Len Ziehm On Golf

  MYAKKA CITY, Florida – Not all great golfers have evolved into great golf course designers.  Nick Price is one who did, as underscored by his just unveiled Soleta course, located a few miles east of Sarasota, FL. As a golfer Price, now 67, was one of the great ones.  No doubt about that. He was the No. ...

SEBRING, Florida – This charming town of about 11,000 in Central Florida has long been known for its robust golf courses and a famous auto race. Legendary golf course architect Donald Ross started the golf scenario when he designed the Pinecrest course in 1923 and the Sebring International Raceway, which opened in 1950,  is one ...

Caitlin Clark may be a basketball whiz, but she is making inroads in golf, too. In July, 2023, Clark made her first golf appearance playing in the pro-am at the John Deere Classic, the PGA Tour stop at TPC Deere Run – a course located near the boarderline of Illinois and Iowa.  Now, on Nov. 13, ...

Sadly another member of the golfing Ten Broeck family has passed on. Rick Ten Broeck died at 76 on Oct. 10 after suffering complications from Parkinson’s disearse and dementia.  His younger brother Lance was 67 when he died in April, 2023, in Florida. They were two of the eight children of Willis and Eleanor Ten Broeck, ...

A month ago Nelly Korda was, arguably, the best story in golf.  She had won six tournaments in a stretch of seven events. Scotty Scheffler was playing great on the men’s side at that time, too, but not quite at Nelly’s pace. So then what happened? The next event was the U.S. Women’s Open at Lancaster Country ...

Another book about Tiger Woods?  When I heard about `Tiger, Tiger’ I wondered why. After all, it’s obvious that this once great golfer’s playing career is in obvious decline. And then I considered the author.  James Patterson is not just one of the most prolific writers over at least the last few decades.  He’s also one ...

  OCALA, FL. – Unfortunately all the noise impacting the men’s pro golf tours has detracted from what is a huge story in the sport overall this season. The extraordinary accomplishments of Nelly Korda haven’t received nearly the attention they’ve merited. This week should change that. The 79th U.S. Women’s Open tees off on Thursday at Lancaster ...

    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 ...

    In the last few years I’ve developed a side writing project.  Being a fairly voracious reader, I’ve been contributing book reviews to my social media outlets. By no means have these been limited to golf. I’ve written about books that I’ve enjoyed on a variety of subjects but have stayed away from reviewing the political ...

BY LEN ZIEHM JEKYLL ISLAND, Georgia – State parks are a big thing in Georgia, with one in particular standing out — an old place with a sparkling new look. Needless to say Jekyll Island isn’t your ordinary state park.  There are 600 residents on the island, located on the outskirts of Brunswick off the Intracoastal Waterway ...

Patty Berg, a true golf legend, won 63 professional tournaments from 1937 through 1958 and was the first president of the Ladies PGA Tour.  For much of her career she represented Joe Jemsek’s St. Andrew’s facility in West Chicago but since her heyday the LPGA has been tough for Chicago players. Berwyn native Nicole Jeray toiled ...

ORLANDO, FL. – Every year it’s the same thing – only different. The 71st PGA Show again showcased the newest of the new in golf gear and attire. There were more than 1,000 companies and brands to entice the approximately 30,000 industry members who gathered at Orange County National Golf Center, for the traditional Demo Day, ...

  MYAKKA CITY, Florida – When you put Nick Price and David Leadbetter together on a golf project you most likely will have a winner. This week those two were in the spotlight at the ground-breaking for the Soleta Golf Club on the outskirts of Sarasota, FL.  Soleta’s expected opening is in late 2024 and will be ...

  LIV Tour’s second season is history.  The team championship at Doral created great drama and was an appropriate ending to the 2023 campaign. Now, however, the real fun begins. LIV chief executive officer Greg Norman took at least a brief look ahead during lulls in the action at Doral..  He started by confirming that he hasn’t been ...

This, most recent, book that merits your attention had some unusual pre-release promotional literature. “Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk’’ by Billy Walters with Armen Keteyian  (Avid Reader Press) hinted that it was more about golfer Phil Mickelson than it was about Walters, who created his own autobiography. If that was intention it worked with ...

