, Davis Love II, who was a famous golf instructor prior to his death in a plane crash.

Though nothing’s guaranteed, Love indicated that Jeff Sluman, a PGA Tour veteran now playing on the Champions Tour, would be an assistant captain again and that Michael Jordan, a golf addict who has played supporting roles in several recent Ryder Cups, would be involved in some capacity. Love and Jordan became friends as students at the University of North Carolina.

Love’s credentials for the captaincy are unquestioned. He played on six Ryder Cup teams between 1993 and 2004 and was one of Corey Pavin’s assistants in the last staging in September, when the U.S. lost the Cup in a tense 14 1/2-13 1/2 shootout at Celtic Manor in Wales. The U.S. last won the Cup at Valhalla in Louisville in 2008.

“The Ryder Cup demands a strong leader, and we found the consummate captain,” said Allen Wronowski, president of the PGA of America.

Love, 46, had only a 9-12-5 record as a Ryder Cup player, but he has 31 tournament victories world-wide including the 1997 PGA Championship. He has hopes of being among the eight players who qualify for his Ryder Cup team on the basis of points accumulated in tournament through the 2012 PGA. The other four players on the U.S. squad will be selected by Love.

“I’d love to make the team,” he said, “and if I”m one of the best eight I’ll want to play. But I’d have a hard time picking myself.”

Love’s opposing captain will be Spain’s Jose Maria Olazabal, which creates a unique matchup for this Ryder Cup. Love and Olazabal entered the professional ranks in 1985 and were paired in Love’s first three Ryder Cup matches. Love was also the runner-up when Olazabal captured a Masters title.

In its early years the a U.S. win in the Ryder Cup was considered a formality. That’s no longer the case, as European players have established themselves and their team on the world stage.

“In the seven Ryder Cups I’ve been involved in our biggest problem is that we’ve tried to hard,” he said. “Corey Pavin did me an incredible service by asking me to help him in the the last Ryder Cup and see how the even works from the inside.”

Jim McWethy’s decision to completely revamp his Mistwood golf course in Romeoville, IL. wasn’t an easy one. Despite these trying economic times, McWethy opted to renovate what was already a respected course, add a spiffy new learning center and build a new clubhouse. He chooses not to discuss the cost involved but, needless to say, it’s substantial.

So why is he doing it?

“It is scary,” McWethy admitted. “Part of it is my love of the game. We’re doing this in spite of the frustrations, the sleepless nights worrying about it. We’re running counter to the rest of the world.”

McWethy closed his course early, on Aug. 22, to allow Michigan architect Ray Hearn to get the renovation going, and he has had no regrets as work continues. His plans call for a 5,000 square-foot learning center to be operative before 2011 is over and the course to re-open in May.

“If you believe you have a really good product, market it well and take care of your customers I can’t believe that — even in this market — you can’t be successful,” said McWethy. “I go to other golf courses now and come back feeling even better about this place.”

The ressurection of Mistwood will be a three-step process. The first is the course renovation. Hearn did the original design in 1996 for a previous owner and had the course ready for play in 1998. It was deemed good enough to annually host one of Chicago’s top tournaments, the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open, which completed its 18th staging this year.

Step 2 in the ressurection will be the construction of the learning center. The old clubhouse, along with a cart barn, will be torn down as soon as the learning center is ready. It’ll eventually have indoor and outdoor hitting stations, a putting green and golf simulators. Initially, though, it’ll double as Mistwood’s clubhouse when play resumes in the spring.

Step 3 is the construction of a 32,000-square-foot clubhouse. Just when that will begin is uncertain.

“At first we thought we would do everything at once, but that could have been an absolute disaster,” said McWethy. “Deciding when to start is a tough one. We plan to break ground now in the fall of 2012, but we’ve got to get the course changes and learning center out of the way first.”

When all is said and done McWethy expects to have one of the best public courses in the Chicago area.

“We can be in the top five,” he said.

The old course wasn’t far off being in that select group that includes such obvious members as Cog Hill Dubsdread in Lemont, Cantigny in Wheaton, The Glen Club in Glen Ellyn and Harborside on Chicago’s South Side. Hearn, though, said the renovation was needed.

“As time goes on that technology monster — with golf clubs, golf balls going further — every course needs to be tweaked every 10 years or so,” said Hearn. “Mistwood was no exception.”

McWethy, 68, grew up in Palos Park and developed his love for the game as a member of the high school team at Blue Island Eisenhower. He continued on to college at Cornell, in Iowa, and then settled in Chicago after entering his professional life in 1970 with Berry Bearings Co., a company created by his grandfather, Lester Berry.

McWethy was part of the ownership of Berry Bearings until 1993, when the company was sold. At that time it was the world’s largest privately held industrial bearings distributor.

