Len Ziehm On Golf

Most recent Daily Herald Columns:

• Illinois PGA shortens its section championship tourney
    Golf schedules at the local level aren’t usually announced until late winter or early spring but the Illinois PGA revealed two major developments in its 2025 schedule. The Illinois PGA Championship – officially the Illinois Professional Championship now – will be reduced from 54 to 36 holes next year. The tournament, scheduled for Aug. 25-26, has ...
• LIV Tour will return to Bolingbrook in 2025
  The PGA Tour made its last Chicago area visit in 2019 and the other national golf organizing groups have been absent longer than that.  Not the upstart LIV Golf League, though. LIV, the Saudi-backed circuit that is waging a well-publicized battle with the PGA Tour, announced Tuesday that it will be playing for a fourth straight ...
• Ghim is getting close to his first PGA Tour win
  This PGA Tour season wasn’t the best for Chicago regulars Kevin Streelman, Nick Hardy and Doug Ghim.  None qualified for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, which concluded the 2023-24 season in September. The fall events, though, have been most encouraging for all three.   Streelman, who Wheaton, had a tie for third and Hardy, from Northbrook, notched a ...
• Streelman’s 300 made cuts is proof of his consistency on the PGA Tour
    Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman, at 45 years old, is finishing up his 17th season on the PGA Tour.  This isn’t one of his best ones, but he achieved a significant milestone at last week’s Sanderson Farms Championship in Mississippi. Streelman made his 300th career cut on golf’s premier circuit.  There have been 9,711 golfers who have made ...
• Medinah goes on the clock as host club for the 2026 Presidents Cup
  There was cause for celebration at Medinah Country Club when the last putt dropped in the Presidents Cup Sunday in Montreal.  That meant that Medinah, already rich in golf history, went on the clock for another place in golf  history. Medinah, celebrating its centennial this year, will host the next Presidents Cup from Sept. 14-20 in ...
• LIV players love Chicago, but tour’s return in 2025 is uncertain
  Chicago has had a LIV golf tournament all three years since the Saudi-backed circuit started play in 2022. Last week’s stop at Bolingbrook Golf Club produced a LIV attendance record for its tournaments held in the U.S. and the two before that at Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, were also well received. Still, there’s no ...
• Koepka’s 62 overshadows Rahm-Niemann bonus battle in LIV opener
  The bottom line story at the LIV Individual Championship is the battle between Spain’s Jon Rahm and Colombia’s Joaquin Niemann. They’re the only players mathematically eligible to win the $18 million bonus, to be awarded to the season-long champion after Sunday’s final round at Bolingbrook Golf Club. Neither did anything special in Friday’s first round.  Rahm ...
• Rahm, Niemann will battle for LIV bonus money in Bolingbrook
  Money.  That’s what differentiates the LIV Tour’s third tournament in Chicago from the others in the circuit’s first three seasons. The event that tees off on Friday at Bolingbrook Golf Club will have the standard purse for the Saudi-backed circuit — $20 in the individual competition and $5 million in the team competition. That was also ...
• Can DeChambeau’s magic work in Illinois again? We’ll see this week
    The LIV Golf League doesn’t have a season climax to match the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs, but it does have a two-tournament wrapup to its third season, the first of which tees off Friday (SEPT. 13) at Bolingbrook Golf Club. It’s both the climax to Chicago’s golf season and the LIV Individual Championship. Suspense might ...
• Carroll’s win sets up a dramatic finish to Illinois PGA tournament season
  The Illinois PGA has four major tournaments for its members each season, and Brian Carroll won the third of 2024 last week. Carroll, the head professional at The Hawk in St. Charles, captured his second Illinois PGA Professionals Championship in three years.  The first, in 2022, was a springboard for Carroll to win the 2023 Player ...
• Hallberg featured in IJGA’s new Hall of Fame class
  The second induction class in the Illinois Junior Golf Hall of Fame will be enshrined tonight  at Cantigny, in Wheaton.  As was the case with last year’s first class, this one will be headed by a local golfer who went on to win multiple times on the PGA Tour. Last year it was Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman, ...
• Illini golfers — past and present — are making a big impact
    The college golf season isn’t underway yet but, no matter how you slice it, the University of Illinois is already making its presence felt at a variety of levels. Over the weekend Jackson Buchanan, an Illini senior from Dacula, Ga., advanced to the semifinals of the 124th U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine in Minnesota. Another match win would ...
• Mickelson is looking forward to LIV stop at Bolingbrook
    The countdown is on for the last big golf tournament of the Chicago season, and Phil Mickelson is ready for it. LIV Golf/Chicago will play the first of its two season-ending championships at Bolingbrook Golf Club Sept. 13-15. The Saudi-backed circuit played regular season events at Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, in its first two ...
• It’s celebration time at Eagle Ridge
  John Schlaman was just starting his career as a golf professional when Eagle Ridge held a grand opening for its South Course. The now 63-hole Galena facility  is virtually Illinois’ only golf resort, and the South’s creation took it to a new level. That came 40 years ago, and the milestone will be celebrated with an ...
• India could become a rare three-time Illinois Open champion
    Deerfield’s Vince India needed to get back into tournament-playing mode in defense of his Illinois Open title next week, and he certainly went after it with enthusiasm. India just completed a six-month suspension for betting on golf with a legal online sportsbook. That was a severe penalty, considering India was not a participant in an event ...
• Korn Ferry Tour makes its annual return to Chicago area
    The Korn Ferry Tour, the developmental circuit for players trying to make it to the PGA Tour, makes its annual Chicago area stop  this week.  Its NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank, begins its 72-hole run on Thursday at The Glen Club in Glenview. Scottie Scheffler, now the game’s No. 1 player, was the tourney’s ...
• State Amateur, Women’s Western Amateur take the spotlight
  Scheduling conflicts have been a problem for Chicago’s tournament organizers for years. This week marks the first big conflict of this season, and the two tournaments involved are very big ones. The 93rd Illinois State Amateur and the 124th Women’s Western Amateur both teed of on Tuesday. The State Am concludes on Thursday and the Women’s ...
• This first-time PGA Tour winner also set a JDC scoring record
  SILVIS, IL. – Sungjae  Im started his Sunday round in the John Deere Classic with five straight birdies, and Ben Griffin also was 5-under through the first five holes, making an eagle, three birdies and a par. Those were extraordinary starts in the $8 million PGA Tour stop at TPC Deere Run, but not nearly enough.  ...
• Another first-time champion looms in the John Deere Classic
  SILVIS, IL. – Saturday’s third round was the traditional moving day at the John Deere Classic, and Jordan Spieth set the tone for that. His fast start inspired others with later tee times, especially Davis Thompson. Thompson shot the week’s low round – a  9-under-par 62 – and will take a two-stroke lead over Eric Cole, ...
• Spieth, Streelman, Ghim make it to the weekend at the JDC
      SILVIS, IL. – Friday’s cut day at the John Deere Classic wasn’t pretty, but it produced some popular results. Jordan Spieth, a playoff champion at TPC Deere Run twice before skipping the Illinois’ only annual PGA stop the previous nine years, was below the projected cut line with six holes remaining in his second round. He ...
• Spieth’s return gives John Deere Classic a gigantic boost
    Jordan Spieth was just a kid – albeit a very promising golfer – when he played in the John Deere Classic for the first time in 2013. To say he took advantage of the opportunity is putting it mildly.  Not only did he win the title in the only annual PGA Tour event left in Illinois, ...
• Cog Hill hosts inaugural Chicago Adaptive Open
    Marty Neal, the Libertyville Township Highway Commissioner, has long been an avid golfer. Now 61, he’s been playing for 40 years – and that’s since he lost his right hand after it got caught in a meat-grinder when he was 15. On May 10 he made his first hole-in-one when his tee shot on the 11th ...
• CDGA’s involvement gave Women’s State Amateur a big boost
    The Illinois Women’s State Amateur had been conducted by the downstate-based Illinois Women’s Golf Association for 90 years before the IWGA – beset by a loss of members – turned the event over to the Chicago District Golf Association this year. While the site remained at The Grove, in Long Grove, the shift in leadership produced ...
• Here’s the Illinois players teeing off in the U.S. Open
    In most years there are two, maybe three, Illinois-connected players in the finals of the U.S. Open.  This year, for the 124th Open that tees off on Thursday  in Pinehurst, N.C., there will be four such players among the 156 starters. Interestingly, though, none of them are among the area’s regular PGA Tour players. The four ...
• Cantigny starts a renovation just as Dubsdread re-opens
  It may have been coincidental, but two of the Chicago area’s most prominent public golf facilities made announcements on the same day last week that will have a big impact on the area’s golf community. At Cantigny, in Wheaton, it was the ground-breaking  for an extraordinary three-year redo. At Cog Hill, in Lemont, it was the ...
• Defending champ says PGA Tour needs more John Deere Classics
    Illinois is one of those few states to have both a PGA Tour and a LIV Tour tournament this year.  The friction between the two circuits is still there, but Sepp Straka downplayed it during the John Deere Classic’s annual Champions Day in Rock Island last week. Straka will defend his title in Illinois’ only annual ...
• Illini men could contend for NCAA golf title again
    Mike Small has had better teams than his current one at the University of Illinois.  Several of them, including last year’s veteran squad, even came close to winning the NCAA title but couldn’t finish the job. The current Illini did make it to the NCAA finals, which begin a week-long run on Friday (MAY 24) at ...
• New Butler National pro could be PGA’s player to watch
    Andy Svoboda, the new head professional at Butler National in Oak Brook, has made a big impression since arriving on the Chicago golf scene in March, and this week he could make an even bigger one. Svoboda is one of two Illinois PGA members to qualify for the PGA Championship, which tees off Thursday at Valhalla, ...
• Gotterup is an appropriate first champion at Myrtle Beach
  MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – This was only fitting.  The newest tournament on the PGA Tour was won by one of the circuit’s youngest players. Chris Gotterup, just 24 and barely a year removed from his last college tournament, captured the inaugural Myrtle Beach Classic at the Dunes Golf & Beach Club.  He took a four-stroke lead ...
• Three golfers with Chicago ties await the PGA Championship
    Next week’s PGA Championship is the second of golf’s four major tournaments of 2024, and it’ll be extremely significant from a Chicago perspective. Two present Chicago area club professionals – Andy Svoboda of Butler National and Jeff Kellen of North Shore – earned spots in the field by finishing in the top 20 at last week’s ...
• NU golfers show Illini aren’t invincible in the Big Ten
  Illinois’ record eight-year run as the Big Ten champion in men’s golf is over.  Northwestern, led by medalist Daniel Svard, was a winner by 15 strokes at Ohio’s Scioto Country Club on Sunday with the Illini second. Both schools will get their regional assignments in the NCAA tournament today on The Golf Channel’s Selection Show. “Hats off ...
• Illinois PGA adds team golf to its tournament schedule
    The Illinois PGA informally opened its tournament season this week, but it won’t be long until the section’s newest feature in the schedule kicks in. Team play will make its debut on May 13 at the first stroke play event at Schaumburg Golf Club. This is real team play, not best ball or foursome competitions.  With ...
• U.S. Open qualifiers tee off next week nation-wide
    The year’s major golf championship ended on Sunday, when Scottie Scheffler’s  last putt dropped, giving hims his second title in three years at  the Masters. Though the second of the four majors, the PGA Championship, will be played in May the third major actually begins next Monday (APRIL 22) and the Chicago area gets a ...
• Illinois flavor is lacking in this year’s Masters
  The  88th playing of the Masters tees off on  Thursday, and like every other staging, it’ll trigger golf enthusiasm throughout the world.  The year’s first major championship is traditionally a sign of spring. The tour players are ready for a serious test after three months of tournaments of much lesser importance. That’s just the way ...
• Rahm still winless on LIV Tour but remains a Masters threat
      MIAMI, FL. – Last year’s Masters was the first tournament where PGA Tour players competed against those who defected to the LIV Golf League.  The LIV guys got the better of that one. Four current LIV players finished  one -two-three and a tie for fourth.   That spoke well for the Saudi-financed circuit that is now in ...
• LIV Tour will return to Chicago after all — but at a new site
  MIAMI, Florida – The Chicago area will have a major professional golf tournament this year after all.  The LIV Golf League is returning, but not at Rich Harvest. Jerry Rich, owner of the Sugar Grove private club that hosted LIV events in 2022 and 2023, invited the fledgling Saudi-based circuit to return this year but has ...
• Picking the Masters winner is getting even more difficult
   It’s a golf tradition like no other.  The Masters – first of the year’s four major championships — is coming up next week. That means for me – and many of you – it’s time to predict the champion.  That fun competition is much more difficult in golf than any other sport. I covered my first ...
• Malnati an emotional winner at Valspar tourney
  PALM HARBOR, Florida — The winners at PGA Tour events are frequently emotional, but Peter Malnati was in tears immediately after his last putt dropped at the Valspar Championship on Sunday. Malnati, 36, won his second title nine years after his first.  He had qualified for only three major championships and never made it to the ...
• Mitchell masters Snakepit to lead third round of Valspar
  PALM HARBOR, Florida – The story lines in the first three tournaments of the Florida Swing were certainly different than the one developing in the last one. The most notable things in the Cognizant Classic of the Palm Beaches, which opened four PGA Tour events in March, was a name change for the tournament (it has ...
• Can Scheffler play any better than he did at Bay Hill?
    ORLANDO, Florida — The Arnold Palmer Invitational was a wonderfully competitive event through 54 holes, but not during Sunday’s final round at Bay Hill. In fact, this latest Signature Event on the PGA Tour was downright boring, and you can blame Scottie Scheffler for that. Scheffler was just too good on a beautiful day, carding the ...
• Two crazy days at the Arnold Palmer Invitational; Now what?
  ORLANDO, Florida – The second and third rounds of the Arnold Palmer Invitational couldn’t have been more different. Six players – Shane Lowry, Hideki Matsuyama, Brian Harman, Russell Henley, Scottie Scheffler and Wyndham Clark – were tied for the 36-hole lead, and that was the most co-leaders after 36 on the PGA Tour since the Valero ...
• LET Tour starts a team series in Florida with Saudi ties
    CLEARWATER, Florida – The scheduling for the Aramco Team Series opener was unusual, its opening event being slated opposite the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational just an hour away in Orlando. With a teeoff Friday on International Women’s Day, the Aramco event is unusual enough.  Imagine a women’s team event — one put on by the ...
• Rosemont show is `unofficial’ start to Chicago golf season
  Carrie Williams, the executive director of the Illinois PGA, has no problem calling this week’s 39th annual Chicago Golf Show “the unofficial kickoff to the Chicago golf season.’’ That is what it has become for more than three decades. The annual mid-winter event begins its three-day run on Friday (FEB 23) at the Stephens Convention Center ...
• Ghim coped with the rowdy Phoenix golf crowds
  Doug Ghim developed his golf skills first growing up in Arlington Heights and he progressed all the way to the PGA Tour.  Last week he even put himself in position to win for the first time at the WM Phoenix Open. Ghim got off to a good start, shooting 65 in the first round.  In the ...
• Back injury sidelines Streelman on the PGA Tour
  Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman has been the Chicago area’s most successful PGA Tour player since joining the circuit in 2008, and has $26.7 milllion in career winnings to show for it. This season, though, hasn’t started well. Now 45, Streelman has been one of the circuit’s most durable players but this season started with missed cuts at ...
• CDGA gives Illinois Women’s Amateur a big boost
  The Chicago District Golf Association won’t announce its 2024 tournament schedule until Dec. 6 but it will include two major additions. For 90 years the Illinois Women’s Golf Association, a group based downstate, conducted the Illinois Women’s State Amateur as well as its state championship for senior players.  With IWGA membership dwindling, those events would likely ...
• Illinois Golf Hall of Fame will get six new members
  The Illinois Golf Hall of Fame will induct its 20th class on Friday, Nov. 10, and selection committee chairman Tim Cronin says “it couldn’t be more diverse or vibrant.’’ Heading the six-member class are two long-time club professionals, Tim O’Neal and Bruce Patterson, and Dr. Randy Kane, who served as the first Chicago District Golf Association ...
• Mistwood’s Mickelson is Illinois PGA’s Player of the Year
    Andy Mickelson, the director of golf at Mistwood in Romeoville, is the Illinois PGA’s Player of the Year.  He did it with only one win, in the section’s first stroke play event, but his consistency in 10 other competitions earned him enough Bernardi Player of the Year points to win the prestigious honor. “Winning the Illinois ...
• Here are the two main reasons why Europe claimed the Ryder Cup
  There’s no need to rehashing this Ryder Cup.  Europe’s 16 ½-11 ½ win in Italy on Sunday was marked by extraordinary emotion, some controversy and more frustration for Team USA, which hasn’t won on foreign soil since 1993. It was, at least, great theater and there’ll be more of that when the competition is played next ...
• DeChambeau adds to debate about U.S. Ryder Cup team picks
  The results of Sunday’s LIV Chicago tourney at Rich Harvest Farms create the need for another look at the U.S. team for this week’s Ryder Cup in Italy. Captain Zach Johnson has been criticized for passing on Keegan Bradley as a captain’s pick and choosing Justin Thomas, who had a disappointing (for him) season, instead.  Johnson ...
• DeChambeau beats his own teammate to win LIV title
    Golf drama doesn’t get any better than this. Bryson DeChambeau delivered it in Illinois for the third time on Sunday to win the LIV Chicago tournament at Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove. In 2015 he won the U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields, and in 2017 he captured the first of his seven PGA Tour titles ...
• Munoz leads LIV; Koepka struggles with Ryder Cup closing in
    You’d think this week’s LIV tourney would – with all its crowd noise, music and other distractions – offer Brooks Koepka good preparation for next week’s Ryder Cup in Italy. Koepka is the only LIV player on either the U.S. or European teams and he’ll be in his fourth straight Ryder Cup. LIV has arranged a ...
• Garcia among LIV leaders after raucous round at Rich Harvest
  The second version of the LIV Tour’s Chicago stop at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove got off to a rousing start Friday, complete with blaring music and a countdown that created excitement for a crowd that resembled last year’s even less-than-ideal weather. Four parachute jumpers landed on the 18th green seconds before defending champion Cameron ...
• Gooch is the man to watch at Rich Harvest
  The big stars were Cameron Smith and Dustin Johnson when the LIV Tour made its Chicago debut at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove last year.  No surprise there. Smith was the reigning British Open titlist and will be the defending champion when the Saudi-backed circuit returns to Rich Harvest this week. Johnson, winner of two ...
• LIV Tour has found Chicago a welcoming place
    The LIV Tour was a controversial mystery when it made its first Chicago appearance last year at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. This week the Saudi-back circuit returns and its TV host, Jerry Foltz, can’t wait.  Pre-tournament festivities are on tap for Wednesday and Thursday before the 54-hole tournament tees off on Friday. (SEPT 22) Foltz, ...
• Donald is taking some heat for his Ryder Cup picks
  The rosters are set for the Ryder Cup matches and, as usual, the captains are catching heat for some of their selections. Europe’s Luke Donald, though, is catching much more than Zach Johnson of the U.S. with the biennial competition beginning Sept. 29 in Italy. Most obvious contrast between the sides involves players who defected from ...