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 ...

    JASPER, Indiana – The Senior LPGA Championship, only six years old, is the youngest of golf’s designated major tournaments. It was first played at French Lick’s Pete Dye Course in 2017 and England’s Trish Johnson was the winner. This year’s tourney was played only 20 miles away, at Sultan’s Run Golf Club, and Johnson was in ...

  JASPER, Indiana – Golf’s top senior women players found a home at French Lick Resort, which hosted big tournaments for nine straight years. The senior run ended in 2021 when the last of three Senior LPGA Championships was played on the Pete Dye Course there. “A great run for them, and a great run for us,’’ ...

HOWEY-in-the-HILLS, Florida – Mission Inn, one of Florida’s oldest golf resorts, is no stranger to hosting tournaments. The fourth playing of the Epson Tour’s Inova Mission Inn Resort & Club Championship is coming up in May, but this time it’ll be different. On Dec. 9 the resort changed ownership.  The Beucher family, with deep roots in ...

Europe’s Ryder Cup captain, Luke Donald, had an interesting pairing in his two rounds at the Honda Classic last week.  He played with Padraig Harrington, the European Ryder Cup captain when the U.S. scored its record victory at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits in 2021, and Zach Johnson, who will be Donald’s rival U.S. captain in this ...

  ORLANDO, FL. – With 400 companies and 800 brands participating the PGA Merchandise Show was in full swing for its 70th staging at the Orange County Convention Center. Those weren’t quite the numbers in pre-pandemic years, but they underscored a good recovery for the golf industry’s biggest event and product innovation was at a particularly high ...

    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, ...

  NAPLES, Florida – Most every golf course in south Florida was impacted when Hurricane Ian hit the area on Sept. 28.  That included Bonita Bay Club, long recognized as one of southeastern United States’ premier facilities. Bonita Bay, Florida’s largest private club, has five golf courses spread over two campuses that are 10 miles apart.  The ...

SEBRING, FL. -The International Network of Golf is a fixture at the PGA Merchandise Show and the Myrtle Beach World Amateur Handicap Championship.  ING also hosted an annual Spring Conference around the country prior to pandemic concerns. Still on the brink of celebrating his group’s 30th anniversary, ING executive director Mike Jamison moved in another direction. ...

SEBRING, FL. — The International Network of Golf’s first Fall Forum in 2022 couldn’t have been scripted better for Joy and me. In Tuesday’s pro-am for the Citrus Golf Tour Open we played on different teams.  Joy witnessed a hole in one by her professional partner, Chris Wiatr, and my team’s pro, Donnie Trosper, tied Chris ...

Chicago’s dryspell in hosting major golf championships is over. The U.S. Golf Association announced Tuesday that Chicago Golf Club, in Wheaton, will be the site of the 2033 U.S. Women’s Open as well as the 2036 Walker Cup matches. Once a hotbed for major tournament golf, the Chicago area last hosted the U.S. Women’s Open in 2000, ...

  How could Tiger Woods’ new PopStroke National Putting Championship be scheduled any better for us? The finals are Oct. 26-28 in Sarasota, FL., about three miles from our home here, and the first list of qualifying tournaments included a Sept. 10 elimination at Deerpath, in Lake Forest.  We have family members living within walking distance of ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – It’s transition time for women golfers at Indiana’s premier golf resort. It’s hard to imagine any golf facility doing more for the women’s game in the last decade than this southern Indiana resort has been willing to step forward for two pro circuits — The Legends for players who have reached their ...

PUBLISHED IN CHICAGO DISTRICT GOLFER The members of Medinah Country Club have never been reluctant to order updates on their No. 3 course,  the most famous 18 holes in Chicago golf. The project that will be going on there this year, though, will go far beyond anything that has been done in the past. Club president Williams ...

PUBLISHED IN CHICAGO DISTRICT GOLFER So, what’s Medinah No. 3 going to look like a year from now? According to Michael Cocking, director for the Ogilvie, Cocking Meade Golf design team, it’ll be a lot different than it has been for all the big events that have been played there over the years. “Medinah has such an interesting ...

