Funniest thing about the Gardner Heidrick Pro-Am, the last tuneup for the PGA Tour stars competing in this week’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms in Lake Forest.
The player grabbing the most attention wasn’t one of the professional golfers. It was actor/comedian Bill Murray, a long-time favorite in such golf events. Not only did Murray play in the tourney’s pro-am for the first time, so did his five brothers.
Murray was in a foursome headed by Charley Hoffman. Brothers Brian, Ed and Andy played with Gary Woodland and John and Joel Murray teed off with Jim Furyk. The pro-am also included Bears’ legend Brian Urlacher and new Bulls’ coach Fred Hoiberg, but Bill Murray was clearly the star of the show.
Hoffman led his team to the tee immediately after the first afternoon group – one headed by PGA champion and current FedEx Cup point leader Jason Day – teed off. As soon as Day’s group left the tee the gallery around the tee tripled in anticipation of Murray’s arrival and he had a following all the way around the course.
All the Murrays were caddies at the Indian Hill Club while growing up in Winnetka. They’re also partners in a popular Florida bar restaurant named CaddieShack, the name being derived from a popular golf-themed movie that had Bill as one of its stars.
Dressed in colorful, clearly non-traditional golf attire, Bill Murray delights galleries with his on-course antics but he’s had playing success, too. Paired with Illinois native D.A. Points, Murray has been a winner in the PGA Tour’s longstanding AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach in California. This year he also was a hit at the John Deere Classic Pro-Am in the Quad Cities.
After Wednesday’s pro-am all six Murray brothers were inducted into the Caddie Hall of Fame in a ceremony in the Conway Farms clubhouse.
Jim Furyk wasn’t happy to hear about the changes made to the Conway Farms course in preparation for this week’s BMW Championship.
“Bummer,’’ he said. “Now I’ve got to learn it all over again.’’
Well, hardly. Tuesday is practice day for the 70 players who will begin the 72-hole competition at the Lake Forest layout on Thursday. They’ll find the changes to the course from 2013 relatively minor and — even without practice — it’s safe to say Furyk knows the course. Two years ago he covered it in 59 strokes in that first BMW Championship played there.
Furyk didn’t win the tournament – he finished third, three strokes behind champion Zach Johnson – but his hot second round made him the sixth player to break 60 in a PGA Tour event, joining Al Geiberger, Chip Beck, David Duval, Paul Goydos and Stuart Appleby.
“It was a pretty incredible feeling,’’ said Furyk, looking ahead to the third tournament of the four-event FedEx Cup Playoffs. “I got off to a great start, held it together in the middle after three-putting No. 5 and then had the mental hurdle of making birdies on two of the last four. My attitude and thinking process throughout that day was as good as it’s ever been.’’
Luke Donald, the former world No. 1 and a Conway Farms member, remains dazzled by what Furyk did. Donald’s best round on his home course is 61.
“It’s the type of course you can see that number if you’re really on,’’ Donald said. “But Jim did it on a cold, windy day when the next best score was 65. That round was special.’’
“I remember with a couple holes left thinking `How many times in your life will you get a chance to do something like this. Enjoy it, but don’t let it slip by.’’’
He didn’t, but there is a touch of mystery still connected to that epic day. Furyk posed for photographers with a ball emblazoned with the numbers “59.’’
Now he’ll admit that that wasn’t the ball he used to shoot the low score. A PGA Tour media official took a ball from Furyk’s bag and wrote the “59’’ on it. The ball that Furyk used is in his workshop at home but not on display.
“We don’t display stuff,’’ he said. “I might have the glove I used. I do have a stack of flags that I sign for charities.’’
The lack of interest in memorabilia isn’t limited to the record round, either. Witness what happened to the reward for his victory in the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields – the lone win in a major for the 45-year tour veteran.
“We don’t have a trophy room,’’ said Furyk. “The U.S. Open trophy sat in the kitchen for maybe six months. Everyone who came by had a drink out of it.’’
The 12-under-par round hasn’t been challenged by PGA Tour players since the 2013 BMW Championship. Last year’s tournament was played at Cherry Hills, in Denver, with Billy Horschel winning the title.