• Rich Harvest is ready for the LIV Tour’s return
    Last year’s Illinois golf season had a late addition – a tournament called LIV Tour Chicago staged at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. The LIV Tour was a new thing then, and Rich Harvest hosted one of just eight tournaments in the controversial circuit’s first season. The Saudi-back LIV Tour is no mystery guest now, ...
• Donald has the tougher job in Ryder Cup selections
  The Tour Championship was supposed to be a climax to the PGA Tour season.  Not so this year, though Sunday’s duel between Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele  in Atlanta would normally suffice. Hovland’s wins in the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields and Sunday’s in Atlanta the last two weeks will be hard to forget, but now ...
• Low scores are commonplace when BMW is played in Chicago
  Sunday’s rousing finish to the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields was a lot like the wrapup to the tourney’s previous Chicago area staging when fans were allowed through the gates. Based on the scoring, two of Chicago’s premier private courses didn’t seem so tough for the PGA Tour’s best players then.  Soft conditions took the teeth ...
• No Small feat; Illini coach wins 14th IPGA title
  Hopefully the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship, which teed off on Thursday at Olympia Fields, won’t have the problems that affected one of the biggest competitions for local players this week. Mike Small, the men’s coach at the University of Illinois, won the Illinois PGA Professional Championship for the 14th time and became the winningest PGA Professional ...
• PGA Tour returns to Olympia Fields but will miss Nick Hardy
    The BMW Championship returns to Olympia Fields this week, but without a local hopeful.  University of Illinois alums Nick Hardy and Thomas Detry didn’t survive the first event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, though Hardy made a great run at it. Hardy was on the bubble for advancement entering the St. Jude Classic in Memphis, ranking ...
• Hardy will make his debut in a much different FedEx Cup Playoffs
    The FedEx Cup Playoffs, which begin on Thursday at TPC Southwind in Tennessee, were designed to give the PGA Tour a grand climax to its season. Changes in the postseason format and  the arrival of the LIV Golf Tour have changed that, however. In the past the FedEx Playoffs started with 120 players.  This week it’s ...
• Illinois Open has a crowded field at Flossmoor
    The men’s 74th Illinois Open teed off on Monday with the potential of having too many players at Flossmoor Golf Club. State-wide qualifying rounds largely determine the field in the Illinois Open. There are seven of those  and one couldn’t be completed because of rain delays.  With rescheduling deemed impossible, the Illinois PGA opted to give ...
• Illini star, in Korn Ferry stop at the Glen Club, is ready for PGA
  The Korn Ferry Tour, which visits the Chicago area for the fifth straight year this week, provides a path for young golf stars to get to the PGA Tour. Chicago’s stop on the circuit, the NV5 Invitational, has one player – and one with Illinois connections to boot – who has, for all intents, earned his ...
• JDC win started Harman on his way to capturing the British Open
  The John Deere Classic, Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event, is known for its first-time winners.  It’s had 23 of those in its 52-year history, and Brian Harman was one of them. Harman, who won the British Open by a whopping six-stroke margin on Sunday, made the JDC his first victory in 2014 at TPC Deere ...
• This amateur golf doubleheader is not one to miss
    Rarely has Illinois been treated to a golf tournament doubleheader as attractive as the one on tap for this week – and it’s all about the amateurs. The Women’s Western Amateur has been played without interruption since 1901, and the 123rd staging begins on Tuesday at White Eagle, in Naperville.  The always popular Illinois State Amateur ...
• Changes have boosted Nick Hardy’s golf game
  Beset by wrist problems, Nick Hardy’s rookie season on the PGA Tour didn’t go too well.  To retain his playing privileges for this season he had to perform well in the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Finals – and he did that. Since then things have changed a lot for the University of Illinois alum who grew ...
• No 59, but Straka still wins at the John Deere Classic
    SILVIS, IL. – Low numbers are nothing new at the John Deere Classic, and Sunday was no exception. Sepp Straka, far down the leaderboard at the start of the final round, shot 28 on the front nine at TPC Deere Run and strung four birdies on holes 11-14. With four holes left Straka needed just one ...
• Another first-time winner in the JDC? Smalley could be the man
  SILVIS, IL. – Every year a prominent story line at the John Deere Classic is who will be the next first-time winner on the PGA Tour and this year is no exception. The JDC has had 23 champions who won for the first time in its 51-year history. That’s an extraordinarily high number, and they range ...
• Streelman posts his best round ever in the John Deere Classic
    SILVIS, IL. – Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman has been Chicago’s best PGA Tour player for years, but this season hasn’t been one of his best. Qualifying for the FedEx Cup Playoffs was even in serious doubt when the John Deere Classic teed off this week. Only players ranked in the top 70 in the FedEx point standings ...
• How `Swede’ it is at the John Deere Classic
  A golfer from Sweden was expected to contend in the John Deere Classic this week, but it wasn’t Jonas Blixt in Thursday’s opening round. Blixt, a 39-year old journeyman, has won three times on the PGA Tour, the last time in the 2016-17 season. He hadn’t even played in a PGA Tour since the Byron Nelson ...
• Poston faces a tough title defense in the JDC
  The John Deere Classic tees off for the 52nd time on Thursday with a new tournament director, a pro-am with a celebrity participant whose fame comes in basketball, a pair of weekend post-round concerts featuring high-profile entertainers and a new contract with the PGA Tour that will assure the tournament stays in the Quad Cities ...
• This PGA tourney shows it can change with the times
    The John Deere Classic, Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event, has never had a staging like the one coming up in two weeks.  Professional golf has changed dramatically this year, and so has the JDC. Andrew Lehman is the JDC’s new tournament director, replacing the retired Clair Peterson. This isn’t Lehman’s first rodeo, but he inherited ...
• A long-time Illinois golf tournament is in limbo
  Last week the Illinois State Women’s Amateur celebrated its 90th anniversary with one of its most interesting tournaments. Two past champions decided the title in sudden death and an up-and-coming star emerged, too. That’s the good news. Geneva’s Sarah Arnold couldn’t protect a 2-up lead in regulation play at The Grove, in Long Grove, but her ...
• Illini alums come up big in Korn Ferry tourney
    Michael Feagles, one of the University of Illinois’ stars of the recent past, shot the ninth sub-60 score in the history of the Korn Ferry Tour at last week’s BMW Charity Pro-Am but he wasn’t the Illini alum to win the tournament.  Adrien Dumont de Chassart was – and it came in his first pro ...
• Golf `merger’ might bring peace, but it’ll take awhile
  I had just begun a 10-hour drive back home to Sarasota when I got the word, via a phone call, of the “merger’’ between the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the LIV Tour.  I was shocked by the bombshell announcement, but just because of the timing.  I expected some sort of a resolution ...
• Hardy, Streelman deliver with U.S. Open berths on the line
    The “Longest Day in Golf’’ always produces plenty of drama, but this year’s – held on Monday – was particularly interesting. The ten 36-hole sectional qualifying tournaments held across the country sent four Chicago players to the 123rd U.S. Open, to be played June 15-18 at the Los Angeles Country Club. Those who made it into ...
• Switching to the claw has improved Luke Donald’s putting
    Luke Donald, a golfing legend from his days at Northwestern, was the No. 1 player in the world for 56 weeks back in 2011 and 2012. Then, after battling back problems, his game suffered and he even had trouble getting into some tournaments. Now, though, Donald is Europe’s Ryder Cup captain. That’s made him a more ...
• PGA caddie switch; Illini advance in the NCAAs
    The high drama at Sunday’s Charles Schwab Challenge on the PGA Tour centered on the eventual winner, Emiliano Grillo, and Adam Schenk, the loser in a two-hole playoff to Grillo in extra holes.  David Cooke, a two-time Illinois Open champion from Bolingbrook, was part of the drama, too. He has been Schenk’s caddie – but ...
• Lots of Illinois golfers could make it to the U.S. Open
    It may seem weird, but golf’s second major championship of the year ended Sunday with Brooks Koepka’s victory in the PGA Championship after the third of the four majors was already – at least technically – well underway. The 123rd U.S. Open proper doesn’t begin its 72-hole run until June 15-18 but that tournament annually draws ...
• French has momentum going into PGA Championship
    Club professionals rarely have an impact in the PGA Championship, but this week one might.  Chris French, the head professional at Aldeen — a public course operated by the Rockford Park District — is certainly playing well enough going into the event that tees off on Thursday at Oak Hill in Rochester, N.Y. Only the top ...
• French is Illinois’ hope in the PGA Championship
    Having an Illinois club professional in the PGA Championship is a rarity, but there will be one this year. Chris French of Rockford made it into the field for the year’s second major championship at Oak Hill, in Rochester, N.Y. from May 15-21. Though he works part of the year in California and spent time on ...
• Is an NCAA title next for the Illini men golfers?
    Could this be the year that the University of Illinois men’s team finally wins the NCAA title? Illini coach Mike Small has had some powerhouse teams but this year’s version could be his best.  The nation’s No. 3 ranked team captured the school’s eighth straight Big Ten championship (and 13th in 14 years) on Sunday by ...
• Hensby, Illini teams joined Hardy in big Illinois golf weekend
  Last weekend was like no other as far as Illinois golf is concerned, and Nick Hardy’s first PGA Tour win at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans was just one of the extraordinary developments. Here are the others: PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS – Mark Hensby, whose best golf came on Illinois courses years ago,  notched his first win ...
• Nick Hardy is now a winner on the PGA Tour
  Northbrook’s Nick Hardy is now a winner on the PGA Tour. He teamed up with a long-time friend, Davis Riley, to capture the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Sunday in Avondale, La.  It was the first win on golf’s premier circuit for both of them. The Zurich Classic is the only team event on the ...
• Flavin is taking the Korn Ferry route to the PGA Tour now
    Last year Highwood’s Patrick Flavin tried to make it to the PGA Tour the hard way – through the Monday qualifiers.  He wasn’t successful, but he came close. Flavin finished No. 153 on the FedEx Cup standings.  The top 125 earned full PGA Tour membership in the current 2022-23 season and the top 150 got conditional ...
• Illini golfers await new tourney, assistant coach’s departure
  The Masters, as always, hogged the golf spotlight as spring kicked in, but now that’s changing – especially at the University of Illinois. Mike Small’s Illini men’s team is ranked No. 5 in the nation with two regular-season tournaments remaining – this week’s Tiger Collegiate Invitational in Columbia, Mo., and then the Fighting Illini Collegiate April ...
• What did this strange Masters prove? Not much
    If ever a golf tournament merited a look-back two days after its conclusion it was this just-completed Masters. It was a strange one, to put it mildly. I’ve been to several Masters played in bad weather, but this one had a 40-degree temperature change between Thursday’s first round and Saturday’s third. Rory McIlroy, still in search ...
• Burns will win Masters, and LIV players will make an impact
    When you’re a regular golf writer there’s an annual challenge.  You’re obligated to pick the winner of the Masters. I’m in my 55th year writing about the sport and have made my pick – in print — every year since 1986. Getting it right isn’t easy.  I’ve been right only twice – Fred Couples in 1992 ...
• Preliminary events create early buzz for the Masters
    The countdown to the year’s first major golf championship is on.  The first tee shot in the 87th playing of the Masters isn’t until next week, but – with Augusta National’s membership expanding its event in recent years — the preliminaries start this week. Unless Luke Donald, Doug Ghim, Nick Hardy or Kevin Streelman can pull ...
• Two-time Illinois Open champion now thrives as PGA Tour caddie
  PALM HARBOR, FL. – The final round of the PGA Tour’s four-week Florida Swing was an unusual one.  Taylor Moore won the Valspar Championship on Sunday, but Adam Schenk and Jordan Spieth – paired in the final group – created all the drama. It was their shortcomings on the three tough finishing holes at the Copperhead ...
• Valspar’s Copperhead is ideal course for Chicago PGA Tour players
  Life on the PGA Tour hasn’t been easy for the Chicago-connected players, but that could change this week. Luke Donald, Doug Ghim, Nick Hardy, Kevin Streelman and Dylan Wu are all in the field for the Valspar Championship, the last of the four tournaments on the circuit’s Florida Swing. With a paint company as the title sponsor, ...
• Last Honda created a career first for Northwestern alum
    Dylan Wu, the former Northwestern star, won’t look back on last week’s Honda Classic because it was the event’s last-ever playing on the PGA Tour.  He’ll remember it as the spot where he notched his first top-10 finish on golf’s premier circuit. Wu won three college tournaments while at NU and compiled the second-best scoring average ...
• Two-year hiatus is finally over for the Chicago Golf Show
    For 37 years the Chicago Golf Show was considered the unofficial start to the Chicago golf season.  And then the pandemic hit. The show was cancelled in 2001 and 2022 because of pandemic concerns, but it’s back this weekend in full force at the Stephens Convention  Center in Rosemont. It’ll feature Colt Knost, an on-course TV ...
• Langer pulls even with Irwin in Champions’ wins
  NAPLES, FL. – Bernhard Langer now shares the honor of being the winningest golfer in the 43-year history of PGA Tour Champions.  In winning the Chubbs Classic on Sunday Langer notched his 45th win on the 50-and-over circuit to pull even with Hale Irwin. The 36th playing of the Chubbs was like a home game for ...
• Tour Edge clubs help Langer approach Champions Tour history
  David Glod has boosted the profile of his 36-year old Batavia-based Tour Edge golf club company in recent years by building an advisory staff around players on PGA Tour Champions, and none of Glod’s signing was more important than Bernhard Langer. Eight competitors on the 50-and-over circuit are Tour Edge ambassadors, and they include former major ...
• Both PGA and LIV golf tours will visit Chicago this year
  Top level men’s professional golf has been hard to find in the Chicago area in recent years. That won’t be the case this season. The upstart LIV Golf League finally announced its schedule on Tuesday and it included a return to Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove.  That means the top men’s players will be visiting ...
• Henderson gets the LPGA season off to a good start
  ORLANDO, FL. — Funny thing about the LPGA.  The premier women’s tour in golf ended its 2022 season and started its 2023 campaign with Florida tournaments that were marred by some discontent. The sponsor of last November’s CME Championship wasn’t happy that all the players competing for the biggest first-prize in women’s golf didn’t show up ...
• PGA Show triggers some big news by Chicago area golf companies
      ORLANDO, FL. — The biggest week so far in the 2023 golf season is on tap, and – though the Ladies PGA Tour’s season-opening Tournament of Champions is being played nearby – the focus will be on the 70th PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Center. The show has been the industry’s biggest event, ...
• Hardy will be more colorful when PGA Tour season resumes
  Northbrook’s Nick Hardy will be a more colorful player when he begins the 2023 portion of his second season on the PGA Tour at this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. It’s  the circuit’s first full-field event of 2023. The 26-year old University of Illinois alum signed last week as the PGA Tour ambassador for Swag Golf, ...
• Flavin, India will be busy when Korn Ferry Tour returns
  Patrick Flavin’s attempt at earning his PGA Tour card through a year’s worth of Monday qualifiers made for a captivating story throughout the 2022 season. The Highwood resident, who won the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open in 2017, came up a bit short in the final day of his long season of traveling in September, ...
• Peterson will leave JDC post on a record high
    The tournament director of Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event will be leaving his post on a record high. Clair Peterson, who officially ends his 20-year stint leading the John Deere Classic, announced on Monday that this year’s Birdies for Charity program  raised a record $13,908,668 for 481 participating charities in the Moline area.  That total ...
• Carroll is the Illinois PGA’s Player of the Year
  Brian Carroll, head professional at The Hawk Country Club in St. Charles, is the Illinois PGA Player of the Year. Carroll, who led the Bernardi point standings most of the season, clinched the title with a tie for seventh in the IPGA Players Championship last week at Lake Shore Country Club in Glencoe.  That was the ...
• Could the Women’s Western Open be returning?
  Sure, last week’s LIV Tour Invitational at Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, may have been the high profile golf event of this Chicago golf season but the biggest news may have been made a day earlier at the Women’s Western Golf Association’s annual Women of Distinction ceremonies at the Glen View Club. That’s when the ...
• Rich Harvest tourney will show how different the LIV Tour is
  The LIV Golf Tour, which comes to Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove this week, is – at the very least – different. After only four tournaments over the last three months, the jury is still out on the controversial circuit put together by legendary player Greg Norman with extraordinary financial backing from the Saudi government. The ...
• Rich Harvest is next up on LIV Tour’s schedule
  Now it’s Chicago’s turn to see what the LIV Golf Tour has to offer.  Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, will host the fifth of eight LIV tournaments on Sept. 16-18 with a pro-am the day before the tournament rounds. Rich Harvest will host another $25 million 54-hole tournament that offers individual and a team competition ...
• Nicole Jeray takes aim at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open title
  For nearly four decades now Nicole Jeray has been virtually Chicago’s lone representative on the Ladies PGA tours. While she’s transitioned from full-time tournament player to full-time instructor at Mistwood, in Romeoville, Jeray, 51, is still an enthusiastic competitor and this week is her biggest tournament of the season.  She’s in the field for the U.S. ...
• Makray provides a new challenge for this IPGA tourney
    Andy Mickelson has an interesting dual role in the Illinois PGA Championship, which tees off today at a new site – Makray Memorial in Barrington. Not only is Mickelson the defending champion, he’s also – as the Illinois Section’s tournament director — the key figure in the public course landing the state’s premier event for club ...
• Patrick Flavin is trying to make it to the PGA Tour the hard way
  Very few golfers have earned membership on the PGA Tour without going through the nail-biting Qualifying School experience. Gary Hallberg, who grew up in Barrington, was the first to do it in 1980 when he needed to earn just $8,000 in a few late season tournaments to avoid Q-School. Requirements have toughened over the years when ...
• Settler’s Hill is back in business after an elaborate renovation
    The renovation of the Settler’s Hill course in Batavia wasn’t easy – even for veteran Chicago area golf architect Greg Martin. His recent or current area projects include The Preserve at Oak Meadows (Addison), Park Ridge Country Club, Fox Bend (Oswego), Arrowhead (Wheaton), Phillips Park (Aurora), Springbrook and Naperbrook (Naperville) and Wilmette Golf Club. Only The ...
• Donald is getting his Ryder Cup captaincy after all
  Luke Donald, always the gentleman, badly wanted to captain the European Ryder Cup team but feared his chances were gone after Sweden’s Henrik Stenson was selected on July 20. Donald, a member of four Ryder Cup teams and a vice captain for two others, wasn’t even named a vice captain for the matches in Rome in ...
• LIV Tourney should boost Kids Golf Foundation at Rich Harvest Farms
    The controversial LIV Tour Invitational Series’  stop in Chicago is closing in. The Saudi-backed circuit holds its third tournament starting on Friday at Trump National Bedminster in New Jersey, and the fourth –called The International — is in Boston from Sept. 2-4. Then it’s on to Rich Harvest Farms, in Sugar Grove, from Sept. 16-18 in ...
• McClear proves the best golfer in first Illinois Amateur on the North Shore
  A year ago a costly bogey on the 17th hole at Mistwood, in Romeoville, prevented Hinsdale’s Mac McClear from winning the Illinois State Amateur title.  He wound up in a three-man playoff for the crown, with Crystal Lake’s Ethan Farnam repeating as the tourney’s champion. That setback didn’t hold back the University of Iowa junior this ...