Shortly after the sale McWethy entered into the business side of golf, as a 7 percent owner of another course named Mistwood. This one was in Lake Ann, Mich., near Traverse City. Eventually the owner of that layout invited McWethy to join him in creating Mistwood’s Illinois version. He was also a 7 percent owner of that course when it opened but took over sole possession in 2003 after the facility endured some difficult economic times.

McWethy made the big step after being assured that course management would stay on. Director of golf Dan Phillips, general manager Andy Krajewski, head professional Visanu Tongwarin and superintendent Ben Kelnhofer have been with him almost from the beginning.

Along the way McWethy sought the advice of Mike Keiser, who was doing his own thing in the golf business and is now the creator of extremely well-regarded Bandon Dunes in Oregon. Keiser owned the Dunes Club, which was near McWethy’s summer home, and he wanted to become a member. Eventually he did, after Keiser learned that McWethy was already a member of Chicago Golf Club — the Wheaton layout that was the first 18-holer in the United States.

McWethy became a Chicago Golf member in 1991 and later was a sponsor for Keiser when he joined that prestigious club.

Mistwood is by no means McWethy’s only business venture. He owns several farms, some in Chicago, and his wide variety of investments include projects as far away as Brazil and Uruguay. Farming, though, is particularly close to his heart. His son Todd operates McWethy Farms in Michigan, and father and son have a unique working relationship on that one.

Father Jim makes deliveries for son Todd. The two meet at a truck stop in Gary, Ind., twice a week in growing season, and Jim takes his son’s hydroponic tomatoes to Kramer Foods, a Hinsdale landmark, as well as some top Chicago restaurants. McWethy also includes a bag full of choice tomatoes in the awards given to the Illinois Women’s Open champion each year.

Married to Susan and the father of two, McWethy has been a Downers Grove resident since 1978. He wants his golf course to be considered among the best, with profitability a secondary consideration.

“I’d have no inclination to be involved in this if I didn’t love the game,” he said. “Golf isn’t an easy way to make a buck. It’s close to impossible. All I’m looking for is a modest return. This (Mistwood ressurection) isn’t to make more money or grow wealth. I’d like to have something to be very proud of, to make it as good as I can possibly make it.”

First it was Elmhurst’s Mark Wilson winning two of the first three full-field events of the PGA Tour season. Then it was University of Illinois alum D.A. Points capturing the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Now still another local golfer has come to the forefront.

Luke Donald, who graduated from Northwestern in 1999 and has maintained strong Chicago ties, won the biggest tournament of the season so far on Sunday with a dominating performance at the Accenture Match Play Championship near Tucson, Ariz.

Donald, playing in only his second tournament of the year, whipped Germany’s Martin Kaymer, the world’s No. 1-ranked player, 3 and 2 in the final. Kaymer was Donald’s sixth victim in the five-day event. Donald never trailed in any match. He played only 73 holes en route to winning his six matches, none of which went to the 18th hole. Along the way he made 32 birdies.

“It was a long time since I won in the U.S., and to beat the top 63 players in the world was gratifying,” said Donald. “It was an amazing week.”

That is was.

Donald, born in England, won in the U.S. for the first time since taking the 2006 Honda Classic. He’ll be in the field when that event tees off on Thursday in Orlando, Fla.

In 2010 Donald, in addition to playing in the Ryder Cup matches, became a father for the first time, won at Madrid on the European PGA Tour and finished in the top 10 in 14 of his 28 tournaments world-wide. No golfer won more money than Donald in 2010, if his winnings in both the U.S. and Europe are combined.

That busy season led to Donald taking 11 weeks off, his longest break in seven years. His first tournament of this season, the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles, ended quickly when he shot 79 in the second round to miss the cut. There was no carryover last week in the first of the four World Golf Championship events, which draw international fields and rank just below the four major tournaments in importance.

Though it was played on a 7,800-yard course, and Donald isn’t one of golf’s longer hitters, he was barely challenged in his matches. The victory lifted him from No. 9 in the world all the up to No. 3.

“ Whether I deserve to be No. 3 in the world, I don’t know,” said Donald. “But certainly in terms of my work ethic and wanting it, then I do deserve it. I’ve been very diligent about working on my short game. There’s room for improvement with my game off the tee and some of my iron play, if you look at my statistics, but I make up for it around the greens.”

Donald and his wife Diane, who also attended Northwestern, have a residence in Orlando but still consider Chicago their home. Their daughter Elle celebrated her first birthday while Luke was en route to winning at Tucson and Pat Goss, his head coach at NU, has remained Donald’s swing coach since he turned pro in 2001.

Prior to Sunday Donald’s most prominent move into U.S. tournament contention came at the 2006 PGA Championship at Medinah. He was paired with eventual winner Tiger Woods in the final group on Sunday but shot 74 and finished tied for third.

“It was interesting to see how (Woods) worked his way around the golf course. He was always in control of his game and didn’t push things,” said Donald. “He made other people make mistakes. That’s what I learned watching Tiger. You don’t have to do anything too spectacular. You just have to do things pretty well.”