Furyk enters this BMW Championship in ninth place on the playoff standings. He won the $10 million bonus as FedEx Cup champion in 2010 and is in good position to crack the top 30 who qualify for next week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta. That’s where this year’s bonus will be awarded.
Going into the BMW, though, Furyk trails Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Henrik Stenson, Bubba Watson, Charley Hoffman, Zach Johnson and Dustin Johnson.
Gates opened at Conway Farms on Monday with the main attraction being a new event, the Evans Scholars Cup. It involved teams from Chicago area clubs. Donald, who didn’t qualify for the tournament, hosted a fundraiser for the First Tee of Greater Chicago in the evening.
In addition to the practice rounds Tuesday’s schedule includes the CDW Celebrity Skills Challenge at nearby Halas Hall. Golfers Camilo Villegas and Gary Woodland will join Bears’ players in the Fold of Honor benefit event.
The PGA Tour’s visit to Chicago isn’t an annual thing anymore, but when the circuit does come it’s a big deal. That’ll be the case this week when the BMW Championship returns to Conway Farms in Lake Forest.
This week’s $8.25 million event, which tees off on Thursday, is the second of three scheduled stagings at Conway Farms. The first was in 2013, and the third and final visit to Conway will be in 2017.
Last week the Western Golf Assn. announced the BMW Championship sites through 2019 — a continuation of its policy of coming to the Chicago area only every other year. The 2016 tournament will be played at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis. After the next return to Conway the event will move to Aronimink in Philadelphia in 2018 and come back to Chicago, at Medinah, in 2019.
All those events – including this week’s — will be hard-pressed to match the first visit to Conway, which hosted the PGA Tour for the first time in 2013 after being the site of a wide variety of top amateur tournaments.
“Record heat, frost, every weather pattern that week,’’ recalled Vince Pellegrino, senior vice president, tournaments for the Western Golf Assn. “Jim Furyk shooting a 59 when the average score for that day was par, oscillating balls on the first green, Hunter Mahan getting a hole-in-one, weather delays leading to a Monday finish, then Zach Johnson shooting 65 to win by two strokes.’’
This time Johnson is back, but as the reigning British Open champion. Two years ago his profile wasn’t so lofty. He was just worried about surviving this third stage of the FedEx Cup Playoffs – golf’s most lucrative competition. It started with 120 players – determined on a point system after the PGA Tour’s 47-event regular season — competing for $8.25 million at The Barclays in New Jersey. The playoffs then continued with the top 90 competing in Boston’s Deutsche Bank Championship for another $8.25 million.
Conway is the third leg of the season-ending playoff series, and it’ll send 30 players to Atlanta for The Tour Championship where another $8.25 million – plus a $10 million bonus for the series winner – will be on the line. Peak at the right time, and a golfer can become a very rich man in a very short period of time. That’s what happened to Billy Horschel last year, when he won the last two playoff tournaments as well as the bonus in a span of barely three weeks.
The playoffs have been a bit on the weird side midway through the four-tournament series this year. The top two players in the world rankings – Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy – have done little. Spieth, the Masters and U.S. Open champion, didn’t even survive the 36-hole cut in the first two playoff events.
Two other young stars — PGA champion Jason Day and Rickie Fowler – have taken advantage of the Spieth-McIlroy letdown, Day winning The Barclays and Fowler the Deutsche Bank Championship. But all four hotshots, along with Johnson and Horschel, will be in the field at Conway.
There’ll be some notable absentees, to be sure. Tiger Woods didn’t qualify for the FedEx Cup events and three Chicago-connected players who are regulars on the PGA Tour – Conway member Luke Donald, Mark Wilson and Kevin Streelman – were eliminated the Deutsche Bank Championship.
The BMW Championship, though, has never had to worry about getting a great field thanks to its enviable spot as the next-to-the-last stop on the PGA Tour’s tournament schedule. The BMW started a run as the PGA Tournament of the Year in its first playing at Conway.
“We certainly expect this year’s to be as highly successful and well-attended as that one was,’’ said Pellegrino. Since the BMW replaced the Western Open as the PGA’s Chicago tour stop in 2007 the tournament has raised more than $19.6 million for the WGA’s Evans Scholars Foundation, which is financing the college education of 870 caddies this year.