• Women’s Western, Illinois men’s amateur events take local spotlight
    The biggest of the local tournaments come fast and furious now. They all started on Tuesday when the 122nd Women’s Western Amateur and 91st Illinois State Amateur took center stage.  The Women’s Western Golf Association  event, which has been held without interruption since 1901, is at Sunset Ridge, in Northfield, through Saturday.  The Illinois Am concludes ...
• How Eagle Ridge is celebrating The General’s 25th anniversary
  Eagle Ridge, Illinois’ only full-fledged golf resort in Galena, is marking the 25th anniversary of its premier course, The General, in an unusual way.  Call it a “Celebration Restoration.’’ Not only is The General one of the very best courses in the state, it’s also the most different.  No 18-holer in Illinois has the 280 feet ...
• Baseball Cancer Charities golf event is back in business
  Golf’s celebrity events to benefit charitable causes used to be commonplace, especially in Chicago.  In fact, Chicago had one of the first really big ones – the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities event. It returns to the Chicago calendar for the first time in three years on Thursday, July 14, at Twin Orchard Country Club in Long ...
• Chicago golfers create the buzz before Poston completes his JDC win
    SILVIS, IL. — “Magic Happens Here’’ has been the promotional motto for the John Deere Classic the last few years, and – from a Chicago player perspective – it certainly was pertinent during Sunday’s final round. Yes, J.T. Poston won the tournament wire-to-wire – the first to do that since David Frost in 1992. Poston, winning for ...
• Poston could be a wire-to-wire winner at the John Deere Classic
  SILVIS, IL. – This has been one weird John Deere Classic. Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour stop usually has a few big names.  This one had such mainstays on the circuit as Bubba Watson, Daniel Berger, Steve Stricker and Jason Day among its entrants, but none made it to the starting line. The local players haven’t stepped ...
• JDC sponsor exemption is paying off for Flavin
  SILVIS, IL. – Highwood’s Patrick Flavin is taking  a precarious route to the PGA Tour, but…so far, so good. Flavin has no status on the PGA Tour, so the only way he can get into tournaments is through Monday qualifiers or sponsor exemptions. Neither is easy. The qualifiers usually draw about 200 players, with just four spots ...
• This JDC will be Peterson’s last as its tournament director
  This week’s John Deere Classic, Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event, will be the last with Clair Peterson as its tournament director. Peterson, 69, will drop down to a player liaison’s role with Andrew Lehman, a JDC staffer for 16 years, assuming full time director’s duties after the post-tournament details from this year are completed.  The ...
• JDC will share its new PGA Tour dates with the LIV Tour
  The U.S. Open is history, and now the focus turns to what’s coming up in two weeks.  The John Deere Classic, Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event, goes head-to-head with the first American event on the controversial LIV Tour. This week’s PGA Tour stop is the Travelers Championship in Connecticut and all the Chicago-connected players – ...
• Hardy, Gannon are late qualifiers for the U.S. Open
  The Illinois contingent in the 156-man field for this week’s U.S. Open at The Country Club, in Brookline, Mass., tripled in the last week. Only Adrien Dumont de Chassart, the Belgium-born standout for the University of Illinois, qualified during regulation play in “Golf’s Longest Day,’’ the nation-wide 36-hole series of sectional qualifiers for the Open. Since then, ...
• Illini golfer is only local player to qualify for the U.S. Open
  This week’s “Longest Day in Golf’’ was an especially long one for 20 Chicago-connected players who had hopes of qualifying for the 122nd U.S. Open.  Only one made it through Monday’s 10 sectional qualifiers. Belgium’s Adrien Dumont de Chassart, the star of the University Illinois team, squeezed in thanks to a solid second round in the ...
• `The Longest Day in Golf’ is approaching for U.S. Open hopefuls
    `The Longest Day in Golf’ is fast approaching for U.S. Open hopefuls. The golf focus for this week could be on the PGA Tour’s Memorial tournament in Ohio or the U.S. Women’s Open in North Carolina.  For Chicago followers, though, it should be on Monday’s U.S. Open sectional eliminations. They will determine the last players to ...
• Five former Illinois Open champions seek Korn Ferry Tour title
    How difficult is it to get on the PGA Tour?   Just ask Vince India or Brad Hopfinger. They grew up in the Chicago suburbs, were stars at the University of Iowa together and among the select group of 10 players with wins in both the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open. Both were early in their ...
• Streelman wants to be a factor at another PGA Championship
  Last year’s PGA Championship at Kiawah, in South Carolina, will be remembered historically for Phil Mickelson becoming, at 50, the oldest winner of a major championship. It’ll be memorable for Kevin Streelman, as well.  Chicago’s most prominent PGA Tour member finished in a nine-way tie for eighth place, his first top-10 finish in 26 appearances in ...
• Illini men take three-tourney winning streak into NCAA regional
  The University of Illinois men’s team earned its 15th straight appearance in NCAA regional play, which starts on Monday.  That was no surprise after the Illini won their seventh straight Big Ten title and 12th in the last 13 years last week, extending a run of three straight tournament titles. Now things get more difficult.  Coach ...
• John Deere Classic gives Flavin the royal treatment
    The awarding of sponsor’s exemptions isn’t a big deal at a PGA Tour event.  Tournament directors usually announce the lucky four or so winners in the early days of tournament week. That’s not the case with this year’s John Deere Classic, however.  Highwood’s Patrick Flavin received the good news nearly two months  before the JDC, which ...
• Illini golfers are ready for another Big Ten title run at French Lick
  Coach Mike Small’s University of Illinois men’s golf team hasn’t been the powerhouse this season that it had been during most of the last two decades. Things changed for the Illini  in a big way at this crucial point of the season, however. The Illini tied for the title in their first tournament, then went seven straight ...
• New Orleans’ PGA Tour stop puts the focus on team play
  This week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans isn’t a big deal compared to other events on the PGA Tour.  It could turn out big for Doug Ghim and Nick Hardy, two of the Chicago area’s young guns on the circuit, however. The Zurich Classic is the only full-field team event of the PGA Tour season.  Lots ...
• Berger joins Johnson as JDC ambassador
  Only Zach Johnson had been sporting the logo of Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event on his golf bag.  Now America’s next Ryder Cup captain has company. Daniel Berger, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour and member of the victorious U.S. Ryder Cup team last fall at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits, sported the John Deere Classic ...
• Scheffler is the obvious choice to win this year’s Masters
  Picking the winner of any PGA Tour event is an exercise in futility. Still, come Masters time, forecasting the champion seems almost an obligation. I’ve been making the effort since attending my first Masters in 1986, and I’ve picked the winner only once – Fred Couples in 1992. With the 86th Masters teeing off on Thursday, ...
• Masters preliminary events give young stars a chance to shine
  Unless Kevin Streelman, Luke Donald, Doug Ghim, Nick Hardy or Dylan Wu win this week’s Valero Texas Open there won’t a Chicago-connected player in next week’s Masters tournament. The champion of the PGA Tour event on Sunday in Texas gets the final spot in the year’s first major championship at Georgia’s Augusta National, and all five ...
• Here’s why Rich Harvest will host an event on controversial new golf tour
  Jerry Rich, owner of Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, has done wonders for amateur golf by making his ultra-private course available for big tournaments like the Western Amateur, NCAA Championship and Palmer Cup. His biggest venture into the professional ranks came in 2009, when Rich Harvest hosted a very well-received Solheim Cup, a team ...
• Big-money Players tourney is proving a good fit for Ghim
  Doug Ghim is learning about the PGA Tour. The second-year PGA Tour player who grew up in Arlington Heights is improving, too. Ghim played in the last group in the final round of The Players Championship both as a rookie in 2021 and in the weather-battered staging of this season, which wrapped up on Monday. In 2021 ...
• Zero Friction’s new golf cart is a big hit at the PGA Show
  ORLANDO, FL. – The biggest show in golf wrapped up on Friday at the Orange County Convention Center, and the 69th PGA Merchandise Show was a bit different than the previous 68 stagings. The pandemic forced cancelation of the show in 2021 and the two-year hiatus took its toll Normally the show has about 1,000 brands ...
• LPGA’s T of C turned into the `Annika Show’
  LAKE NONA, FL. – Annika Sorenstam didn’t win on Sunday but – as the only woman in a 50-player group of celebrities that included famous sport stars like Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Brian Urlacher, Jeremy Roenick, John Smoltz, Sterling Sharp and Tom Glavin, the 51-year old golf legend did just fine. No doubt she was ...
• Malpede, Morrison announce their retirements
  The 69th PGA Merchandise Show is coming up this week in Orlando, FL., and that’s generally a big week for club professionals nation-wide who use the big event at the Orange County Convention Center to begin preparations for another season. It won’t be quite the same this year for two of Chicago’s longest-standing club leaders. Both ...
• Medinah announcement might be highlight of 2021 Chicago golf season
  That horrible pandemic made 2021 a difficult year for everybody, but it was somewhat less so for those in the Chicago area golf industry. The courses were busy, the big events were back on schedule and an extraordinarily large number of facilities took on expansion projects. The biggest was at Heritage Oaks, the Northbrook Park District’s ...
• New additions open at Poplar Creek, Fox Run courses
  While most area golf courses are in the process of closing for the season, a couple are just kicking into high gear thanks to the completion of some major construction work. The Bridges of Poplar Creek, an 18-holer in Hoffman Estates, has opened its new Toptracer Range. It features 10 covered, heated hitting bays. While a ...
• Olympia Fields will host another BMW Championship in 2023
  The PGA Tour’s 2021 season concluded on Sunday, but the circuit – along with the Western Golf Association – made an announcement on Monday that will have a huge effect on the Chicago golf community for years to come. After a two-year absence the PGA Tour will be back in the Chicago area in 2023 with ...
• Jin Young Ko’s epic win caps off a big week for the LPGA
    NAPLES, FL. – The PGA and LPGA tours concluded their 2021 seasons on Sunday, and the women went out with a bigger bang than the men. The PGA Tour reached its high point a couple months ago with the staging of the FedEx Cup Playoffs and the Ryder Cup. Those were tough acts for the remaining ...
• Szokol makes it into the LPGA’s most lucrative tournament
  The golf season has a series of climax events these days. The PGA Tour had its season climax in either September, when the FedEx Cup Playoffs concluded, or October, when the Ryder Cup ended. Take your pick. PGA Tour Champions concluded its season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs last Sunday when Phil Mickelson won the last tournament ...
• Flavin claims first PGA Tour check — almost $100,000 — with his Dad on bag
  Monday qualifiers are a way of life for Patrick Flaviin, the budding golf touring pro from Highwood. One of only two players to win both the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open in the same year, Flavin estimates he’s played in 30 such nail-biting rounds in hopes of getting into tournaments on either the PGA Tour ...
• Small, Biancalana will play in a golf major in 2022
  Mike Small considers himself a golf coach first and a player second,  but he proved again how good a player he can be in qualifying for another major championship last week — this one of the senior variety. The University of Illinois men’s coach was free to compete after his Illiini concluded the 2021 portion of ...
• Pinns heads latest Illinois Golf Hall of Fame induction class
  Gary Pinns is probably best known in Illinois golf circles for winning the Illinois Open five times.  No one else has done that. Pinns has done much more than that, howeve3r. He gave the PGA Tour a four-year shot before making an instantly successful transition into teaching. He’s been doing that as director of instruction  at ...
• U.S. dominates in this Ryder Cup
  HAVEN, Wis.—The longstanding U.S. frustrations in the Ryder Cup are over.  After losing to Europe in four of the previous five meetings and seven of the last nine captain Steve Stricker found a combination of young  players who dominated the 43rd staging of golf’s premier team event at Whistling Straits. In fact, this American team dominated ...
• Could this be the day the U.S. reclaims the Ryder Cup?
  HAVEN, Wis. – If it wasn’t for a nightmarish day nine years ago the United States golfers and their supporters would already be in a celebratory mood at Whistling Straits. The U.S. went 3-1 in Saturday’s morning foursome matches for the third straight session to open a 9-3 lead. The Europeans had their best session of ...
• At least there’s hope for the U.S. after great start in Ryder Cup
  HAVEN, Wis. – Beautiful weather greeted the 40,000 spectators when the 43rd Ryder Cup teed off Fridays. So did massive traffic jams on the rural roads that surround Whistling Straits. At the end of the day, though, there was at least hope for the American side that has been dominated by the Europe  in  in ...
• Stricker in the spotlight at Ryder Cup Opening Ceremonies
  HAVEN, Wis. – Thursday’s Opening Ceremonies for the 43rd Ryder Cup was not without the unexpected.  U.S. captain Steve Stricker provided it. First Stricker broke into tears while introducing his wife and daughters to a standing room only crowd who ignored a late afternoon rain to gather at the Dye Pavilion at Whistling Straits. “I had a ...
• Euros made a good move in donning Packers’ gear at Ryder Cup
  HAVEN, Wis. – The fun is over – well almost – and things are getting serious at the 43rd Ryder Cup. Clearly the European team, which has won four of the last five Ryder Cups, is well prepared.  Captain Padraig Harrington, in a clear move to soften the passions of the partisan  American crowd, had his ...
• Who’s the real team to beat in this Ryder Cup?
  HAVEN, Wis. – Most of the world golf media is labelling the United States the favorite in the 43rd Ryder Cup matches, which tee off on Friday at Whistling Straits. I’m not part of that group. Frankly, it’d be shocking if this U.S. Ryder Cup team even made a game of it against the Europeans. Here’s ...
• Tour Edge makes early introduction of its new golf clubs
  It’s obvious that the pandemic changed golf.  Play increased nation-wide last year because the sport was a safe outlet for people in need of exercise and this year, according to industry reports, play is up another 15 percent over that. “There’s been a 40 percent bump in new golfers coming into the game or players taking ...
• Whistling Straits is ready as the Ryder Cup closes in
    KOHLER, Wis. –Patrick Cantlay dominated the PGA Tour’s season-ending FedEx Cup Playoffs and the final PGA Tour cards were determined at  the Korn Ferry Tour Championship on Sunday. Coupled with Team Europe’s 14 l/2-13 l/2 win in the LPGA’s Solheim Cup on Monday, the golf season would seem to have reached its climax, right? WRONG! Last weekend ...
• Korn Ferry finale could be a stepping stone for Vince India
  Golf’s post season playoffs haven’t been kind to Chicago area players.  Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman was eliminated from the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs on Sunday and now Deerfield’s Vince India faces a tough battle in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship. The Korn Ferry event at Indiana’s Victoria National determines the final 25 from the PGA’s alternate ...
• Don’t sell golf short in the Wisconsin Dells
  WISCONSIN DELLS, Wis. – The Wisconsin Dells area never grew much in population.  Its namesake city has never had more than 3,000 residents.  Still, the Dells has been one of the Midwest’s most popular travel destinations since its founding in 1856. Boats trips brought tourists in first because they liked the scenery.  A wide variety of ...
• A big win for Mistwood’s Mickelson
  The Illinois PGA Championship dates back to 1922, but rarely has it had a tournament like the one that Andy Mickelson won on Wednesday at Ivanhoe Club. Mickelson, the director of golf at Mistwood in Romeoville, was the only player to complete the 54 holes under par.  He was at 3-under 213. That was the highest ...
• Senior LPGA awaits farewell at French Lick
  An era of women’s golf is ending this week.  Indiana’s French Lick Resort, a favorite destination for golfers since the 1920s, will host the Senior LPGA Championship for the final time. the The tournament tees off on Friday on the Pete Dye Course. “This is our ninth year working with the senior women,’’ said Dave Harner, ...
• Hardy will become the next Chicago area PGA Tour player
  Chicago has another PGA Tour player. Northbrook’s Nick Hardy earned his membership for the 2021-22 season by finishing No. 20 in the point standings during the Korn Ferry Tour’s regular season.  It ended on Sunday at the Pinnacle Bank Championship in Omaha, Neb. Hardy missed the cut in that tournament but maintained his spot among the ...
• Heritage Oaks, Oak Meadows projects show major progress
  Two of the biggest golf projects in the history of the Chicago area reach milestones this week. The Northbrook Park District’s new Heritage Oaks course holds its dedication ceremony on Thursday while the DuPage Forest Preserve District’s Preserve at Oak Meadows, in Addison, has announced the opening of its new clubhouse. Both were a long time coming.  ...
• Illinois Open has put Stonebridge back on the golf tournament scene
    Stonebridge Country Club, which is hosting the 72nd Illinois Open this week, has an interesting history. The Aurora private club opened in 1989 with a course designed by the well-respected Tom Fazio. His other Illinois creations include The Glen Club, in Glenview, and Conway Farms, in Lake Forest.   The latter two have been frequent sites of ...
• Illinois Am champion skips Western, takes aim at winning State Open
  This week’s 119th playing of the Western Amateur may have one of its strongest fields ever at the Glen View Club, in Golf, but one notable name is missing. Ethan Farnam, who repeated as the Illinois State Amateur champion last week, won’t be there. “I didn’t even apply for the Western Amateur,’’ said Farnam.  “Usually the ...
• Here’s how the Illinois PGA events have changed
    While the four major championship on the PGA Tour are now history, the Illinois PGA has three of its four still coming up. The next is the Illinois Open, Aug. 2-4 at Stonebridge, in Aurora. IPGA leadership did considerable soul-searching in trying to salvage the pandemic-impacted 2020 season, and their efforts are reflected in the streamlining ...
• Streelman looks for a bounce-back at the British Open
  Last week’s John Deere Classic wasn’t kind to Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman, the top local player on the PGA Tour.  He missed the 36-hole cut at the JDC, but he’s still in this week’s British Open at England’s Royal St. George’s course. “It’s a different level of everything.  Everything’s elevated – the adrenalin, the crowds, the golf ...
• Glover ends a trend in winning the 50th John Deere Classic
  SILVIS, IL. – Lucas Glover isn’t supposed to be the type of guy who wins the John Deere Classic. That event has been one for young players – like Payne Stewart, Jordan Spieth and Bryson DeChambeau — to kick-start their careers.  They were among the 23 first-time PGA Tour winners among the JDC’s 50 champions. Glover ...
• Munoz makes another big splash in regaining John Deere Classic lead
  SILVIS, IL. — The John Deere Classic, which concludes its 50th anniversary celebration on Sunday,  is known for its long history of first-time winners on the PGA Tour.  The tourney has had 23 of them in its first 49 years and is on a streak of three straight champions who cracked the win list for ...
• Recharged List passes Munoz for lead at midway point in John Deere Classic
  SILVIS, IL. – Sebastian Munoz knew that shooting a 63 in Thursday’s first round of the John Deere Classic – with birdies on the last five holes to boot — wasn’t all good. “It’s never easy showing up the day after you shoot 8-under,’’ he said.  And it wasn’t easy for him on the first nine ...
• Fast start at John Deere Classic shows how much progress Ghim is making
    SILVIS, IL. – Being a rookie on the PGA Tour isn’t easy.  Doug Ghim, who got to golf’s premier circuit after growing up in Arlington Heights, is making headway and Thursday’s first round of the John  Deere Classic provided proof of that. Ghim came into the JDC with $1,152,732 in season winnings and had made 16 ...
• Stricker could be the big story again at the John Deere Classic
    The John Deere Classic isn’t the biggest event on the PGA Tour, but it’s the circuit’s only annual Illinois stop and this week’s staging is – by far – the biggest golf event in the state in 2021. TPC Deere Run, on the outskirts of Moline, again hosts the $6.2 million championship that begins its four-day, ...