Unlike 2013, the WGA has set an attendance limit for this year’s BMW though the weekly total is still expected to match last year’s 130,000. Crowds will be limited to 27,000 to help create a better spectator experience. The third-round crowd hit 35,000 at Conway two years ago. This year the crowds don’t figure to be as unwieldy and Conway itself will look different.
The club underwent a major renovation since the first PGA Tour visit, the result making the facility much more spectator-friendly. Seating around the 18th green has been doubled and there’s expanded viewing at Nos. 1, 2, 7, 9, 11 and 17. The Beer Garden has also been doubled in size and cart paths have been widened to improve spectator traffic around the course.
Illinois PGA president Jim Opp presents IPGA Championship trophy to Merit Club’s Jim Billiter.Jim Billiter and Matt Slowinski were cart partners in Wednesday’s final round of the 93rd Illinois PGA Championship. Slowinski called it “a good pairing’’ and said they had a “great time.’’
It was Billiter, though, who hung on to claim the $10,000 first prize in the first big tournament played on Medinah Country Club’s No. 1 Course since Michigan architect Tom Doak completed a major renovation project on it.
Slowinski, the head professional at Conway Farms in Lake Forest, started the round three strokes behind Billiter, an assistant pro at Merit Club in Libertyville. That deficit was gone in two holes, as Slowinski opened with two birdies and Billiter went par-bogey.
“I had to birdie No. 3 or it would have been a different story, maybe,’’ said Billiter, who lost sole possession of the lead and then got it back in a hurry when Slowinski made bogey at No. 3 after Billiter nearly holed his chip shot on the par-4, settling for a tap-in birdie.
Billiter kept the lead the rest of the way but had to do some nifty scrambling to do it. On three straight holes (Nos. 10, 11 and 12) he hooked his tee shots into the trees but managed to punch out his second shots and salvaged pars each time.
“That was the whole tournament right there,’’ said Billiter. “I had no right making par on any of those holes. I deserved to make bogeys.’’
It wasn’t just a Billiter-Slowinski duel. Travis Johns, teaching pro at Medinah and one of the host club’s three pros to survive the 36-hole cut, shot the best score of the final round – a 4-under-par 67. Playing in the group ahead of Billiter and Slowinski, Johns pulled within one shot on the back nine but couldn’t get any closer.
In the end Billiter settled for a shaky 70 and a 9-under-par 204 score for the 54 holes. Slowinski shot 69 and finished two strokes back in second while Johns was another swing back in third.
“I knew it was going to be hard to catch Jim,’’ said Slowinski. “When he hit bad shots he was still making pars. He just didn’t let anyone get close. He kept doing his thing.’’
The victory basically completes a great year for the 29-year old Billiter, who is in his 10th season at Merit Club. He won the IPGA Match Play title in the spring, and is now one of only nine players to capture both of those major IPGA crowns in the same year. Last to do it was Illinois coach Mike Small in 2007. Small, winner of the IPGA Championship the previous two years and 11 times overall, never was in the mix this time. He finished tied for seventh.
Billiter, despite winning two of the four majors put on annually by the IPGA, will be hard-pressed to be its Player of the Year because he didn’t play in the Illinois Open and won’t play in the season-ending IPGA Players Championship next month. His duties with a major charity outing at Merit Club annually keeps him out of the Illinois Open, and this year the club members are taking Billiter along on a trip to Scotland when the Players Championship is played at Eagle Ridge in Galena. Billiter has no regrets.
“That’s (the Scotland trip) a once in a lifetime thing. It’s going to be great,’’ he said.
The IPGA Championship also served as a qualifier for the PGA Professionals Championship. The top nine finishers earned spots and Katie Pius, assistant pro at Biltmore in Barrington and the only woman in the field, was in the mix after two rounds.
Pius, who is four months pregnant, was bidding to become only the fourth woman to qualify for the club professionals’ national championship and the first one from the Illinois Section to do it. She was tied for 13th place after 36 holes, then shot 78 on Wednesday and finished in a tie for 28th.
Juli Inkster (left) and Jan Stephenson celebrate big victories on The Legends Tour.
FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Two of the greatest names in the history of women’s golf were champions again on Sunday in The Legends Championship, played on the rugged Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort.
Juli Inkster won the main tournament for players who have passed their 45th birthday. Jan Stephenson took the Super Legends title, an eight-player competition for past stars who have passed their 63rd birthday.
The titles both represented milestones for players who have already achieved so much as LPGA competitors. Inkster won for the first time on the Legends circuit after finishing second in her previous two tournaments. Stephenson, who recently turned 63, triumphed in her first Super Legends event.
Inkster carded a 4-under-par 68 on Sunday, giving her a 36-hole total of 5-under 139 for the tournament and a two-shot win over Trish Johnson. Stephenson, playing from slightly shorter tees, finished even par 144 for the tournament and won by eight over her playing partner, Judy Dickinson.
“Winning can never get old,’’ said Stephenson. “Competing with Juli is impossible for me now, so this was so much fun. And it was really emotional for me. It was for my mom. She passed away earlier in the month.’’
Stephenson debated playing in the more lucrative division, but decided that making her debut in the Super Legends Division made more sense.
“I’ll probably go back and forth, but this was such a hard golf course and it was our big championship,’’ she said. “I really wanted the trophy to jump out of the box. Plus, I had to go back to Australia and didn’t practice. I only arrived back this week. I didn’t feel match-fit.’’
Winning the trophy in her Super Legends debut was a satisfying reward, but Inkster was the big winner. She took home a check for $37,7s00 from the event’s $300,000 purse. Stephenson’s winning check was for $5,000. Juli Inkster collects her hardware from French Lick head pro Deven Trueblood and director of golf Dave Harner.
Inkster has been focusing on her duties as the U.S. Solheim Cup captain, and she hopes her victory will inspire her team against the Europeans in the upcoming matches in Germany.
“If a 55-year old can win, they can, too,’’ said Inkster. “This has been a tough year, and I’m really tired right now. I have an outing Tuesday in Detroit then I’ll be home for a week.’’
Before the Solheim Cup, however, she’ll take on her LPGA rivals in one of that circuit’s biggest events – the Evian Masters.
Inkster, in the next-to-the-last group, got her game together on the back nine, just in time to hold off Johnson who was playing in the final twosome. They had gone into the final round tied for the lead with Johnson’s playing partner, Dame Laura Davies.
“I wasn’t playing very well on the front side,’’ said Inkster, “but I birdied 13, 15, 17 and 18. That won the tournament for me. I stayed patient and started hitting it a lot better. I had no idea where I was in the tournament. I just tried to keep making birdies. It was good to win. I feel good.’’
The Inkster-Johnson duel came down to the final two holes. Inkster hit the par-4 17th with a 3-wood and 9-iron, setting up a birdie putt. Johnson made birdie behind her. Light rain started to fall as Inkster made her birdie and continued as she played No. 18, a par-5. She got up and down for her final birdie there, then the rain got heavier. That didn’t help Johnson, who three-putted the finishing hole for a bogey.
That handed the title to Inkster, whose 68 was the best round of the day. Pat Hurst, who tied with 2013 champion Lori Kane for third place, shot 69 on Sunday while Johnson posted a 70. Laurie Rinker, the defending champion, made an early run with three birdies on her first eight holes before dropping back. She finished eight strokes back in a tie for 12th.
Sponsor banners, way more numerous than previous years, were everywhere at the Pete Dye Course.
Dame Laura Davies, one of the first-round leaders in The Legends Championship, hits her first tee shot. FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Sunday’s final round of The Legends Championship is loaded at the top of the leaderboard with eight players within one shot at the top of the leaderboard.
That select group includes a recently named World Golf Hall of Famer (Dame Laura Davies), a recently-named Legends Hall of Famer (Rosie Jones), the current U.S. Solheim Cup captain (Juli Inkster) and the first winner of The Legends Championship in 2013 (Canadian Lorie Kane).
Defending champion Laurie Rinker is four shots back in a tie for 19th place and needs a great round on Sunday to climb the leaderboard. Last year she produced a 66 under a similar set of circumstances at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort.