• Illinois Women’s Open returns minus Western Junior champ
  This year’s golf calendar isn’t as loaded with big events as it normally is.  That’s why next week figures to be the biggest of the local season.  It features the biggest annual women’s event of the year followed immediately by Illinois’ only PGA Tour stop of 2021. The 26th Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open leads things ...
• There’ll be no Less-Perkins rematch in CDGA Am; both are ready to turn pro
  While the 121st U.S. Open is history, there’ll be plenty of  tradition in evidence this week in the Chicago amateur ranks. Heading the busy schedule is the Chicago District Amateur, at Bull Valley in Woodstock. It’s being played for the 101st time. The Western Golf Association is also contesting its two junior championships this week, and ...
• Here’s three surprising qualifiers for the U.S. Open
  Nobody is going to pick Andy Pope, Dylan Frittelli or Dylan Meyer to win the 121st U.S. Open when it tees off Thursday at Torrey Pines in California. Still, all three have tee times and high hopes. All were survivors of what has been dubbed “Golf’s Longest Day,’’ when nine 36-hole qualifiers played across the country ...
• Arnold Palmer Cup has a new look for its return to Rich Harvest
  Jerry Rich, owner of Rich Harvest Farms, has never been reluctant to bring big amateur golf events to his private club in Sugar Grove, and this week is one of the biggest. The 25th anniversary of the Arnold Palmer Cup, a Ryder Cup-style competition that will be staged from Friday through Sunday. It’ll mark the second ...
• One good showing could pay big dividends for Patrick Flavin
  The PGA Tour’s developmental circuit has gone by various names – Ben Hogan, Nationwide, Nike, Web.com — over its 32-year history, but the just-concluded Evans Scholars Invitational on what is now the Korn Ferry Tour was an event like no other. Chicago has hosted various events over the years, but local players never made the impact ...
• Meet the next induction class into the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame
  The next induction class into the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame will be much different than the last one, which was enshrined in 2019.  The next class celebrates the playing accomplishments of both the male and female stars. On the women’s  side there was Bessie Anthony, who was one of the nation’s top stars in the ...
• Evans Scholars tourney is loaded with Chicago golf stars
    The Evans Scholars Invitational, the only pro tour event in the Chicago area this season, tees off on Thursday at The Glen Club, in Glenview. It’s an annual stop on the Korn Ferry Tour, which provides a direct path to golf’s premier circuit — the PGA Tour. Scottie Scheffler won the inaugural ESI at The Glen ...
• From Dundee Crown to Kiawah: Roger Warren’s career in golf
  Roger Warren’s career in golf started in 1986, when he took on a summer job at Village Links of Glen Ellyn. Now he’s the president of the Kiawah Island Resort, host of the 103rd PGA Championship which tees off on Thursday. Warren had college stints at both Northern Illinois and Western Illinois and was both a teacher ...
• Ex-Illinois Amateur winner qualifies for his first PGA Championship
    Twenty club professionals qualified for next week’s PGA Championship at South Carolina’s Kiawah course at a 312-player elimination last month in Florida.  None of the qualifiers were members of the Illinois PGA session, but one of the 20 has deep Chicago area roots. Brad Marek came out of Hersey High School, in Arlington Heights, where he ...
• Illini golfers are awaiting another crack at that elusive NCAA title
  Mike Small couldn’t compete in last week’s PGA Professionals Championship in Florida – which offers a spot in the field for the PGA Championship coming up in two weeks at Kiawah in South Carolina – for one good reason.  He’s a college coach first and foremost and his Illinois team had to win the Big ...
• Ten finalists named for next Illinois Golf Hall of Fame induction class
    The first stage for selection to the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame has been completed, and the 27 nominees have been whittled to 10. Among the finalists are three long-time club professionals – Doug Bauman, of Biltmore in North Barrington; Bruce Patterson, of Butler National in Oak Brook; and Tim O’Neal, of North Shore in Glenview. ...
• Streelman, Frittelli form `Team Illinois’ in PGA team event
    The PGA Tour’s most unusual tournament has an unusual pairing this week. The Zurich Classic of New Orleans is a two-man team event that tees off on Thursday at TPC-Louisiana, with teams competing at best-ball on Thursday and Saturday and using the alternate shot format on Friday and Sunday. Played for the fourth time this week, it’s ...
• Return at Harbour Town could provide a big boost for Donald
  This could be a big week for those who follow the Northwestern golf program.  Three former Wildcats’ stars return from a week off during the Masters to take on potential career-changing challenges. Luke Donald, the greatest player in NU in NU history, will be on the comeback trail at a course that has been good to ...
• A 10-under 60 on Korn Ferry Tour shows Hardy is ready for the big time
  This week’s golf focus will be entirely on the Masters. No other pro tours are playing, and the Chicago influence at Augusta National will be minimal. Kevin Streelman, Doug Ghim and Luke Donald – the PGA Tour members with Chicago connections – didn’t qualify. Sunday’s Drive, Chip & Putt national finals staged at Augusta National did ...
• Ex-Illinois Open champ Saenz gets another shot at the PGA Tour
  This week’s PGA Tour event, the Valero Texas Open, is the last stop before next week’s Masters and it has some unlikely names in the field. From the national stage there’s Dustin Johnson and Ricky Fowler.  Johnson, the world’s No. 1 player, was a late entry.  Apparently feeling the need for another competitive tuneup after failing ...
• Match Play might help Streelman get into the Masters
  This may be the best week of this golf season. At least those who love match play competition will feel that way. The World Golf Championship-Dell Technologies Match Play tees off on Wednesday on  the Pete Dye-designed Austin Country Club course in Texas, .and Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman is in the elite 64-player field. Every player has ...
• Ghim may be closing in on his first PGA Tour victory
  Doug Ghim is making progress as a PGA Tour rookie, no doubt about that. The 24-year old who grew up in Arlington Heights and attended Buffalo Grove High School before graduating from the University of Texas made the cut in five of his six tournaments in 2020, his best finish being a tie for 14th in ...
• Rich looks ahead to the return of the Arnold Palmer Cup
  Jerry Rich, the owner of Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, arrived in Florida last week while the Arnold Palmer Invitational was in progress in Orlando and he’s already looking forward to the Arnold Palmer Cup – the first big tournament of the Chicago season.  It’ll be played at Rich Harvest from June 11-13. “I’m so ...
• An 11-month layoff is no problem for Illini golfers
  This year has been filled with changes for everyone, but some things never change. The University of men’s golf team, for one thing. The Illini had their season halted in March by pandemic concerns, then came the cold weather in the Midwest. Eleven months after their last competition, however, the Illini didn’t miss a beat. Coach Mike ...
• Bernhard Langer signing is a big deal for Tour Edge
  Tour Edge, the Batavia-based golf club manufacturer, has thrived in recent years by signing top players on PGA Tour Champions.  On Monday Tour Edge president David Glod landed the biggest star on the 50-and-over circuit. Bernhard Langer, still the Champions’ dominant player at 63 years old, has 41 wins on the circuit and that is second ...
• Trip to Hawaii pays off big-time for Nick Hardy
  Northbrook’s Nick Hardy and Arlington Heights’ Doug Ghim are among the very best young golfers ever produced in the Chicago area. Ghim is a rookie on the PGA Tour and Hardy in his first season on the PGA’s development circuit – the Korn Ferry Tour. Still, what were the chances that they’d be paired together in ...
• Golf developments in 2020 were shocking, unprecedented
    I’ve been reporting on golf for 52 years and never encountered a year like this one. The dreaded pandemic certainly made 2020 infamous in many ways, and that included the golf world. What I’ll remember the most happened on March 12, when PGA commissioner Jay Monahan called a press conference during the first round of The ...
• PGA Tour will make Delaware debut at the 2022 BMW Championship
    After conducting its premier tournament in the Chicago area for two straight years the Western Golf Association will  take the BMW Championship away from the area for at least the next two. The Glenview-based WGA announced Tuesday that the BMW Championship will be played on the South Course at Wilmington Country Club in Delaware in 2022.  ...
• Streelman missed this year’s Masters but is in position to make it in 2021
  The Masters finally tees off on Thursday, but Chicago’s best player – Kevin Streelman – won’t be there. Streelman had a great year and, in a normal season, would have been on the brink of qualifying when he held a No. 49 world ranking entering last week’s Houston Open. In a normal year the top 50 ...
• Sluman, back in Chicago, will wind down his career on Champions tour
  Life will change dramatically for Chicago’s only member of PGA Tour Champions after this week’s season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship in Phoenix. Jeff Sluman will enter the retirement phase of what has been a great 40-year career on both the PGA Tour and the 50-and-over circuit. “I’m not going to go full-time anymore after this year,’’ ...
• Hopfinger has begun his run for a PGA Tour card
  This is a local golf success story that is still in the making. Lake Forest’s Brad Hopfinger put himself in position to earn his PGA Tour card in the last eight weeks of his tour’s season.  He has another full year before he can join golf’s premier circuit, but his chances of making it to ...
• Unexpected problems didn’t faze Biancalana at Senior PGA tourney
  In this chaotic year for scheduling golf tournaments the Illinois PGA did the best of the three major local organizations.  The pandemic forced the cancelation of the Western Golf Association’s two national junior championships and the Chicago District Golf Association had to call off its two biggest events – the Illinois State Amateur and Chicago ...
• Healy wins, but Paeglow is IPGA Senior Player of the Year
    It’ll be the senior members of the Illinois PGA in the spotlight this week as the Chicago golf tournament season wraps up. The IPGA Senior Players Championship concluded on Tuesday at Twin Orchard, in Long Grove, and the key players in it headed for Port St. Lucie, FL., for the Senior PGA Professional Championship, which begins ...
• PGA’s fall tournaments have been good to rookie Doug Ghim
    The PGA Tour’s top stars generally sit out the fall tournaments after the FedEx Cup Playoffs are over. That’s been the case again this season, even though the Masters – rescheduled from April until Nov. 12-15 because of pandemic issues – is still to be played. Doug Ghim, the PGA Tour rookie from Arlington Heights, is ...
• Revised Players tourney will determine IPGA Player of the Year
    In moves that are sure to bring more drama, the Illinois PGA will unveil a new format for its Players Championship next week at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest. Only the top 35 players on the season-long Bernardi Player of the Year standings, plus the host professional, received invitations to the 36-hole event that runs next ...
• Tournament golf — locally and nationally — is far from over this fall
  At least there’s one nice thing that came out of this dreaded pandemic. Thanks to all the postponements from March through June,  it necessitated an extension of the tournament season for golfers. Now the schedule of big events will carry all the way in December. In previous years the Chicago area campaign concluded with the PGA ...
• Chaussard goes after third straight IPGA Match Play title
    It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The Illinois PGA Match Play Championship had long been played in May as the section’s first major championship of the season, and the site was traditionally Kemper Lakes in Long Grove.  This week, though, it’ll be the IPGA’s third major of the year and it won’t be at Kemper. Pandemic ...
• Chicago’s Korn Ferry stop is latest tour event to include a pro-am
    Slowly but surely the pro golf tours are getting back to normal. PGA Tour Champions, the 50-and-over circuit, will be the first major one to welcome spectators at this week’s Sanford International in South Dakota. The PGA Tour itself, which has gone 14 straight weeks without fans since ending a three-month break over pandemic concerns, isn’t ...
• Small back on top in time for another Illinois PGA title run
  These have been quiet times for Mike Small, but that’s changing.  The University of Illinois men’s coach is back in the spotlight going into the Illinois PGA Championship, which tees off on Monday on Medinah Country Club’s No. 1 course. Small, 54,  has won the tournament 12 times and there’s no reason to think he couldn’t ...
• Illinois Open, PGA run back-to-back this week
    The biggest tournament for Illinois residents, the 71st Illinois Open, concludes today at White Eagle in Naperville.   A day later the PGA Tour’s major championships for 2020, the PGA Championship, tees off at Harding Park in San Francisco. Before August is over the PGA Tour will have completed its FedEx Cup Playoffs, which conclude the 2019-20 ...
• Defending champ Cooke has a dilemma going into the Illinois Open
  David Cooke won the Illinois Open as an amateur in 2015 and last year as a professional. He may well have problems just making his first-round tee time to open his title defense when the 71st playing of the tourney tees off on Monday at White Eagle Club in Naperville. Cooke’s win last year was special.  ...
• It’s not just PGA Tour; spectators will also be scarce at Western amateur events
  The Western Golf Association’s three most prestigious championships certainly will look different this year thanks to ongoing pandemic concerns. An announcement from the PGA Tour this week declared that there will be no spectators at its tournaments through the FedEx Cup Playoffs. That means the second of those three postseason events – the BMW Championship ...
• Illini golf teams get a boost from course donation
  Northwestern, Iowa and Indiana just upgraded their golf facilities. Now Illinois is doing the same. The school announced that the Atkins family has donated about 300 acres in Urbana, which includes the Stone Creek Golf Course, to the University. Stone Creek opened in 2000 and was closed in January. It’s expected to re-open for public ...
• Illinois PGA has added a team event in its revised tournament schedule
  How’s this for a refreshing change of pace? In a year where pandemic concerns forced the cancelations of tons of golf tournaments and the postponements of many others the Illinois PGA is actually adding an event to its greatly revised schedule. The IPGA tournament season was to start in April, but the first event won’t be held ...
• A good time to reflect on career highlights for Irwin, Streelman
  Last week gave us a glimpse of what golfers might be missing thanks to the PGA Tour’s revamped schedule. It would have marked the 30th anniversary of — at least arguably – of the greatest U.S. Open among the 13 played on Chicago courses. Hale Irwin, who got into the 1990 U.S. Open ...
• India misfires in his shot at first win on the Korn Ferry Tour
  Vince India’s breakthrough win on a professional tour will have to wait. The former University of Iowa golfer from Deerfield, took a four-stroke lead into the final round of the King & Bear Classic on the PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour on Saturday and couldn’t protect it. India soared to 4-over-par 76 in the final round, ...
• New schedule salvages Illinois PGA’s four major tournaments
  The Illinois PGA had planned to open its tournament season in March, but it still has yet to hold a competitive event. Twelve have been canceled and another nine postponed, and the state’s club professionals won’t have a competitive event until July 6. Give the IPGA credit, though. The Section has – barring ...
• PGA, Korn Ferry tours re-open; WGA names Chicago Highlands for ESI tourney
  The men’s pro golf tours resume tournament play on Thursday (JUNE 11), ending three months of inactivity because of Covid-19 pandemic concerns. World No. 1 Rory McIlroy and the next four players in the world rankings will be in the PGA Tour’s Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Texas. The strong 148-player field there ...
• Illinois Open is downsized after major restructuring
  Though some restrictions were lifted for Illinois golfers on Friday, the season remains a trying one for the state’s golf organizers. Tournament scheduling remains a fluid thing due to concerns over the COVID-19 Pandemic. First it was the Chicago District Golf Association canceling the Illinois State Amateur and the CDGA Amateur – its two oldest and ...
• John Deere Classic is canceled; its 50th anniversary is moved to 2021
  John Deere Classic canceled; its 50th anniversary is moved to 2021 Illinois won’t have its longest-standing PGA Tour stop this year.  The John Deere Classic was cancelled on Thursday. The JDC, the only PGA Tour event held annually in the state, was to celebrate its 50th anniversary with a July 6-12 playing of the $6.2 million championship ...
• USGA should award Pope a spot in this year’s U.S. Open
  Glen Ellyn’s Andy Pope has played his way into four of the last five U.S. Opens. That’s an extraordinary feat, given that around 10,000 golfers file entries each year and only 156 make it to the 72-hole finals. This year, though, Pope can’t play his way in. Instead he’s relegated to campaigning for a ...
• Golf starts the return of live TV sports events — and I can’t wait
  It won’t be long now. Live televised sports competition is about to return, and golf is leading the way. While tentative tournament schedules were drawn up months ago, now there’s something concrete and – as a purely personal perk – the first two big events will be conducted almost in my Florida backyard. A four-player ...
• JDC’s 50th anniversary staging maintains its spot on revised PGA Tour schedule
  While the PGA Tour schedule remained in a state of flux on Thursday, there were some noteworthy developments. Two involved Illinois tournaments. The Evans Scholars Invitational, scheduled as the next event on the PGA’s alternate Korn Ferry Tour, won’t make its scheduled May 20-24 playing at The Glen Club, in Glenview. It’s not being ...
• Streelman hopes for another strong showing at The Players
  Golf ‘s major championship season – for all intents — tees off on Thursday, and Chicago’s best tour player will be there. Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman is in the field at The Players Championship, long designated as the men’s “fifth major.’’ The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and British Open remain the official ones, but The Players ...
• Chicago Golf Show has more exhibitors than ever before
  Carrie Williams, the executive director of the Illinois PGA, calls the Chicago Golf Show “the unofficial start of the Chicago golf season.’’ Maybe it should be designated as the official start, based on the wide range of participants in the three-day event that tees off on Friday at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. This ...
• Cog Hill is back on the calendar as the site for a big-time event
  Chicago’s biggest public golf facility will soon by back in the national – if not the world – spotlight. Cog Hill, in Lemont, was named Tuesday as the site of the 45th annual World Long Drive Championship. It’ll be held Sept 3-9 with national television coverage on The Golf Channel. The event will be ...
• Seven didn’t turn out a lucky number for Small, Wu
  This was a weird first tournament week of the season for two of Chicago’s most prominent golfers. Both Mike Small and Dylan Wu blew seven-stroke leads in their 2020 tournament debuts but still finished as runner-ups in their events. Small, the University of Illinois men’s coach who owns 12 wins in the Illinois PGA Championship and ...
• World Handicap System will have a unifying effect for golfers
  No, Tiger Woods didn’t win his record PGA Tour record 83rd tournament this week to break a tie with Sam Snead. In fact, Woods didn’t even play in the Sentry Tournament of Champions – the PGA Tour’s first event of 2020 that concluded on Sunday with Justin Thomas’ playoff win in Hawaii. What did happen ...
• Hardy, Pope, India are ready to go on Korn Ferry Tour
  It was unusual for the Chicago area to get six players into last week’s final stage of qualifying for the PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour. It was even more unusual that three of them – Nick Hardy, Andy Pope and Vince India – finished in the top 40 of the 154-man field and earned immediate ...
• Rarely — if ever — has Chicago been so well represented in a golf tour qualifier
  This week’s President’s Cup matches in Australia may be the last big golf event of 2019 world-wide, but it’s certainly not the most important for six Chicago area pro tour hopefuls. The third and final stage of qualifying for the Korn Ferry Tour is on tap from Thursday through Sunday (DEC 12-15) at Orange County National ...
• Ghim overcame his nerves to earn PGA Tour card
  Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman will have Chicago area company on the PGA Tour next season. Doug Ghim, former Arlington Heights resident and Buffalo Grove High School graduate, has earned playing privileges for the circuit’s 2019-20 campaign. Ghim did it by finishing in the top 25 money winners in the Korn Ferry Tour Playoffs, a three-tournament ...
• Illinois PGA moves its championship to Ruth Lake next week
  Play in next week’s Illinois PGA Championship won’t resemble the birdie blitz that was witnessed by visitors to the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship at Medinah last week, but this IPGA has been conducting the event since 1922 and the golf is plenty good. Since 2001 the IPGA Championship has been dominated by University of Illinois coach ...