“If someone (among the top seven in the first round) can go out and shoot 66 or 67, that would be hard to beat,’’ said Davies, one of three co-leaders after Saturday’s round. Davies, Inkster and England’s Trish Johnson all shot 1-under-par 71s.
Wendy Doolan, Christa Johnson, and Maggie Will join Jones and Kane at par 72.
Jones, coming off an emotional induction ceremony for The Legends Hall of Fame the night before, will likely be more relaxed for the final 18.
“I was more worried about my speech than my putting before this week,’’ she said. “Now that that’s over I can concentrate on what happens on the golf course.’’
The other 57 in the field should beware of Jones. She said as much to conclude her induction speech on Friday night.
“When you go out of the dinner telling the girls to `Watch their backs,’ I kind of set myself up,’’ said Jones. “but I was able to back that up with a decent round, and I feel I’m right there.’’
So is Inkster, who played well despite having to concentrate on her captaincy duties for next month’s Solheim Cup matches in Germany.
“Every night there’s something I’ve got to do,’’ she said, “but it’s been very fun. I’m enjoying the journey. It’s stressful, but I’m looking forward to getting it going.’’
Though she’s tied for the lead, Inkster called her first round over the rugged Pete Dye Course “very sloppy.’’
“You’ve got to hit the fairway. That’s the key,’’ she said. “The speed on my putting wasn’t very good. I’ve got to clean that up before tomorrow.’’ Lori Kane, the Legends’ 2013 champion at French Lick, while the 2014 winner, Laurie Rinker, looks on.
Trish Johnson, winner of the Scottish Open just a year ago, finished strong Saturday and was the first to post a score under par. She did it by putting a 9-iron from 130 yards to three feet for a birdie at No. 17 and then two-putted the par-5 18th for a concluding bird.
“There were some real tough pins,’’ she said, “though the course played a lot softer than it had before. I hit the ball really well, and you needed to do that.’’
The tournament within a tournament for Super Legends, players 63 and older, isn’t quite as top-heavy on the leaderboard. Jan Stephenson, playing her first event as a Super Legend, shot a solid 73 to take a two-stroke lead over Judy Dickinson. Jane Blalock, last year’s Super Legend winner, is four shots behind Stephenson. The Super Legends played a slightly shorter course that the others in the field.
“I felt since I was a Super Legend I could shoot low because you hit a lot of wedges,’’ said Stephenson, “but there were also a lot of blind shots.’’ Defending Legends champion Laurie Rinker takes aim on an approach shot at No. 5.
Stephenson, who is also introducing her new brand of wine at the tournament, was excited about turning 63 and eligible for the senior division.
“I feel like a rookie. It’s a powerful feeling, and that’s great,’’ she said. “I’m excited about it. Maybe I could make more money the other way (in the regular Legends competition), but I really want a trophy.’’
Blalock, who plays in just three tournaments a year while running the Legends Tour as its executive director, played a solid 10 holes and than ran a 30-foot putt off one of the super undulating greens.
“I had 30 feet coming back. That unnerved me a little,’’ said Blalock. “But I’ll have a refreshment and think about it. I won’t practice. I was nervous most of the day, but I’m just as competitive and feisty as ever.’’
Sunday’s schedule calls for play beginning off both the Nos. 1 and 10 tees at 8 a.m.
FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The pre-tournament festivities ended Friday night. Now 58 members of the LPGA Legends Tour will battle for two days in the circuit’s biggest tournament over the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort.
Players arrived here in time for practice rounds on Thursday and Friday was devoted to the day-long pro-am competition. That preceded the evening’s Champions Dinner and Hall of Fame Induction, during which JoAnne Carner and Rosie Jones were added to the select group.
As for the competition in the $300,000 championship, it all starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday when Karen Davies and Joan Pitcock, the survivors of Thursday’s qualifying round, are the first twosome off the tee. Fifty-six more players will follow them with the last group starting play at 12:40 p.m. That last group will be a special one – 2014 champion Lori Kane and the defending champion, Laurie Rinker.
Rinker is coming off a big win in the LPGA Teaching Division and Club Professional National Championship earlier in the week in Florida. That was a tournament she almost didn’t enter.