• WGA reaches a milestone in caddie scholarships
  No matter what happens in the BMW Championship at Medinah the week will have been a success as far as John Kaczkowski, the Western Golf Association president and executive director, is concerned. “We’re thrilled to announce that we have achieved our goal of having a record 1,000 caddies enrolled in college,’’ Kaczkowski told a gathering at ...
• This Illinois Open field is filled with proven competitors
  The 70th Illinois Open, always the premier event of the season for local players, tees off next week with a field that resembles a walk down memory lane. There’ll be seven past champions among the 156 starters, and they have combined to win 11 titles. The last two amateurs to win the coveted title – ...
• New look will soon be unveiled at the Weibring course at ISU
  D.A. Weibring is certainly well known as a player within the Illinois ranks. He won the John Deere Classic three times and scored an unusual victory in the 1987 Western Open, a tournament that was split between two courses, Butler National and Oak Brook Golf Club, after flooding left Butler with only nine holes ...
• Women’s Western Amateur, IWO go head-to-head
  This is the most recent instance for unfortunate tournament scheduling. The two biggest women’s tournaments of the Chicago season are going head-to-head this week. The 119th playing of the Women’s Western Amateur began Tuesday at Royal Melbourne, in Long Grove, and the Illinois Women’s Open began its 25th anniversary celebration on the same day at ...
• Frittelli looks like a Spieth replica in winning his first JDC
  SILVIS, IL. – Jordan Spieth was one of the most popular champions in the history of the John Deere Classic. Spieth won ii in 2013 when he was just 19 and took the title again two years later. Spieth has never been back, but one of his teammates on the University of Texas’ national championship ...
• Dylan Meyer gets into this JDC thanks to a hot round in qualifier
  Dylan Meyer, the former University of Illinois star, has been basically mediocre since turning professional at the 2018 U.S. Open. He took a big step forward on Monday, however, when he shot a 7-under-par 65 to survive the qualifying round for the John Deere Classic, this week’s PGA Tour stop at TPC Deere Run ...
• Defending JDC champion hopes to end streak of missed cuts
  The PGA Tour returns to Illinois next week and will stage two tournaments in the state in a six-week span. The 49th John Deere Classic is up first. Pre-tournament festivities begin Monday at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, on the outskirts of Moline. Then the final BMW Championship, a FedEx Cup Playoff event, comes to ...
• Nicklaus (Gary, not Jack) spices up the field in U.S. Senior Open
  The U.S. Golf Association doesn’t bring nearly as many of its championships to the Chicago area as it once did. That’s why this week’s U.S. Senior Open is worth savoring. It’ll begin its four-day run on Thursday at Notre Dame’s Warren course in South Bend. Jeff Sluman, the only Chicago regular on PGA Tour Champions, ...
• Woodland is just the latest Wilson staff player to win a major title
  The 119th U.S. Open ended on Sunday, but it won’t be forgotten – certainly not at Chicago’s biggest golf equipment company. Tim Clarke, who heads Wilson’s golf division, added Gary Woodland to the company’s player ambassador staff last winter and Woodland delivered big time. Woodland won the title at Pebble Beach, and that should ...
• Donald, Pope, four Illini alums qualify for U.S. Open at Pebble Beach
  The Monday of U.S. Open sectional qualifiers has been billed “golf’s longest day,’’ and for good reason. This week the final nine of twelve 36-hole qualifiers started with 927 players. Late Monday night the final 68 players were determined for the U.S. Open proper, coming up June 13-16 in Pebble Beach, Calif. The list of ...
• Tiger’s proposed Chicago course might be built in phases
  Mike Keiser, the Chicago golf visionary whose projects have included the well-received Bandon Dunes in Oregon and Sand Valley in Wisconsin, is also involved in a much-discussed Chicago course that involves Tiger Woods. That project would require the combining of the existing Jackson Park and South Shore courses operated by the Chicago Park District. ...
• PGA’s date change also impacted Chicago area club professionals
  One the biggest offseason developments in golf this year was the shifting of the 101st playing of the PGA Championship to May from its usual August dates. This week we’ll see how that works out. It tees off on Thursday at New York’s Bethpage Black course. Previously the PGA had been “Glory’s last shot,’’ the ...
• College golf programs in Illinois couldn’t be much better
  It’s hard to imagine anything being better for Illinois’ top college golf programs than it is right now, with the NCAA championships closing in. Coach Mike Small’s Illinois men’s team won its fifth straight Big Ten title and ninth in 10 years on Sunday in Philadelphia and had the conference medalist for the ninth straight year ...
• Medinah hosts a last qualifier for the second U.S. Senior Women’s Open
  A highlight of last year’s Chicago golf season was the playing of the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton. It was a rousing success – a feel-good story capped off by Laura Davies’ 10-stroke victory on America’s first 18-hole course. “It doubled our expectations from the crowd standpoint, and we learned ...
• Masters memories still give rookie pro Ghim good vibes
  The golf world gets back to normal this week following the tumultuous week created by Tiger Woods’ victory in the Masters. None of the American tours had tournaments during Masters week but Doug Ghim was invited by the PGA Tour to look back on his experiences at Augusta National. Ghim was the low amateur in ...
• Tiger’s win in the Masters was big — but it won’t be his biggest
  Sometimes it seems like yesterday when I was on hand at the Brown Deer public course in Milwaukee for Tiger Woods’ first professional tournament. Of course it wasn’t yesterday. It was 23 years ago, and the event he was playing in was the Greater Milwaukee Open – a PGA Tour stop that ended its 42-year ...
• Jennifer Kupcho wasn’t the only winner at the inaugural ANWA
  AUGUSTA, Ga. – Jennifer Kupcho was a convincing winner in the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur on Saturday, but women’s golf may have been the biggest benefactor. For the third straight year the top women players had a new high profile event to build on. In 2017 it was the Senior LPGA Championship at Indiana’s ...
• Four legends will get the ANWA’s climax off to a rousing start
  AUGUSTA, Ga. – Augusta National Golf Club has been a trend-setter since legendary player Bobby Jones led its creation in the 1930s. Jones also organized the Masters — at least arguably the world’s most popular golf tournament — in 1934. Today women finally get their chance to play the iconic course in a tournament ...
• Local players won’t be among first 30 women to compete at Augusta National
  EVANS, Ga. — The 30 women who will be the first to compete on Augusta National’s famed course were decided on Thursday. NCAA champion Jennifer Kopcho, the Wake Forest senior and No. 1 in the Official World Amateur Rankings, headed the list after playing two rounds at Champions Retreat in 5-under-par 139. Champions ...
• Illini golfer tops the locals in the debut of the ANWA
  EVANS, Ga. – The weather couldn’t have been better for the first round of the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur at Champions Retreat Golf Club. Augusta National president Fred Ridley and Diana Murphy, a former U.S. Golf Association president who became the fourth woman member of Augusta National, were on hand when Jennifer Kupcho ...
• Yuen, Lau, Nowlin ready for Augusta National’s new women’s tourney
  AUGUSTA, Georgia — Last year the biggest new event in golf was the U.S. Senior Women’s Open, which was conducted in July at the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton. This year’s biggest new event tees off today in Augusta, Ga., with three Chicago-connected players in the international field of 72. This one is called the ...
• Donald’s strong showing at Valspar provides uplifting start for local season
  Luke Donald is back. Could there be a better feel-good story to mark the start of another Chicago golf season? One of the greatest players to ever come out of the Chicago amateur ranks, Donald has gone through over two years of difficult times. A herniated disc in his back severely curtailed his play, but ...
• For 36 years the Chicago Golf Show has provided a flashy start to the local season
  The weather outside might not suggest it, but the Chicago golf season officially starts on Friday. That’s when the 36th annual Chicago Golf Show tees off at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. The three-day show, presented by Indiana’s French Lick Resort, offers more than 350 exhibitor booths; a 3,000-square foot driving range; guest appearances ...
• Chicago area’s Wilson, Tour Edge are big hits at PGA Merchandise Show
  LAKE BUENA VISTA, FL. – The 66th annual PGA Merchandise Show lived up to its billing as “the biggest show in golf’’ last week. Over 40,000 industry members from 83 countries spent four days hiking the 10-mile stretch of exhibits at the Orange County Convention Center. There were over 1,000 exhibitors. Such a massive turnout ...
• Sunset Valley’s re-opening had some special touches
  Not all new golf courses have the kind of re-opening celebration that Sunset Valley had this week. Joel Hirsch, a legendary amateur in the Chicago golf ranks, and Patrick Flavin, winner of both the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open just a year ago, were the featured attractions. Both started playing golf at Sunset Valley ...
• Western Am, Illinois Open are a good one-two punch for Chicago golfers
  Brace yourself. This is the last big crush of tournaments in a Chicago golf season filled with bunched-up scheduling. The 116th Western Amateur teed off on Tuesday at Sunset Ridge, in Northfield. It’ll end with the championship match on Saturday afternoon, and then the 69th Illinois Open finals begin a three-day run on Monday ...
• Western Amateur presents a big step up in competition for Chicago stars
  Imagine an Illinois amateur golfer shooting a 61 in a state-wide tournament and not winning. That’s what happened to Jordan Hahn at last year’s Illinois State Amateur. Hahn claimed the course record at Calumet Country Club, but he finished one stroke behind Patrick Flavin. Hahn got even last week, winning the 88th playing of the ...
• Patrick Flavin is Mr. Golf in Illinois for the next few weeks
  The star of last year’s Chicago golf season is about to strike again. While University of Illinois friends Nick Hardy and Dylan Meyer opted to turn pro as soon as the NCAA tournament ended in June, Highwoods’ Patrick Flavin decided to wait a while. Now it’s his turn to take the spotlight. Last year ...
• Conway Farms pro carries Chicago hopes in U.S. Senior Women’s Open
  The only Chicago area qualifier for the inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf Club is also the youngest in the 120-player field. Gurnee’s Jamie Fischer, who got in through the sectional qualifying round at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest, turned 50 on May 13. Fischer grew up in Ohio and qualified for three ...
• Ex-Illini Dylan Meyer is this JDC’s sponsor exemption to watch
  This is an ideal time for the top college golf stars to get a jump-start on their professional careers, and Illinois’ Dylan Meyer has already done just that. After four years of stardom for the Illini Meyer made his professional debut at the U.S. Open. After surviving sectional qualifying he finished in a tie ...
• Ryu-Henderson shootout in final round will start early at Kemper Lakes
  An imposing weather forecast for Sunday will create a viewers’ headache for the climax to the 64th KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, and that’s a shame. The expected duel for the title between Korean So Yeon Ryu and Canadian Brooke Henderson should be a dandy, based on how both performed in Saturday’s third round. Normally players are ...
• First round at Kemper Lakes proves a walk in the park
  There are four players named Park on the Ladies PGA tour roster, and they’re all good. The best known in Inbee Park, three-time winner of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship and the current No. 1-ranked player in the Rolex World Rankings. Hee Young Park has won twice on the circuit and Jane Park calls Chicago ...
• Inbee Park benefits from a lighter tournament schedule
  The world’s No. 1-ranked woman’s golfer has barely played half the tournaments as her leading rivals have, but don’t worry about Korean Inbee Park heading into Thursday’s start of the 64th KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. Park has played in only nine tournaments this season, and that was by design. At 29 she’s learned that her ...
• Jutanugarn says Kemper Lakes has harder course than Olympia Fields
  How time flies. In 2011 Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn won the U.S. Junior Girls tournament at Olympia Fields. Now she’s one of the very best players in women’s golf with a No. 2 world ranking, winner of nine LPGA tournaments the champion in two majors including this year’s U.S. Women’s Open. Olympia wasn’t so kind to Jutanugarn ...
• Kemper Lakes hosted one Chicago tournament that Annika DIDN’T win
  Kemper Lakes has a rich history for hosting men’s tournaments. With the women it’s a little different. This week’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is by far the club’s biggest ever. The only one that comes close was 26 years ago when Kemper was still a public facility. In 1992 the U.S. Women’s Amateur was ...
• Women’s PGA at Kemper Lakes will be a wide-open affair
  Golf’s only major championship presently scheduled at a Chicago area course tees off next week when the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship comes to Kemper Lakes in Kildeer. The event, one of five majors on the Ladies PGA Tour, was played at Olympia Fields last year with Danielle Kang the champion. Based on what’s been happening ...
• Ghim, Lumsden, Meyer have a great opportunity at the U.S. Open
  The 118th U.S. Open tees off on Thursday at New York’s Shinnecock Hills course with the usual representation of Chicago players among the 156 starters. This year it’s a little different, however, because two of local hopefuls are amateurs. For Arlington resident Doug Ghim it’ll be his last event before turning pro. He got ...
• Langley heads big local contingent in Web.com tourney at Ivanhoe
  The future of the Web.com Tour’s Rust-Oleum Championship may be in doubt, but one thing is certain. The $600,000 event, teeing off at Ivanhoe Club on Thursday, has the loyalty of the best local players. This year’s event marks the professional debut of Northbrook’s Nick Hardy and tourney director Scott Cassin also awarded sponsor exemptions ...
• Hardy poised to make his debut as a pro in Web.com stop at Ivanhoe
  The college season ended for Northwestern after three rounds of the NCAA finals this week in Stillwater, Okla., and Illinois lasted one more round before an 11th place finish in the stroke play portion of the competition wasn’t good enough to get the Illini back in the top eight match play qualifiers. They will decide ...
• Langer to miss Senior PGA; NU women bow out of NCAA finals
  PGA Tour Champions, the circuit for the men stars who have reached their 50th birthdays, have two of their five major tournaments in easy reach of Chicago this year. The first, though, might not quite feel like a major. Bernhard Langer, who has dominated the circuit for years and won all five of those majors ...
• Can Northwestern make another run at the NCAA women’s title?
  Last year the Northwestern women’s team created a Cinderella story. Coach Emily Fletcher’s team, with only one senior, marched all the way to the championship match at the NCAA finals at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. A year later, Fletcher says, “we’ll try to do it again.’’ The Wildcats made the 24-team field ...
• Flavin delays decision to go pro, will defend his two state titles
  The best golfer in Illinois last season has made his decision. Patrick Flavin won’t turn pro – at least for a while. Last year Flavin became the first player in 37 years to win both the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open in the same year. Only David Ogrin, way back in 1980, had ...
• Kemper Lakes’ Billiter is in the spotlight as Chicago tournament season tees off
  Now things get serious. The 67th playing of the Illinois PGA Match Play Championship kicks off a busy five months of tournament play for Chicago’s best golfers. The host professional defends his title and puts his hopes of retaining his IPGA Player of the Year status will be on the line at Kemper Lakes in ...
• Recent changes have spurred Streelman’s fast start in PGA Tour season
  Kevin Streelman won’t declare his hot start to the 2017-18 PGA Tour season as the best in his 11 years on the circuit but all the major changes he made over the last few months are certainly paying off. With top-10 finishes in the last two tournaments — the RBC Heritage Classic in Hilton Head, S.C., ...
• Lake Forest’s Hopfinger is mounting a bid for a PGA Tour card
  The Web.com Tour is billed as the pathway to the PGA Tour, and Lake Forest’s Brad Hopfinger is making progress on that journey. Last fall Hopfinger regained his playing Web.com playing privileges with a gutty showing in two stages of the qualifying school. He survived Stage 2 with a 4-under-par final round to make it to ...
• Hardy, Kelly get invites to Rust-Oleum Championship at Ivanhoe
  Two of the very best amateurs in the Chicago ranks will play as professionals for the first time in this season’s first local pro tour event. Tee-K Kelly, two-time Illinois State Amateur champion, and Nick Hardy, who whipped Kelly with a record-setting performance in their last meeting in the State Am, have accepted sponsor’s exemptions ...
• Doug Ghim’s first Masters was something very special
  Maybe a tie for 50th place doesn’t sound great – even if it came in golf’s hallowed Masters tournament. Maybe a 74-74 finish in the weekend rounds and an 8-over-par 296 score for the 72 holes wasn’t worthy of much wild cheering at Augusta National. Make no mistake, though. What Doug Ghim did over four ...
• WGF leader hopes for big industry boost from this Masters
  The 82nd Masters tournament tees off on Thursday, and how it unfolds could have far-reaching effects within the golf industry. At least that’s how Steve Mona, executive director of the World Golf Foundation, sees it. Mona will release his group’s most recent report on the U.S. Golf Economy at the National Press Club in Washington ...
• Next stop for Doug Ghim: The Masters
  Every Masters golf tournament is special, but next week’s 82nd version will have even more so because Doug Ghim will be playing. Ghim, from Arlington Heights, is a senior at the University of Texas who received a Masters invitation because he was the runner-up in last August’s U.S. Amateur. He’s one of six amateurs among the ...
• Sluman starts this PGA Champions’ season close to his new home
  Jeff Sluman has been Chicago’s lone representative on PGA Tour Champions for the last 10 years but things are different going into the circuit’s first full-field event this week. “I’m a resident of Florida now,’’ said Sluman. “We live eight months here and summer up in Chicago. We love that city but I ...
• Biancalana’s return to golf centers on Illinois Senior Open
  This is somewhat of a tradeoff. The Chicago area golf community will regain one popular name from the past but will lose another once the snow melts. The returnee is Roy Biancalana. He’s decided to return to the Chicago area and make a run at one of the few state titles he didn’t ...
• Carol McCue will be remembered as the First Lady of Chicago Golf
  A memorial service has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 29 at Donnellan Funeral Home in Skokie to honor the memory of Carol McCue, a long-time leader in the Chicago golf community. She died on Saturday, Dec. 16, at the age of 94. Long known as the First Lady of Chicago Golf, ...
• Q-Schools provide a boost for Hopfinger, Troyanovich
  The lengthy, very demanding qualifying sessions to determine next year’s players on the PGA Tour, Ladies PGA Tour and PGA Champions circuit came to an end over the weekend with two Chicago hopefuls — Brad Hopfinger and Samantha Troyanovich — putting themselves in position to further their golfing careers in 2018. Lake Forest’s Hopfinger, one of ...
• A first for the Illinois PGA; Rhoades gets highest honor
  For the first time in 62 years the Illinois PGA’s most prestigious award has gone to a woman. Carol Rhoades was named the IPGA’s Professional of the Year, an award presented annually since 1955 to the section member whose “total contributions to the game best exemplify the complete PGA Professional.’’ Rhoades works at Golf Channel Academy Chicago ...
• Conway Farms will remain a popular tournament site after BMW leaves
  Conway Farms’ three-year run as the site of Chicago’s PGA Tour event comes to an end this week, after the last putt drops at the BMW Championship on Sunday. The previous two local PGA Tour sites were longer-time hosts. Butler National, in Oak Brook, hosted the Western Open from 1974 to 1990. Cog Hill, ...
• Streelman won’t be able to play in his hometown PGA Tour event
  There’s only one bad thing about the upcoming BMW Championship — the climax to Chicago’s golf tournament season. Kevin Streelman won’t be there. The Wheaton product, last of the players with Chicago connections in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, got off to a great start in the Dell Technologies Championship in Boston last week ...
• Streelman is only Chicago player still alive in FedEx Cup Playoffs
  The FedEx Cup has provided a much-needed climax to the PGA Tour season. Big money is on the line at all four of the FedEx playoff tournaments and the $10 million bonus that will go to the eventual champion is a payday that receives attention beyond the golfing world. Still, the FedEx Cup concept has its ...