“I considered not playing,’’ she said, “but I felt I had enough experience on this (Pete Dye) course. Plus, we’re professionals here and it’s much easier transitioning from slow greens to fast greens. So, I’ll be fine.’’
She’s been very much fine over the last two Legends Championships on the Pete Dye Course, having finished second to Kane in the first one before her win last year when the tourney was reduced from 54 to 36 holes by bad weather on Sunday.
Kane needed a 3-under-par 213 for her victory in the first year of the Legends Championship. Rinker shot 71-66 for her win. This year’s tournament will be played over 36 holes.
The Champions Dinner is always a highlight of Legends Week at French Lick, which also hosted the Senior PGA Championship for the men in the spring when Colin Montgomerie won the title.
Carner and Jones join a great group of previous inductees. The original class included Louise Suggs, Mickey Wright and Betsy Rawls – all winners of LPGA tournaments at French Lick from 1958-60 – plus Kathy Whitworth and Jan Stephenson. Last year’s inductees were Legends executive director Jane Blalock and Nancy Lopez. The Hall is located at the West Baden Springs Hotel near the Pete Dye Course.
Whitworth handled induction honors for Carner, who was most appreciative of her selection.
“It’s wonderful,’’ she said. “It makes all your work worthwhile. My career was a long, long one.’’
Carner, who won five U.S. Amateur titles and two U.S. Women’s Opens, didn’t turn pro until 1970, when she was 30 years old. She’s still a regular competitor on the Legends circuit and will captain the U.S. team in the Junior Solheim Cup matches in Germany next month.
Also most intrigued by the chance to play in her first Legends Championship was Jane Geddes, who recalled her first visit to French Lick in 2008. She was working as a staffer for the LPGA then, following a successful playing career, and hadn’t been back since.
“I came with Carolyn Bivens (former LPGA commissioner), and the (Pete Dye Course) was just being seeded,’’ said Geddes. “We liked the facility and it’s fun to see how the course is now. It’s also amazing to see just how the town as grown since then. It’s just delightful. You can feel it.’’
Beneficiary of the tourney, presented by Old National Bank, is again Riley Children’s Foundation.
FRENCH LICK, Ind. — The Legends Championship tees off at the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort this week, and the defending champion is ready. Laurie Rinker arrived at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, in time for a Thursday practice round.
She may be a bit on the tired side after enduring a weather delay in Orlando, Fla., but there’s no question her game is in shape. Rinker posted a four-stroke victory in the LPGA Teaching & Club Professionals National Championship on Wednesday on the Palmer Course at Reunion Resort in Florida.
“The green speed at Reunion was about seven, so I’ve got to get my touch back here for these faster greens,’’ said Rinker.
Rinker posted a 9-under-par 207 over 54 holes for her win at Reunion. It was highlighted by a final round 65.
“I started making some putts,’’ she said. “I was in the second-to-last group the last day and shot 5-under (31) on the back nine with birdies at 16 and 18 from three feet.’’
Golf doesn’t get much better than that. Rinker had a similarly hot round en route to her title at The Legends Championship last year. Runner-up to Canadian Lorie Kane in the tourney’s first staging in 2013, Rinker backed up an opening round 71 with a 66 last year to take the lead.
Sherri Steinhauer, posted a second round 63 – the course record, man or woman – to move into contention but steady rain and thick fog forced the cancellation of the final round and Rinker was declared the winner.
“I had played well both days,’’ said Rinker. “My score on Saturday was good, but it didn’t look as good as Sherri’s 63. But that happens in tournaments. It wasn’t necessarily the way I wanted to win, but I was happy to win. I felt good about playing on Sunday. I felt my game was in good shape.’’
She won’t have to beat Steinhauer to retain her title, Steinhauer being sidelined with a broken ankle, but Rinker will have to battle the likes of Solheim Cup captain Juli Inkster, recently named World Golf Hall of Famer Dame Laura Davies, Michelle McGann and Jane Geddes. Inkster and Geddes are making their French Lick debuts and McGann is in her first season on The Legends Tour. Banners are everywhere in this little southern Indiana town in support of the LPGA Legends Tour.