• Streelman, Points, Donald are in FedEx Cup Playoffs — but for how long?
  The busiest Chicago golf season in at least twenty years is approaching its climax. The BMW Championship is headed back to Conway Farms, in Lake Forest, next month and the Western Golf Association called on England’s Paul Casey to be the focal point of last week’s preview to the FedEx Cup Playoff event. As per ...
• Reaching U.S. Amateur final underscores how far Doug Ghim has come
  Doug Ghim is already one of golf’s most inspiring players, no matter how his 36-hole championship match in the U.S. Amateur turns out on Sunday. Ghim, who grew up in Arlington Heights and ranked No. 5 academically in his graduating class at Buffalo Grove High School, was a 2 and 1 winner in his semifinal ...
• Ghim is only Illinois golfer to reach match play in U.S. Amateur
  Nick Hardy, coming off playing the Western Amateur and Illinois Open back-to-back, was understandably tired last week – but not too worn out for one (or maybe two) more big events before he returns to the University of Illinois. This week’s 117th U.S. Amateur in California presented a huge opportunity for both the Illini senior-to-be ...
• No Illinois Open for Small; he’s back in the PGA Championship
  Mike Small has been prominent on the Illinois golf scene for years, either as a player or as the coach of the University of Illinois’ powerhouse men’s team. This week it’s as a player – even though he’s not making his usual run at an Illinois Open title. Small has won that event four times ...
• The Glen returns as `permanent’ home of the Illinois Open
  No sooner will this week’s Western Amateur at Skokie Country Club wrap up on Saturday than the 68th Illinois Open will tee off at two other north suburban locations next week. The Illinois Open remains a 54-hole affair for 264 finalists, the survivors of eight state-wide qualifying rounds. The first two rounds of the finals, ...
• This could be last shot for Ghim, Hardy to win the Western Amateur
  The history-rich Western Amateur isn’t always played in the Chicago area, but in recent years it has been – and that’s a good thing. It merits a prominent place on any golf calendar because it brings together the very best amateurs in the world — not just those from the United States. Next week’s 115th playing ...
• IWO, State Am titles will be decided in a two-day stretch
  The biggest glut of tournament golf in the Chicago area in many years reached the overload stage this week with two of the most important championships sharing almost identical dates. The 23rd Illinois Women’s Open concludes its three-day run on Wednesday at Mistwood, in Romeoville, and the 87th Illinois State Amateur wraps up its three days ...
• Moore returns to PGA Tour in hopes of defending JDC title
  The John Deere Classic, Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event, tees off for the 47th time on Thursday at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, on the outskirts of the Quad Cities. For defending champion Ryan Moore that means a return to the PGA Tour at the course that took his career to a new level ...
• Six straight days of LPGA tournaments are on tap at French Lick
  The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, which ended Sunday at Olympia Fields Country Club, was a success by most every account. This week women’s golf moves in a new direction at a long-time destination. Indiana’s French Lick Resort offers both the historic Donald Ross Course and the Pete Dye Course that was named the 2017 Course ...
• Kang made her first LPGA win a tribute to her late father
  Danielle Kang had been 0-for-144 in LPGA tournaments before she won her first tournament – and she picked a great event for her breakthrough. The 63rd KPMG Women’s PGA Championship – formerly called the LPGA Championship – is rich in tradition, being second in longevity and prize money to only the U.S. Women’s Open. On Sunday Kang ...
• Defending champ Henderson is lurking going into KPMG finale
  There’s no reason Canadian teen-age phenom Brooke Henderson can’t repeat as the champion of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship today. She’s again among those within striking distance of the lead with 18 holes to go. Last year Henderson, then 18, was two strokes off the lead after 54 holes, caught New Zealand’s Lydia Ko by ...
• Mom’s fighting spirit inspires Lexi Thompson
  These are not easy times for Lexi Thompson, the best American player in women’s golf. Frequently the face of the LPGA Tour – at least at U.S. tournaments – Thompson uncharacteristically took a break from pre-tournament interviews at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Olympia Fields this week. She didn’t want to field questions about ...
• Olympia satisfies LPGA’s desire to play courses that have hosted men’s events
  The tournament now known as the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is the second oldest event on the LPGA Tour, right behind the U.S. Women’s Open, but this week’s staging at Olympia Fields will mark the first time the tournament has been played in the Chicago area. Olympia Fields will host the second of the five annual ...
• Koepka played like Dustin’s double in claiming U.S. Open title
  ERIN, Wis. – No, Dustin Johnson didn’t defend his U.S. Open title on Sunday. In fact, the game’s No. 1-ranked player didn’t even qualify for the weekend rounds at Erin Hills. But Brooks Koepka did win, and he might well be a reincarnation of Johnson. They are close friends. They play lots of ...
• Women’s major at Olympia Fields tries to match a successful U.S. Open
  These are unprecedented times for spectator golf around the Chicago area. Last week it was the U.S. Open at Erin Hills. Next week it’s a women’s major – the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Olympia Fields. The best players in women’s golf start showing their skills at the south suburban private club on Tuesday in a ...
• Thomas’ 63 is the best round in U.S. Open history
  ERIN, Wis. – No, Justin Thomas isn’t leading the U.S. Open going into today’s final round but he’s definitely the man of the hour at Erin Hills. The 24-year old from Louisville, Ky., shot the lowest round in the 117-year history of America’s premier golf championship on Saturday – a 9-under-par 63. He trails ...
• Top three stars aren’t needed to make Erin Hills’ Open a special event
  ERIN, Wis. – Phil Mickelson doesn’t show up and defending champion Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Jason Day – the top three players in the Official World Golf Rankings – miss the 36-hole cut. What kind of U.S. Open is this anyway? Actually, it’s been quite a good one in terms of competitiveness and the ...
• Dustin Johnson’s the man to beat at Erin Hills
  ERIN, Wis. — No matter how you slice it, Dustin Johnson is at the top of the golf world. The FedEx Cup standings say so. So do the Official World Golf Rankings. And, starting today, Johnson will defend the most prestigious title he’s ever won at the U.S. Open. So, what could possibly ...
• Could this be Rickie Fowler’s time to nab that first major title?
  ERIN, Wis. – Rickie Fowler is sure that he’ll win one of golf’s major titles some day. So is most everyone else, and this week could be his time. In 2014 he finished in the top five at all four of them – the Masters, U.S. and British Opens and PGA Championship – and was ...
• Could this U.S. Open produce seventh straight first time major champion?
  ERIN, Wis. – It would seem that the more established players would have the most success in a tournament as difficult to win as the U.S. Open. That hasn’t been the case lately, however. The last six U.S. Opens have had champions who won their first major title, and another could be in the offing when ...
• Women’s Western Amateur reaches milestone at River Forest — and it’s all good
  The Women’s Western Amateur has been put on by largely Chicago area volunteers for 116 years and this week’s tournament at River Forest Country Club, in Elmhurst, will mark the end of an era. The tournament, which tees off today and concludes on Saturday, isn’t folding. It’s just that the Women’s Western Golf Association will ...
• A third straight Final Four finish for Illini golfers
  Illinois reached the Final Four of the NCAA men’s golf tournament Wednesday. Unfortunately, for the third straight year, that’s where the season ended for coach Mike Smalll’s perennial powerhouse. The Illini qualified for the match play climax to the tourney for the sixth time in the past seven years and got through the quarterfinals for the ...
• Stem-cell therapy gives golfer India a career boost
  Deerfield’s Vince India has won the Illinois State Amateur and been runner-up in the Illinois Open. Now he’s poised to go on to bigger and better things thanks to his willingness to try stem-cell therapy to cure his ailing back. “Stem-cell therapy is in more of a clinical stage now,’’ said India, who has playing ...
• Schiene replaces Kaufmann as men’s coach at DePaul
  Marty Schiene spent 15 seasons playing on the professional golf tours around the world, qualified for four U.S. Opens and won the Illinois Open three times. Now he’s landed a job that he calls “a dream come true.’’ Schiene will take over as head coach of the DePaul University men’s team at the end of ...
• Women’s selection show marks the start of NCAA tourney coming to Rich Harvest
  The NCAA golf championship started in 1898 but has been played in the Chicago area only four times. Olympia Fields hosted in 1931 and 1943; North Shore, in Glenview, was the site in 1936 and Conway Farms, in Lake Forest, was the host venue in 1997. All those finals were strictly for men’s ...
• Another near-miss at Heritage puts Donald’s game on upswing again
  How do you explain this? Luke Donald was, for 40 weeks in 2011 and 2012, the world’s No. 1 golfer. Then, by his own admission, his game tailed off – except when he plays in the RBC Heritage Classic on the Harbour Town course in Hilton Head, S.C. Donald was the runner-up there for the fifth time ...
• Can Luke Donald continue his hot play at the Heritage?
  Luke Donald and Kevin Streelman weren’t part of this year’s Masters, which climaxed with Sergio Garcia’s pulsating playoff victory on Sunday. Chicago’s top two touring pros have had their moments at Augusta National in the past but didn’t qualify this year. Look for both to be back in the limelight, soon, however — perhaps as ...
• This Masters tournament will be lacking on several fronts
  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 ...
• Points’ win boosts his chances for returning to the Masters
  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 ...
• Chicago Golf Show’s arrival also reveals The Glen’s return as an Illinois Open site
  The Chicago Golf Show is always a tantalizing event, in that a mid-winter walk through the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont is an early forerunner to golf courses opening in the spring. This year that’s not quite the case, as many courses have taken advantage of unusually warm winter weather to already announce their openings for ...
• LPGA, French Lick create a senior major with weekday dates
  The Ladies PGA Tour added a major championship to its 2017 schedule on Tuesday, and it’s one with a very untraditional format. 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 ...
• Will the U.S. meltdown at Medinah carry over to Hazeltine?
  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 ...
• Arnold Palmer’s passion for golf was infectious — and I’m proof of that
  Arnold Palmer is gone. Where do I begin to tell you how impactful this is to golf – and to me personally? 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 ...
• Streelman, Urlacher hook up on Wilson’s Driver vs. Driver TV series
  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 ...
• FedEx Cup hopes are on the line for Streelman, Donald at BMW Championship
  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 ...
• Small goes for No. 12 in Illinois PGA Championship
  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 ...
• Pieters is in, Donald out for European Ryder Cuppers
  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 ...
• Legends could be the best women’s tour for Berwyn’s Jeray
  Nicole Jeray has long been the only Chicago area woman playing on the pro golf tours, and it hasn’t been easy for her. Jeray, from Berywn, turned pro after a great collegiate career at Northern Illinois in 1993 and has been in the qualifying tournament for the Ladies PGA Tour on an almost annual basis. ...
• It’s tee time for both John Deere Classic and the Olympics
  Golf will be contested at the Olympic Games for the first time since 1904 beginning on Thursday. That’s also the same day the John Deere Classic – the PGA Tour’s only annual event in Illinois – tees off at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, on the outskirts of the Quad Cities. The Olympics didn’t get ...
• Knollwood welcomes Western Am — golf’s most physical tourney test
  Ten straight days of major tournament action in the Chicago area comes to an end on Wednesday with the conclusion of the Illinois Open at Royal Fox in St. Charles, but the break won’t be a long one. The 114th Western Amateur tees off next week, starting with practice rounds on Monday at Knollwood Club in ...
• JDC could benefit from some significant last-minute entries
  At first glance it appeared the John Deere Classic got a bad deal when the PGA Tour moved the tournament off its usual July dates and scheduled the tourney opposite next week’s Olympics’ golf competition in Brazil. Subsequently, though, a large contingent of top players – among them JDC defending champion Jordan Spieth and world No. ...
• U.S. players speak out on first day of International Crown week
  Finally the biggest event of this Chicago golf season has arrived. The four players on Team U.S. for the second UL International Crown were the first on the course for Tuesday’s practice rounds at the Merit Club and they admitted their task in the eight-team event that tees off on Thursday will be a difficult ...
• IWO starts a hectic stretch of area tournaments — 4 in 10 days!
  Rarely have a series of big Chicago area tournaments been condensed into such a short time frame. Beginning on Monday there will be four such events crammed into a 10-day period. First up is the 22nd Illinois Women’s Open, at Mistwood in Romeoville. The tourney’s pro-am is on Sunday and will conclude with a gala dinner ...
• Thumb injury will keep Korea’s best player out of International Crown
  The UL International Crown, the biggest golf event to be played in the Chicago area this season, took a hit this week with the announcement that Korean star Inbee Park will be unable to compete. Park, with a No. 3 standing in the Rolex World Ranking, was the highest-ranked player among the 32 women who will ...
• Return to Calumet stirs more CDGA Amateur memories
  The Chicago District Golf Association has conducted tournaments since 1914 and none have quite the history as its oldest one – the CDGA Amateur. The 97th playing of that tournament starts on Monday (JUNE 27) at Calumet Country Club, in Homewood. Calumet hasn’t hosted the tournament since 1947, and the last staging there created one ...
• Donald, Streelman join two Illini for another tough U.S. Open at Oakmont
  Brian Campbell, the top player on Illinois’ golf team in 2015, was on hand to help former teammates Nick Hardy and Charlie Danielson celebrate after both qualified for the U.S. Open at last week’s sectional qualifier in Ohio. Campbell didn’t make it into this year’s Open, which tees off on Thursday at Oakmont in suburban Pittsburgh, ...
• Hardy will compete at Ivanhoe before returning to the U.S. Open
  This week’s qualifying rounds for the U.S. Open couldn’t have worked out much better for Chicago’s new Web.com Tour event, which begins its 72-hole run on Thursday at Ivanhoe Club. Tournament director Scott Cassin made Nick Hardy, the University of Illinois sophomore from Northbrook, the last of his four sponsor exemptions into the Rust-Oleum Championship. ...
• Another great season for the Illini ends in the NCAA semifinals
  Coach Mike Small has insisted that the last four seasons have been the best in the history of the Illini program, and there’s no arguing that point after what has happened in the last few weeks. The Illini trailed Iowa going into the last round of the Big Ten tournament but came back to win with ...
• Montgomerie goes for a three-peat in Senior PGA at Harbor Shores
  As far as major championships go, this is a rare lean year in the Chicago area. Last year there was both the U.S. Amateur and the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship. The Amateur has come and gone and the BMW is taking a year away; it’ll be played at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis in September before ...
• Chicago’s new Web.com Tour event will be an upgrade from its predecessors
  The PGA Tour is bringing its secondary circuit back to the Chicago area for the first time since 2008, but things have changed a lot since then. The Glen Club, in Glenview, hosted the LaSalle Bank (or Bank of America) Open on what was then called the Nationwide Tour through 2008 before sponsorship problems set in. ...
• NCAA tourneys could provide a bonanza for Illini, NU
  The collegiate golf season reaches its climax in the next three weeks, and it could go down as one for ages as far as Illinois schools are concerned. Both the men’s and women’s teams at Northwestern qualified for the NCAA tournament and the Illinois men’s squad looms as one of the favorites for the national title ...
• Illini, NU golfers are NCAA-bound again — as Big 10 champions
  This is getting to be old hat. The University of Illinois men and Northwestern women are heading back to next month’s NCAA tournaments as Big Ten champions. Coach Mike Small’s Illini and Emily Fletcher’s Wildcats defended their titles last weekend on Indiana courses. Illinois ruled for the seventh time in eight seasons and NU, ...
• Mistwood pros celebrate clubhouse opening with another victory
  How much better can things get at Mistwood? This was a big week at the Romeoville course, if for no other reason than owner Jim McWethy is hosting a week of special events to celebrate the grand opening of his spectacular new clubhouse. Opening of the 27,000 square foot clubhouse, which includes McWethy Tavern and the Grand ...
• International Crown needed Webb to play at Merit Club
  The UL International Crown, the biggest event on the Chicago golf calendar this season, lucked out when it reached its first qualifying deadline last week in the midst of Masters hoopla world-wide. In announcing the eight countries to qualify for the July 19-24 global team event at the Merit Club it was significant that Australia ...
• This Masters will be good — but won’t match the epic of 30 years ago
  This week marks the 80th playing of the Masters tournament and the 30th anniversary of Jack Nicklaus’ last championship. His win in 1986 was also the first Masters that I covered from Augusta National, and I doubt there’ll ever be another one like it. Nicklaus, who has accurately called the Masters “the championship of nothing,’’ ...
• A busy year already, but Streelman can finally focus on the Masters
  Next week’s Masters tournament may be the first highlight event of the year for most golfers, but not for Kevin Streelman. The only Chicago area player to qualify for the Masters has had an eventful year already. Most of it has been good – but not all. Streelman returns to the PGA Tour for this ...
• Golf Show triggers IPGA announcement on new Illinois Open sites
  Weather notwithstanding, you know the local golf season can’t be far away when the Chicago Golf Show is on the horizon. The show started on a small scale 33 years ago, an experimental venture by the Illinois PGA at Harper College in Palatine. It has grown into the largest consumer golf show in the ...
• This Florida course sure knows how to attract golfers
  WINTER PARK, FLORIDA – A big reason for scheduling a round at Winter Pines Golf Club is that it is – at least arguably – the busiest course in Florida. Given the reported 1,500-plus courses in the Sunshine State – and particularly the array of good ones in the Orlando area – that’s saying ...
• Lehman’s radical new Florida course is one of a kind
  OCALA, Florida – The ingenuity of golf course architects never ceases to amaze me, but Tom Lehman – a player first and designer a distant second – has outdone all his architectural counterparts for the time being. Lehman — a two-time major championship winner, former Ryder Cup captain and a regular on the Champions Tour – ...
• Chicago Golf Club gets first U.S. Senior Women’s Open
  America’s first 18-hole course is back on the U.S. Golf Assn. tournament schedule — and as the site of its newest national championship to boot. Chicago Golf Club, in Wheaton, was named Saturday as the first site of the U.S. Senior Women’s Open. It’ll be played July 12-15, 2018. The USGA has been pressured to ...
• LPGA has big plans to boost International Crown at Merit Club
  With the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship to be played in Indianapolis this year, the biggest golf tournament of 2016 in the Chicago area will be the UL International Crown – a global team competition put on by the Ladies PGA Tour. will be played at the Merit Club in Libertyville from July 19-24. The LPGA has ...
• Newest golf gear will be unveiled at PGA Merchandise Show
  ORLANDO, FL. — The weather in most parts of the country may not suggest that the golf season is imminent, but it’s in full swing at the Orange County Convention Center here. For the golf industry this is the start of show-time. The 63rd annual PGA Merchandise Show, which starts on Tuesday (JAN 26) ...
• Mistwood’s Mickelson a surprise winner in PGA Assistants tourney
  There’s been a lot to celebrate at Mistwood Golf Club in Romeoville during these dwindling days of the Chicago golf season. First, one of its professionals — Brian Brodell — was named Illinois PGA Player of the Year last month while the club was preparing for the long-awaited opening of its new clubhouse. Brodell beat ...
• Speedgolf, FootGolf find their way to Chicago area courses
  With the exception of the Presidents Cup team event, coming up in Korea in two weeks, the PGA Tour’s 2014-15 season is over. Jordan Spieth’s win in the FedEx Cup playoffs on Sunday brought it to a dramatic conclusion. In the Chicago area, though, there’s still a few events on the October calendar including two ...