That’s all good news for Jane Blalock, the tour’s executive director who had her own special memories from last year’s tournament. Not only did Blalock win the Super Legends Division for the circuit’s older stars, she was also inducted into the Legends Hall of Fame, which housed at the West Baden Springs Hotel here. That was a career highlight for the woman who got the circuit started in 2000 and has enjoyed its steady growth.
“Our tour is doing great, but we need to do better – and we will,’’ said Blalock. “The field at French Lick is a who’s who, and that’s in contrast to some other tours. Even the LPGA doesn’t have the names that are as recognizable as those who will be walking the fairways here this week.’’
While pleased with The Legends’ growth, Blalock expects even greater things now that the U.S. Golf Assn. has agreed to add a U.S. Women’s Senior Open to its championship schedule in 2018. French Lick officials are hoping to host the first championship, and the USGA will have representatives on the premises to check out the possibilities during The Legends Championship.
“We’d been working on getting that tournament for about 15 years and it had fallen on deaf ears,’’ said Blalock. “Some of those seeds for it were sewn here at French Lick. The idea had been ignored for a long time, but now that’s over and having a U.S. Women’s Senior Open will totally put us on the map.’’
The Legends Championship’s 58-player field was completed on Thursday when Karen Davies, of Scottsdale, Ariz., and Joan Pitcock, of Fresno, Calif., were the survivors of a qualifying round. Davies posted a 71 and Pitcock, who needd two playoff holes to earn her spot in the field, shot 73.
Others used the day to practice in beautiful weather on the Dye Course. Friday’s schedule calls for pro-ams with shotgun starts at 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and the tournament Gala and Hall of Fame inductions will be held in the evening at a new location, the French Lick Springs Hotel. Rosie Jones and JoAnne Carner will be this year’s inductees.
Bryson DeChambeau was consistently longer off the tee than Derek Bard in the U.S. Am final.Rain delays, caddie changes, a bad tee shot at a critical moment. Nothing was going to keep Bryson DeChambeau from joining some of golf’s most elite company on Sunday.
In winning the 115th U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields Country Club DeChambeau joined Jack Nicklaus (1961), Phil Mickelson (1990), Tiger Woods (1996) and Ryan Moore (2004) as the only players to win the NCAA Championship and the U.S. Amateur in the same year.
The whole week was never much of a contest. Both finalists, DeChambeau and Derek Bard, get berths in next year’s Masters, U.S. Open and British Open, but there were few other similarities in their status after Sunday’s match.
DeChambeau never played beyond the 16th hole in his first five matches and had even less trouble with Bard in the 36-hole final, winning 7 and 6 with a torrid nine holes immediately after the lunch break. That’s one of the widest victory margins since the tourney was inaugurated in 1895.
“I kept putting the pedal to the metal,’’ said DeChambeau. “I wanted to play Bryson golf, and that’s what I did. I just made everything.’’
A physics major at Southern Methodist University who lives in Clovis, Calif., DeChambeau, 21, opened birdie-birdie to go 2-up quickly, but that lead didn’t last. Bard, a 20-year old junior at the University of Virginia, won four of five holes in one stretch to go 2-up, but DeChambeau took charge for good after chipping in to win No. 8.
The 47-minute rain delay didn’t help, but he battled back to get to all square and then won Nos. 14, 15 and 16 to claim the lead for good. There were some moments of adversity, though.
During the 42-minute lunch break DeChambeau’s regular caddie, Mike Sly, told him that he couldn’t continue on the bag in the afternoon. A case of plantar fasciitis was too painful. No problem. DeChambeau called on a friend who had carried his bag occasionally in the past and only briefly lost momentum.
His first tee shot of the afternoon round sailed left into the woods, and he was lucky to find his ball. Still, no real problem. Bard, who had won No. 18 to conclude the morning round, took advantage of DeChambeau’s rare muff to win that hole, too. Still, DeChambeau wasn’t ruffled.
He went on a tear, stringing one great iron shot after another and backing up those approaches with brilliant putting. He had Bard dormie after winning No. 10 and closed out the match when Bard’s birdie putt lipped out on the 30th hole.