• Zach Johnson has no qualms about his No. 6 FedEx ranking
  The Tour Championship, which tees off on Thursday at East Lake in Atlanta, brings an end to the PGA Tour’s 2014-15 season and Zach Johnson is in an interesting position. Only 30 players qualified for the 72-hole event that has an $8.25 prize fund and offers an additional $10 million bonus to the winner of the ...
• Streelman, Donald, Wilson will miss BMW at Conway Farms
  When the BMW Championship returns to Conway Farms next week it’ll certainly be in sharp contrast from the first staging there in 2013. Zach Johnson, the champion two years ago, will be back. So will Jim Furyk, who shot that dazzling 59 in the PGA Tour’s first-ever visit to the Lake Forest private ...
• Streelman, Wilson, Donald aim for spots at Conway Farms
  Kevin Streelman, Mark Wilson and Luke Donald all survived The Barclays, first tournament of the PGA Tour’s lucrative FedEx Cup Playoffs but this week’s challenge means much more to those Chicago-connected players. The Barclays brought the top 125 players in the FedEx rankings after the 47 regular season tour events to New Jersey. This week’s ...
• Illinois club pros will face a new challenge in return to Medinah’s No. 1 Course
  First played in 1923, the Illinois PGA Championship has basically been The Mike Small Show since 2001. That’s when the Illinois men’s coach captured the title for the first time. He’s won the tournament 11 times in the last 14 years, but next week’s 93rd staging at Medinah’s No. 1 Course will be a ...
• Donald has some work to do before he can compete at Conway Farms
  This week’s Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., isn’t one of the bigger PGA Tour events but it’s huge for Luke Donald. The former Northwestern star, who was once No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings, needs a good showing to assure himself a spot in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The top 125 players in ...
• Western Am could have best field yet at Rich Harvest
  They keep getting bigger. Within the last month the men’s and women’s Illinois State Amateurs have been played. Then came the men’s Illinois Open, and the Illinois Women’s Open concludes its 54-hole run on Wednesday at Mistwood, in Romeoville. Next week’s tournament offering is even more prestigious. The 113th Western Amateur takes over ...
• Re-opened Glenview Park, Mount Prospect courses are better than ever
  Here’s a good indication that golf in Chicago has withstood some tough economic times. Two well-established park district courses that had undergone costly renovations re-opened on consecutive days last week. Glenview Park’s course renovation was a $5.3 million project and another $1.2 million was spent to upgrade the clubhouse. Construction on Mount Prospect’s course renovation ...
• BMW spectators will benefit the most from Conway changes
  The Western Golf Association’s premier tournament, the BMW Championship, is still nearly two months away, but the WGA showed off the improvements coming for the third tournament of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs Tourney site Conway Farms, in Lake Forest, underwent an extensive renovation since hosting the event in 2013 and spectators — ...
• Hopefully men’s Illinois Amateur will have better luck weather-wise than women’s did
  The longstanding major golf championships for Illinois’ best players will be coming fast and furious now. First up was the 82nd, rain-shortened Illinois Women’s Amateur at Illini Country Club in Springfield. This week the state’s best men are in the same city, but at Panther Creek Country Club, to decide the winner of the 85th Illinois ...
• Couples, Weibring boost field for Encompass tourney
  The Champions Tour’s future in Chicago will be in doubt after this week’s Encompass Championship at North Shore Country Club in Glenview. The sponsor won’t renew its three-year contract, which expires after this year’s event, and North Shore is reportedly considering a major renovation project that would likely rule out its return as host ...
• Donald bested Wilson in duel for a spot in British Open
  Luke Donald and Mark Wilson have long been the prime players with Chicago ties competing on the PGA Tour, and they were in the middle of some behind-the-scenes drama last weekend at the Travelers Championship in Hartford, Ct. Neither were qualified for the British Open, which is coming up in two weeks at St. Andrews in ...
• Why change winning routine? Spieth will play next in JDC
  Why change a good thing? Jordan Spieth wants to keep his bid for golf’s Grand Slam going. That’s why he was quick to nix a possible schedule change after his victory in the U.S. Open. Spieth, who has won the Masters and U.S. Open already, will make his last competitive tuneup for next month’s ...
• Hardy takes momentum from NCAAs into the U.S. Open
  Just 10 months ago Northbrook’s Nick Hardy was shaking off a loss in the final of the Illinois State Amateur and getting ready for his freshman year at the University of Illinois. This week, at 19, he’s playing in the 115th U.S. Open at Washington’s Chambers Bay course. Hardy won’t be the youngest player in the ...
• Hossler is in Palmer Cup spotlight at Rich Harvest
  Jerry Rich has become the most ambitious golf tournament promoter in Chicago, there’s no doubt about that. The owner of Rich Harvest Farms, Rich has provided a steady diet of top-level competition at his sparkling Sugar Grove layout ever since the LPGA’s Solheim Cup was contested there in 2009. This year, though, Rich has outdone himself. ...
• Illini season is over, Open sectionals are next
  A great season came to an end for the University of Illinois men’s team on Tuesday as the Illini were eliminated by Southern California in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament at Concession Club in Bradenton, Fla. The Illini were Big Ten champions, won their NCAA regional tournament and were the top team in the stroke ...
• Hallberg in Senior Open qualifier; IPGA competes at Shoreacres
  Last week’s Senior PGA Championship in French Lick, Ind., was a big deal, but hardly a season-ender for the best 50-and-over players. Now they’ll compete much closer to home. Barrington Hills hosts a sectional qualifier for the 36th U.S. Senior Open on Wednesday, and Gary Hallberg will head the field. Though he’s long been a ...
• French Lick major precedes North Shore title defense for Lehman
  Tom Lehman, a long-time star on the Champions Tour, had plenty on his mind when he visited North Shore Country Club in Glenview this week. He’ll defend his title in the Encompass Championship there in July. Before the title defense, however, Lehman will compete in three major championships on the popular circuit for 50-and-over players. Last ...
• NU women take on NCAA, Women’s Open challenges
  The long road to the U.S. Open tournaments begins this week, and the prospects couldn’t be brighter for the Northwestern women’s team. Coach Emily Fletcher’s squad won its second Big Ten title in three years earlier this month and earned the school’s third straight berth in the NCAA finals with a runner-up finish in last week’s ...
• Malm goes after a four-peat in IPGA Match Play tourney
  Now things get serious on the Chicago golf scene. The Illinois PGA conducts the first of its four major championships beginning on Monday at Kemper Lakes in Long Grove with Curtis Malm again the focal point. Malm, in his second season as head professional at White Eagle in Naperville, will go after his fourth straight ...
• After four years Affrunti is still a PGA Tour rookie
  Joe Affrunti’s rookie season on the PGA Tour started in 2011. A year earlier the 2004 Illinois Open champion from Crystal Lake had earned his PGA Tour playing privileges off his performance on the satellite Web.com Tour. Now, four years later, Affrunti’s rookie PGA season remains a work in progress. It all has to ...
• Brunswick gets into golf with its new indoor putting green
  Lake Forest-based Brunswick Corporation has had a rich history in producing sports equipment, starting with billiards tables back in 1845. Prominent in the bowling industry from 1890 until its exit last year, the company remains a leader in boating and fitness equipment as well as billiards and table tennis. Brunswick’s latest venture is into golf, ...
• Conway Farms isn’t quite ready to unveil its major facelift
  Consider the Chicago golf season in full swing – almost. Of the area’s primary tournament venues only Conway Farms, the private facility in Lake Forest that will host the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship in September, isn’t taking golfers yet. It’s not expected to open until mid-May The finishing touches are being put on a major facelift ...
• Streelman, Donald get ready for another Masters
  The golf season must really be upon us now. The Masters tournament – a sure sign of spring – is just a week away and two of Illinois’ PGA Tour players are assured spots in the field. Kevin Streelman got in by virtue of his dramatic win – a record seven straight birdies to finish his ...
• Rory’s career Grand Slam bid should overshadow Tiger’s return at the Masters
  The Masters tournament always offers a variety of pre-tournament story lines, but the 79th version of the year’s first major championship that tees off on Thursday has more than usual. For one, Tiger Woods is playing again. Beset by back problems, he received a warm welcome when he arrived at Augusta National this week to ...
• It’s Show-time, not snow time, for Chicago’s golfers
  This weekend’s 32nd annual Chicago Golf Show will be highlighted by Lee Trevino’s two appearances on Saturday, but much more will be going on than that during the event’s three-day run at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. Winner of six major championships and 29 tournaments on the PGA Tour, Trevino will be joined by Australian ...
• USGA comes through on Senior Women’s Open — for 2018
  The U.S. Golf Assn. has finally committed to holding a national championship for senior women players, though the first such tournament won’t be held until 2018. While the USGA conducts 13 national championships, the first U.S. Senior Women’s Open was long overdue. The only other major event for senior women is put on by the LPGA ...
• Here are the most interesting new golf products for 2015
  The recently-concluded PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, FL., (SHOW WAS JAN. 20-23) with Chicago’s two major club manufacturers playing lead roles. Batavia-based Tour Edge got its usual jump on the competition by formally introducing its line of new irons and putters a day ahead of the 62-year old main event, which drew 40,000 attendees and had ...
• Sainz will begin 2015 PGA campaign at Sony Open
  Staying in one place for very long isn’t easy for a golf touring pro. Carlos Sainz Jr. was able to do it from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, when he spent most of the holiday season with family and friends in Elgin. Now, however, the PGA Tour rookie is on the road again and looking ...
• Streelman, International Crown create a buzz as Chicago season winds down
  Chicago’s golf season may be in its final days as far as 2014 goes, but you wouldn’t know it by developments over the last few days. On the PGA Tour Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman made a final-round charge in the Shriners Hospital for Children’s Open in Las Vegas on Sunday. Making five birdies in a ...
• Medinah reflects on its Ryder Cup, looks to the future
  This week the world golf spotlight in on Gleneagles in Scotland, where the 40th Ryder Cup matches begin on Friday. Don Larson, who was chairman of the 39th Ryder Cup at Medinah, headed overseas to witness how things unfold this time, but he’ll never forget that epic week at Medinah in September of 2012. “Now ...
• Sainz’ title defense in Chicago Open is in limbo
  Carlos Sainz Jr. will be the focal point of the Chicago Open, the last big tournament of the local season – assuming he plays, that is. Sainz, 28, earned his PGA Tour card two weeks ago and the premier circuit’s 2014-15 season begins next week. The Chicago Open features a pro-am on Friday and tournament ...
• Elgin’s Carlos Sainz is now a PGA Tour member
  The Chicago area has a new member on the PGA Tour. Elgin’s Carlos Sainz Jr. earned playing privileges for the 2014-15 season after finishing in a tie for 31st place in the Web.com Tour Championship on Sunday at TPC Sawgrass in Florida. Sainz, 28, had only one top-10 finish and survived the 36-hole cut only ...
• Ghim, Hardy could make collegiate debuts at Illini Invitational
  Three weeks ago University of Illinois men’s coach Mike Small won the Illinois PGA Championship for a record 11th time, with two of those victories coming at Olympia Fields Country Club in 2010 and 2013. This weekend Small reverts from player to coach with hopes that his well-regarded Illini can do as well at ...
• Donald is out of both FedEx Playoffs, Ryder Cup
  These are not the best of times for Luke Donald even though his last tournament round was a great one – a 67 to conclude the Deutsche Bank Championship on Monday in Boston. “A nice round but a disappointing season on the PGA Tour,’’ the former Northwestern star and former world No. 1 said via Twitter. ...
• Back-to-back tournaments present a challenge for WGA
  This may well be the busiest two weeks in the Western Golf Association’s 105-year history. The WGA, based in north suburban Golf, does much of its fundraising for its Evans Scholars Foundation through the staging of big tournaments. Until last year that basically meant putting on three events that were spread out over the course ...
• Next LPGA tourney could be a momentum-builder for Jeray
  Nicole Jeray has been toiling on the LPGA Tour since turning pro in 1993, and this week’s Wegmans Classic could be critical to her remaining on the women’s premier circuit. “I need to play good in Rochester (N.Y.) so I can get up on the money list,’’ she said. “I started the year really well. ...
• Malm’s alternate status for PGA has evaporated
  Yes, there will be a Chicago area contingent in the year’s last major. Luke Donald, Steve Stricker and Kevin Streelman will tee it up Thursday in the 96th PGA Championship at Valhalla, in Louisville, Ky. But there’ll be some notable absentees, too. Mark Wilson and D.A. Points, both going through sub-par seasons, have the week ...
• Endurance will be the key to winning Western Amateur at Beverly
  No tournament in golf, amateur or professional, requires as much to win as the Western Amateur. The Western Golf Assn. is conducting its annual golf marathon for the 112th time this week at Chicago’s Beverly Country Club, and Wednesday is an especially big day because it includes the largest cut of the event – ...
• IWO celebrates its 20th anniversary with a sold-out pro-am at Mistwood
  The 65th Illinois Open ends on Wednesday. Then it’s the women’s turn. The 20th anniversary staging of the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open will tee off on Monday at Mistwood in Romeoville. Like the men’s tournament, the IWO is a 54-hole competition that concludes on a Wednesday, July 20. The men’s had state-wide qualifying ...
• Strong JDC showing suggests a Zach attack is possible in British Open
  Twenty-five players who competed in the John Deere Classic were on the tournament’s jet to the British Open on Sunday night. Zach Johnson figures to have the best chance of that group when the third major championship of the season tees off on Thursday at Royal Liverpool. Johnson was the runner-up in the Quad Cities’ ...
• Can Niebrugge match Spieth’s feat at JDC?
  There’s an interesting combination in the field for this week’s John Deere Classic, the only PGA Tour event played in Illinois in 2014. Steve Stricker, who considers himself semi-retired because he plays only a limited tournament schedule, has long been a JDC mainstay. He became the 44-year old tourney’s only three-peat winner when he ruled ...
• JDC playoff win provided a career breakthrough for Spieth
  The only PGA Tour event in Illinois is coming up next week, and that means the return of Jordan Spieth. His victory in the John Deere Classic last year was one of the best feel-good stories in golf last year. Spieth was just 19 when he survived a five-hole playoff with 2012 champion Zach Johnson and ...
• Newly-opened Medinah No. 1 might be more popular than No. 3 layout
  Medinah Country Club has seen it all in its 90 years of existence – three U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, three Western Opens, the last Ryder Cup in September of 2012. Virtually all the big events were held on Medinah’s No. 3 course, and that eventually became a problem. The demands for member and guest ...
• Couples is out, but Montgomerie is in for Encompass tourney
  This week’s second Encompass Championship at North Shore Country Club has two major differences from the first staging as far as the 81-player field is concerned. Fred Couples, last year’s runner-up, won’t be there when play begins on Friday at the Glenview course but Colin Montgomerie will. Though Couples is one of the most popular players ...
• Family matters have affected Streelman’s U.S. Open preparations
  Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman remains one of golf’s most promising up-and-coming players, but he’s not going into this week’s U.S. Open with any momentum. Chicago’s only homegrown PGA Tour player missed the cut in his last three tournaments. “It’s been a strange year golf-wise,’’ said Streelman, “but it’s been a wonderful year off the course thanks ...
• Four top college stars will get PGA Tour experience at JDC
  Illinois’ only PGA Tour event of 2014 has thrived by appealing to young players, and director Clair Peterson saw no reason to change that approach when he announced his sponsor exemptions for the John Deere Classic this week. Peterson invited four of the very best college stars to battle the PGA Tour players in the 44th ...
• Five local medalists spur Chicago hopes in U.S. Open sectional play
  The U.S. Golf Assn. scheduled one of its sectional qualifiers for the U.S. Open at a Chicago area course for at least four decades. That policy changed two years ago and it’s especially unfortunate this year, given the results at the 111 nation-wide local qualifiers. Players with Chicago roots were medalists at five of those ...
• Stadler ailing for his Encompass title defense
  Chicago’s only pro tour stop of 2014, the Encompass Championship, is less than a month away. It’ll return to North Shore Country Club in Glenview from June 16-22, and this week’s tourney update suggests the event has some issues. Defending champion Craig Staler visited North Shore and revealed health issues that have sidelined him for ...
• Rich Harvest is good site for Illini to earn a return to NCAA finals
  Jerry Rich makes no bones about it. The biggest event he’ll ever host at his Rich Harvest Farms course in Sugar Grove is the International Crown, which won’t arrive until 2016. Rich calls that new LPGA international team event “my legacy,’’ but that doesn’t mean that Rich Harvest won’t take on other big events. ...
• India’s 61 in U.S. Open qualifying precedes Malm’s bid for a three-peat
  Deerfield product Vince India has been struggling as a rookie on the PGA’s satellite Web.com Tour this year, but he didn’t struggle on Monday in a local qualifier for the U.S. Open. The former University of Iowa golfer shot a 10-under-par 61 to earn medalist honors in a local qualifier at Waterlefe, in Sarasota, FL. ...
• Chicago trio seeks success on Web.com Tour
  The PGA Tour changed its qualification procedures last year, relegating its brutal 90-hole fall Q-School tournament to offering only spots on the satellite Web.com Tour in 2014. The new format, though, resulted in unprecedented success for Chicago players. Rarely did a local golfer make it through Q-School to the PGA Tour under the older format, but ...
• NU, Illini will defend titles in Big Ten golf at French Lick
  Illinois and Northwestern have become perennial contenders for the men’s and women’s golf titles in the Big Ten Conference, and that’ll again be the case when collegiate postseason play begins this weekend. The NU women shared last year’s Big Ten title and are the highest-ranked conference team (No. 12) in the national polls. Last year coach ...
• Winter damage is creating a difficult spring at Chicago golf courses
  Chicago golfers beware. In most years virtually all Chicago courses are in full swing by the time the Masters tournament tees off in April. This year that wasn’t the case, and that’s not all. The Midwest Golf Course Superintendents Assn. is conducting a survey of its courses this week and executive director Luke ...
• Donald is best bet among local players at the Masters
  The 80th playing of the Masters tournament, beginning on Thursday at Georgia’s Augusta National, won’t be like any previous stagings of golf’s first major championship of the year. This one won’t have Tiger Woods, back surgery a week ago forcing his withdrawal, and the landmark Eisenhower Tree left of the No. 17 fairway is gone, ...
• Ex-Kemper pro wants to take Kinderlou Forest to a new level
  VALDOSTA, Ga. – Bob Spence is about to hit the 60-year mark as a golf professional. Now his focus is on Kinderlou Forest, a stunning 18-holer just 16 miles from the Florida state line, but Chicago golfers should remember him well. Spence, who turned pro in 1954 – a few months after graduating from high ...
• Encompass tourney gets the spotlight at Chicago Golf Show
  The only pro golf tour event in Chicago in 2014 will also headline the 31st Chicago Golf Show. The Encompass Championship, which made its Chicago debut on the Champions Tour in 2013, will be the presenting sponsor of the winter attraction that begins a three-day run at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont on Friday (FEB ...
• KemperSports ready to take charge at Cantigny
  February is again show-time for Chicago golfers. The third annual Tinley Park Golf Expo begins a three-day run on Friday (FEB 7) at the Tinley Park Convention Center and the 31st Chicago Golf Show takes over the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont on Feb. 21 for a similar three-day run. In the meantime, though, there has ...
• New putters highlighted this PGA Merchandise Show
  ORLANDO, FL. – The 61st PGA Merchandise Show was just all the previous 60 such stagings. All the latest and greatest products for golfers were on display at the Orange County Convention Center. This year, though, there seemed to be an abundance of unusual new putters. The one that got the most attention was Veritas Golf’s Cure ...
• Fitzpatrick’s stay at NU didn’t last long
  Northwestern men’s golf coach Pat Goss labeled Matt Fitzpatrick as “our most high-profile recruit since Luke Donald.’’ Unfortunately for NU, Fitzpatrick’s stay in Evanston didn’t last long. Fitzpatrick, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion and No. 1-ranked amateur in the world, withdrew from the school on Thursday to pursue more playing opportunities as an amateur in ...
• Chicago Open is revived again, this time at Cantigny
  There’s just one major tournament left in the Chicago area golf season, and it’s both an old and new one. The Chicago Open, which tees off at Cantigny in Wheaton on Monday, has been played 23 times but the stagings have been spread out with a variety of competition levels. The first was in 1914 ...
• Streelman uses Bears, Urlacher to get ready for BMW Championship
  It was back to work this week for Kevin Streelman, Chicago’s lone homegrown PGA Tour player and one of the elite 70 players in the field at the BMW Championship at Conway Farms in Lake Forest. Last week’s break in the FedEx Cup Playoffs gave Streelman a chance to get away from the rigors of the ...
• Expanding tournament schedule to include BMW could pay dividends for Stricker
  The 70-man field for next week’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms in Lake Forest is finally official. It will include four players with Illinois connections, including Conway member Luke Donald. Donald’s play has dropped off since he was the world’s No. 1-ranked player in 2011, but he will go into the BMW Championship ranked No. 54 ...
• Streelman, Points in good shape but Wilson is out of BMW Championship
  Streelman, Points in good shape but Wilson out of BMW Championship Now there’s just one FedEx Cup Playoff tourney left before the PGA Tour makes its first return to the Chicago area since 2011. The Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston has a Friday-Monday run this week, and the low 70 in the standings after that 72-hole $8 ...
• Malm’s 63 at Elgin bodes well for his chances in IPGA tourney
  Clearly Curtis Malm is the player to watch in next week’s 91st Illinois PGA Championship on Olympia Fields Country Club’s South course. Malm, first assistant professional at St. Charles Country Club and the IPGA’s player-of-the-year in 2012, fired a 9-under par course record 63 at Elgin Country Club on Monday in the section’s fifth stroke play ...
• Playing in BMW Championship isn’t a done deal for Donald, Wilson
  Luke Donald and Mark Wilson, Chicago-based PGA Tour players and members of the Western Golf Assn. board of directors, put on an exhibition this week to promote next month’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms in Lake Forest. The nine-hole closed-to-the-public event, which included new Northwestern basketball coach Chris Collins and Bulls’ guard Kirk Heinrich, raised $45,000 ...
• Illini coach Small will try to revive his game at the PGA Championship
  Playing in the PGA Championship isn’t anything new to Mike Small, the University of Illinois men’s coach who qualified for this week’s final major championship of 2013 for the ninth time. Small, who got into the tourney by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Professional Players National Championship in June, has made the cut ...
• Opening up the field did wonders for Illinois Women’s Open
  The 19th Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open, which tees off Wednesday at Mistwood in Romeoville, has taken a different approach from the men’s 64th Illinois Open, which had one of its most exciting stagings last week at The Glen Club in Glenview. The men’s version, won by Antioch’s Joe Kinney in a three-hole playoff, is ...
• LPGA veteran Jeray returns, hopes to win third IWO title
  The men’s Illinois Open concludes its 64th staging on Wednesday. Now it’s the women’s turn. Mistwood, in Romeoville, will again host the 19th Illinois Women’s Open next week. There’ll be a pro-am on Tuesday and the first of three tournament rounds is Wednesday. That’ll put the spotlight on Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray, who will bid ...
• Illinois’ two biggest tournaments are now back-to-back
  The Chicago District Golf Assn. revamped its tournament schedule this year, and the biggest change comes this week when the men’s 83rd Illinois State Amateur tees off a month earlier than previous years. It began a three-day 72-hole run at Aldeen, in Rockford, on Tuesday. After its conclusion on Thursday many of the same players ...
• Bradley, bigger foreign contingent give JDC strongest field ever
  Zach Johnson’s title defense and three-time winner Steve Stricker’s return to the PGA Tour may be the focal points of the John Deere Classic, which tees off Thursday in Silvis, IL., on the outskirts of the Quad Cities. The 43-year old $4.6 million championship, though, may have its best field ever thanks to the first-ever participation ...
• Affrunti must forget critical 4-putt before teeing off in JDC
  Good things may still be ahead for Joe Affrunti, who gets back on the PGA Tour at the John Deere Classic in the Quad Cities in two weeks, but the Crystal Lake golfer will have a hard time forgetting what happened to him in his last tournament. Affrunti, who missed half of his rookie season ...
• Jeray, Harris are U.S. Women’s Open hopefuls
  This week’s golf, both nationally and locally, is all about the women. The U.S. Women’s Open tees off on Thursday at Sebonack, a seven-year old New York course co-designed by Tom Doak and Jack Nicklaus. Meanwhile, the Illinois Women’s Amateur begins the match play portion of its competition on Wednesday (TODAY) and concludes on Friday at ...
• Nick Price returns to Champions Tour at Encompass event
  Some of Nick Price’s best days in a Hall of Fame career on the PGA Tour came in Chicago, when he won back-to-back Western Opens at Cog Hill in 1993 and 1994. Price’s participation in this week’s new Encompass Championship is big news on the Champions Tour simply because he’s playing again. He hasn’t competed ...
• Couples, Lehman, two ex-Bulls give Encompass plenty of star power
  Everything’s coming together for next week’s Encompass Championship at North Shore Country Club in Glenview. Fred Couples and Tom Lehman have formally entered the first Champions Tour stop in Chicago since 2002, assuring the event one of the strongest fields on the 50-and-over circuit. The 81 starters include all of the top 10 on the circuit’s ...
• Wait to get into U.S. Open begins for Medinah’s Travis Johns
  Sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open, aptly dubbed “golf’s longest day,’’ was especially long for the Chicago players hoping to land a berth in the Open proper at Pennsylvania’s Merion course in two weeks. None made it through Monday’s 11 nation-wide 36-hole sectionals, and newly named Medinah assistant pro Travis Johns is the only one ...
• Chicago hopefuls talke U.S. Open dreams to St. Louis’ Old Warson
  St. Louis was the site of the Senior PGA Championship, which concluded on Sunday, and it’ll also be the place of choice for the Chicago golfers who survived local qualifying for the 113th U.S. Open, to be played later this month at Merion in Ardmore, Pa. Old Warson Country Club, in St., Louis, will have a ...
• Hallberg has been Chicago’s best ever home-grown golfer
  No Chicago-born and raised golfer has accomplished more than Gary Hallberg, and now he’s coming back. Hallberg was a state high school champion at Barrington, an Illinois Open winner twice, an NCAA champion at Wake Forest and the first player to earn PGA Tour playing privileges without going to qualifying school. As a professional he was the ...
• Chicago 10 must travel to find a U.S. Open sectional this year
  Chicago’s two local qualifying tournaments for the U.S. Open are over. Now comes the hard part for the 10 golfers who survived. They were the lucky ones among the 180 who entered the 18-hole eliminations at Northmoor, in Highland Park, and Seven Bridges, in Woodridge, the last two weeks. Next up is the U.S. Golf Association’s ...
• Martin’s Fox Run, Arrowhead renovations are unveiled
  April storms created a nightmare for Chicago’s golf course operators, but they were especially troublesome at Fox Run, the Elk Grove Park District facility. Fox Run has undergone a $2 million renovation for two years under the supervision of Aurora architect Greg Martin. He started on the front nine in 2011 and completed the back late ...
• Celebrity pro-am will make new Champions Tour event special
  Tampa’s loss is Chicago’s gain. The Champions Tour is preparing for its return to Chicago after an 11-year absence, and the new version will be much different than the 12 tournaments played here from 1991-2002. The Encompass Championship will be top-heavy in pro-ams when it takes over North Shore Country Club in Glenview from June 17-23, ...
• Affrunti’s finally playing again after shoulder rehab
  Finally there’s some good news involving Joe Affrunti, the Crystal Lake golfer who suffered a serious shoulder injury months after earning his PGA Tour card. Affrunti earned the right to play on golf’s premier circuit by finishing in the top 25 on the Web.com Tour money list in 2010. In June of 2011, however, he ...
• LPGA schedule is finally working in Jeray’s favor
  Berwyn golfer Nicole Jeray spent most of the winter in Augusta, Ga., and she had a pass to get into last week’s spectacular Masters tournament there. The Chicago area’s lone member of the Ladies PGA Tour, however, had more important things to do. “I could have gotten in off my LPGA pass, ‘’ said Jeray. ...
• Donald has “special short game shot” ready for the Masters
  Last year Luke Donald was the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer entering all four of the sport’s major championships. He was No. 1 for 55 weeks, and it was at the 2012 Masters that his duel for the top spot with Rory McIlroy started. This year’s Masters begins Thursday at Augusta National Golf Club and Donald ...
• Streelman looks for a better result in his second Masters
  Kevin Streelman may be the best feel-good story in golf these days, and maybe in all of sports. Last month Streelman, who grew up in Winfield and built his golf game playing and working at both Cantigny and Arrowhead public courses in Wheaton, won the PGA Tour’s Tampa Bay Championship. That got him into next week’s Masters, ...
• Malm is the player to watch in IPGA’s last major at Eagle Ridge
  It’ll be nothing like the just-completed Ryder Cup, but there is one big competitive event left in the Chicago golf season. The Illinois PGA will stage the last of its four major tournaments, the IPGA Players Championship, at Eagle Ridge in Galena on Monday and Tuesday. The section’s player-of-the-year and assistant player-of-the-year awards will be ...
• Tour Championship will set the stage for the Ryder Cup
  Get ready, get set….. The golf season is reaching a climax, with The Tour Championship concluding the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs this week and the 39th Ryder Cup coming the following week to Medinah Country Club. Medinah, though, will open its gates to the public on Saturday. There won’t be any PGA Tour players there, but ...
• Break in the FedEx playoffs is a good thing with two big weeks coming up
  There’s a rare break in the PGA Tour season this week, and that’s a good thing. The best players are tired after playing three straight weeks of FedEx Cup playoff events and they’re welcoming a rest before the big two-week stretch coming up. The climax to the playoffs, The Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta, ...
• WGA did smart thing in moving BMW tourney to Crooked Stick
  In the past six years this would have been a big week in Chicago golf. During five of those years the PGA Tour made its annual stop at Cog Hill, in Lemont, for the BMW Championship, a FedEx Cup playoff event. Only in 2008 was there no event – and that was because ...
• Europe will have big experience edge in Ryder Cup
  If Ryder Cup experience means anything the U.S. team will be in big trouble when the biennial matches come to Medinah Country Club for their 39th staging beginning Sept. 25. Europe’s 12-man squad is loaded with veterans, to say nothing of talent. The European team, which has won four of the last five Ryder Cup battles ...
• Hohenadel wants to prove IPGA title wasn’t a fluke
  What a difference a year makes. Last year the biggest tournament at Medinah Country Club was the Illinois PGA Championship, which decides the best player among the state’s club professionals. Next month, of course, Medinah hosts the 39th Ryder Cup matches and the player who shocked the Chicago golf scene with his win last year ...
• Only Stricker is sure bet for a U.S. Ryder Cup captain’s pick
  The first phase to determine who will be playing in next month’s Ryder Cup matches at Medinah is over. Point standings, accumulated over two years, determined the eight automatic berths on the U.S. team after Sunday’s PGA Championship was completed and those earning berths were Tiger Woods, Bubba Watson, Jason Dufner, Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, ...
• Small, Guthrie elevate the profile of Illini golf program
  This would figure to be a big week for Mike Small, the Illinois men’s coach. He’ll make his 11th appearance in a major championship when he tees off at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C., in the PGA Championship on Thursday. This is the last of golf’s four majors this season and the final ...
• Rodgers wants to add Western Amateur to his WGA titles
  Four of the world’s top six amateurs will be battling for the title in the 110th Western Amateur at Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park this week. Among them is Patrick Rodgers, who won the Western Golf Association’s Junior tournament in 2011. “The Western Am and the U.S. Amateur are the two biggest in amateur ...
• Pearson goes for third title on more challenging course in Illinois Women’s Open
  Wheaton’s Jenna Pearson can become only the second player to win the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open three times when the 18th annual tournament begins today at Mistwood in Romeoville. “I’m definitely hoping to be in that category,’’ said Pearson, who plays on the LPGA’s Symetra (formerly Futures) Tour. She captured the IWO as an ...
• U.S. WOMEN’S OPEN: Pak’s win in ’98 triggered big changes for LPGA
  KOHLER, Wis. – Blackwolf Run was where women’s golf took a dramatic turn back in 1998. That’s where Se Ri Pak, a South Korean player, captured one of the most dramatic U.S. Women’s Opens ever. Her win in the biggest tournament in women’s golf triggered a huge influx of players from her ...
• U.S. WOMEN’S OPEN: Neff, Armstrong get into starting field
  The 67th U.S. Women’s Open, which tees of Thursday at Blackwolf Run, in Kohler, Wis., has two late qualifiers with Chicago connections. Aimee Neff, winner of the Illinois Women’s Open in 2008 and 2009, and amateur Ashley Armstrong, a Notre Dame sophomore-to-be who won the 2011 Western Junior title, were promoted to the starting field in ...
• JDC is in the spotlight thanks to Stricker’s four-peat bid
  By far the biggest month of the golf season in the Midwest begins in just a few days. July offers the U.S. Women’s Open at Blackwolf Run in Wisconsin and the John Deere Classic in the Quad Cities , followed by the two state opens for Illinois golfers and the start of the Western Amateur ...
• Illinois Open site change delights defending champion Arouca
  For over three decades Illinois club professionals dominated their amateur counterparts. Those days are apparently over. Last week the Chicago District Golf Association’s amateur stars beat the Illinois PGA’s best 11 ½-6 ½ in the 51st Radix Cup matches at Oak Park Country Club. That was the CDGA’s fourth win in five years in the competition, ...
• Hot nine on Scarlet course got Streelman into the Open
  Kevin Streelman’s golf game may be peaking at just the right time. The PGA Tour player from Winfield got into this week’s U.S. Open with an extraordinary nine holes in last week’s 36-hole sectional qualifier in Columbus. After shooting a 71 in the first 18, played at Scioto – Jack Nicklaus’ home course as a youth, ...
• Mistwood shows off its new bunkers
  Stacked sod-wall bunkers are an extreme rarity at Chicago courses, but they won’t be as much a mystery after owner Jim McWethy re-opens his Mistwood course in Romeoville. That’ll happen for the course’s members and permanent tee time holders on Saturday (JUNE 2). Michigan-based course architect Ray Hearn incorporated 19 ...
• Harrigan, Rosinia take aim at Senior PGA
  This is an unusual year for big-time tournament golf in Chicago. Only September’s Ryder Cup at Medinah is on the calendar, but five other big-time events are within a short drive. The first of those is the 73rd Senior PGA Championship, one of the majors on the Champions Tour. It begins a 72-hole run on Thursday ...
• Sobb’s streak is over in IPGA match plays
  For two years now Jim Sobb has been the man whenever the Illinois PGA holds a match play tournament. This year, though, his reign can to an abrupt halt. The Ivanhoe pro won the section’s senior match play title in 2010 and 2011, was runner-up in the regular match play in 2010 and became the first ...
• Chien, Hopfinger lead first U.S. Open local qualifier
  Monday’s rains forced the Illinois Public Links Championship to be reduced from 36 to 18 holes, but the bad weather didn’t hamper the first of two local qualifying rounds for the U.S. Open – the first significant competition of this Chicago golf season. Northwestern student Sam Chien, an amateur, and Iowa alum Brad Hopfinger, winner of ...
• Affrunti’s return to PGA Tour will take awhile
  Last Sunday’s conclusion of the PGA Tour’s Valero Texas Open created a time of reflection for Crystal Lake’s Joe Affrunti, whose last appearance on golf’s premier circuit was at that tournament in 2011. For Affrunti, a former Illinois Open champion and University of Illinois graduate, the last year has been difficult – and that’s putting ...
• Only minor changes coming at Cog Hill
  Cog Hill is off the PGA Tour calendar for only the second time since 1991 this year, but that won’t keep owner Frank Jemsek from tweaking his Dubsdread layout that hosted both the Western Open and BMW Championship. Jemsek opened the premier course on his 72-hole Lemont complex last week with some minor changes. The fifth ...
• Batavia’s Martin is one busy course architect
  Batavia-based Greg Martin has been one busy golf course architect within the Chicago area of late. Three of his public course projects are about to open for the season, and at least three others are in the works. Martin handled two renovation projects last fall — the front nine at Fox Run in Elk ...
• Can Wilson, Donald tame Augusta National?
  When the first major championship of the PGA Tour season tees off Thursday there’ll be two players with Chicago roots in the field. Luke Donald, the Northwestern alum and the world’s No. 1-ranked player will try to make the Masters his first major title. So will Mark Wilson, who has made Elmhurst home in recent years ...
• Don’t expect Butler National to allow women members soon
  Every few years, it seems, somebody in Butler National Golf Club’s membership suggests that the all-male facility may be willing to accept women as members, thereby making it possible for big-time golf to be played in Oak Brook again. Citing “industry sources,’’ that same old story surfaced again in a Chicago newspaper this week. Such ...
• Ceremonies set for Illinois Golf Hall of Fame
  Another Chicago golf season is almost history now. All that is left — except for the few recreational rounds remaining when weather permits — is the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. They’re coming up on Oct. 21 at The Glen Club in Glenview. The Hall of Fame welcomed its first inductees in 1989. Classes ...
• Could Oak Brook’s Butterfield CC land BMW?
  Conway Farms, the home course of world No. 1 Luke Donald, remains the consensus favorite to land the 2013 BMW Championship, but the Lake Forest layout isn’t the only private facility Western Golf Association officials have checked out for the next time PGA tournament golf returns to Chicago. Cog Hill, the public facility in Lemont that ...
• Ryder Cup captains like what they see at Medinah
  Medinah Country Club, plagued by course conditioning issues last month, received glowing reviews as next year’s site for the Ryder Cup matches. Top players from the U.S. and Europe will battle on the club’s No. 3 course next Sept. 25-30. The club and PGA of America celebrated the one-year countdown to the next Ryder Cup this ...
• Signs point to North suburbs landing BMW in 2013
  An announcement won’t likely come for a few weeks, but the BMW Championship figures to be played in the north suburbs when it returns to the Chicago area in 2013. The tourney’s 20-year run by Cog Hill Golf & Country Club figures to come to an end after complaints by three high-profile players. Phil Mickelson, Steve ...
• Streelman’s PGA career on rise despite missing BMW
  The PGA Tour’s BMW Championship will be heavy on Illinois talent when it tees off Thursday at Cog Hill in Lemont. World No. 1 Luke Donald is fourth in the FedEx Cup point standings, with Steve Stricker eighth, Mark Wilson 17th and D.A. Points 49th. FedExCup Top 10 leaders Here’s a look at the point standings as the ...