It wasn’t just the dominating result that set DeChambeau apart from the field during the week. It was also his unconventional style. His trademark is a cap like the one Ben Hogan wore. He also spoke proudly of going to the same college as the late, great Payne Stewart, who also wore similar headgear. Staying low, Bryson DeChambeau lines up his putts much like he’d be taking aim with a gun.
DeChambeau’s clubs are also unusual. The shafts are all the same length, that of a standard 6-iron. His style for lining up putts is different, too. He lines them up with his putter in a horizontal position rather than the usual vertical method – like taking aim with a gun. And, his training methods include cursive writing backwards with his left hand (he’s right-handed) because it improves the sensitivity in his hands.
“Obviously he’s a very smart kid,’’ sad Bard. “I was prepared for all that. Whatever works –and this week it worked for him pretty well.’’
DeChambeau talked during the week of “revolutionizing’’ the game – eventually, of course. He plans to stay amateur for a while to take advantage of the perks of being the U.S. Amateur champion. He’s already on the U.S. Walker Cup team and invitations to a wide variety of big events are in the offing.
“Some people think I’m too technical and analytical,’’ said DeChambeau, “but I’m also an artist. At times I was a little frustrated, but I also was determined. I knew my game was good enough to win this tournament.’’
Bryson DeChambeau, hitting from a bunker at No. 18, was a crowd-pleaser at Olympia Fields.
Only four golfers have won the NCAA individual title and the U.S. Amateur in the same year, and three of those are household names.
Bryson DeChambeau can join the select group – one that includes Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Ryan Moore — with a victory on Sunday at Olympia Fields Country Club. Moore was the last to pull off the NCAA-U.S. Am sweep in 2004.
DeChambeau, 21, won the NCAA title in April while playing for Southern Methodist. He’ll need to beat Derek Bard, a University of Virginia junior, to complete his sweep of the two big amateur titles.
“I’m the underdog,’’ declared Bard. “Bryson’s had an incredible career and he’s very smart – physics is his major. It’s going to be tough, and I’ll have to play my best to have a chance.’’
Bard might be selling himself short or exercising some gamesmanship. He knocked off Spain’s Jon Rahm, the No. 1-ranked played in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, in Friday’s quarterfinals and has two big wins earlier in the last calendar year – the U.S. Collegiate during the school year and the Sunnehanna Amateur this summer.
Like DeChambeau, Bard had no trouble surviving his semifinal match on Saturday. Japan’s Kenta Konishi went down 3 and 2 against Bard while Sean Crocker, a University of Southern California golfer, was a 4 and 3 loser to fellow California native DeChambeau. DeChambeau is No. 7 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and Bard No. 51.
DeChambeau, who didn’t play beyond the 16th hole in his five matches this week, isn’t thinking about joining the ranks of Nicklaus, Woods and Mickelson just yet.
“That’d be incredible, I’d be so honored, but I haven’t thought about it yet,’’ he said. “I’m just looking forward to the challenge. In a 36-hole match anything can happen. I will do my best, and I think my best will be good enough.’’
DeChambeau, from Clovis, Calif., is – by his own admission — “unique.’’ All his irons are the length of a standard 6-iron.
“It’s an odd-ball way of playing golf, but it works for me and I think that down the road that could be very beneficial for people starting out.’’
DeChambeau, a right-handed golfer, also trains by writing cursive backwards and left-handed because “it creates more sensitivity with my hands.’’
Both finalists receive exemptions into next year’s U.S. and British Opens and are likely to also be invited to next spring’s Masters tournament.
This 115th U.S. Amateur started with over 7,000 entrants, and 312 survived the nation-wide qualifying rounds to make it to Olympia Fields. The field was reduced to 64 after 36 holes of stroke play competition at Olympia, and all of the matches so far have been over 18 holes. The final calls for 18 holes starting at 8:30 a.m. and another 18 starting at 1:30 p.m.
This is the first time the U.S. Amateur has been played in the Chicago area since Cog Hill, in Lemont, hosted in 1997. The U.S. Golf Assn. presently has no other of its 13 annual national championship tournaments scheduled in the Chicago area. Olympia Fields, a private club in the South suburbs, is hosting the tournament as part of its Centennial celebration.