Mark Stewart was still a teen-ager when – with encouragement from his father and grandfather – he started thinking about golf bag designs. His family, from Great Britain, was on vacation in St. Petersburg, FL, at the time. “When we got home I was just curious,’’ said Stewart.  “We developed prototypes on and off for about ...

Patience and loyalty are enviable qualities, and they figure to pay off big time for Sentry Insurance once the 2023 golf season gets into gear. Sentry was patient, closing the course at its headquarters in Stevens Points, Wis., for two major renovations in the last 10 years.  Now it’s on the clock to host one of ...

Having worked in the golf media for over 50 years, I know most of the people who have written books on the sport.  I haven’t met Alan Shipnuck, author of the just-released “Phil,’’ which bills itself as “the rip-roaring and unofficial biography of golf’s most colorful superstar.’’  This book has gotten immediate buzz because of ...

  At first I felt bad for Bob Harig, a friend of mine who authored the recently-released `Tiger & Phil: Golf’s Most Fascinating Rivalry.’ Bob and I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and, while I’m a little older, we became friends over the past few decades while covering the pro golf scene for our various ...

It’s been a while since I’ve done a book report, but Rick Reilly’s “So Help Me Golf’’ (Hachette Books) certainly merits one. It goes on sale May 10, but I was accorded a sneak preview. A great writing talent, that Rick Reilly.  I’ve met some of those gifted types and read many more of them over ...

IN CHICAGO DISTRICT GOLFER Every year when April rolls around the world’s best golfers turn their attention to the Masters.  That’s true for their caddies, too. Scott Gneiser, a Chicago area resident for 22 years, should know. He’s in his 33rd year as a tour caddie and estimates that he’s worked 15 Masters. “Everybody circles that on their ...

  LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida – The date was October 1, 1971. The world of travel changed a lot that day. It’s when Disney World opened its gates. The popular tourist destination has welcomed visitors from all ages, backgrounds and countries for 50 years now – and that huge contingent also includes golfers.  Opening Day for the ...

  ORLANDO, FL. – The PGA Tour’s annual Florida Swing reached the midway point on Sunday with the circuit rarely seeing tounaments unfold the way they did last two weeks. Daniel Berger appeared a wire-to-wire winner at last week’s Honda Classic until a surprise storm hampered play in the last three holes. Berger blew a five-stroke lead ...

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL. – Neither Zach Johnson nor Luke Donald looked threatening during Thursday’s first round of the PGA Tour’s traditional Florida Swing. The veterans teed off within 20 minutes of each other, Donald starting his round off No. 1 and Johnson off No. 10 at the Honda Classic – the first of four straight ...

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 ...

Dismiss the fact that the PGA Tour has played tournaments in Hawaii the last two weeks. The 2022 golf season really starts this week. That’s when the golf spotlight shifts to Florida and will stay there for a while. The PGA Merchandise Show returns after taking a year off because of pandemic concerns and the LPGA ...

  If you’re a golfer you’ve got to envy Tom Coyne. Lots of author types – me included to some extent – have been more than willing to write about their golf travels in some form or another. Coyne has done it much better than most. He’s a globe-trotting golfer with lots of stories to tell. Coyne ...

THE VILLAGES, Florida – Golf is huge in The Villages, a fast-growing vibrant over-55 adult community in Central Florida.  That’s obvious.  Golf carts are everywhere, and not just at the courses. Golf carts of all sizes and colors fill the area’s parking lots as well as those at the 12 championship and 40 executive courses and ...

It was part of my tournament coverage routine at a PGA Tour events to walk at least nine holes in the first two rounds with a player just to get a handle on the course.  At that stage of a tournament it wasn’t necessary to be caught up in what players were in contention.  That ...

The 2021 Chicago golf season should be remembered for much more than pandemic-related issues.  Some extraordinary building was going on at clubs across the Chicago area, and it wasn’t all done on golf courses. Golf course renovations are commonplace annually, but this year the most noteworthy upgrading related to clubhouses. Two facilities – The Preserve at ...

                SARASOTA, FL. – The Champions Course at Palm Aire Country Club was one of the more difficult courses in Florida, and it may still be. It will, however, have a much different look when it re-opens following an extensive $2 million  renovation on December 1. The original version, created by architect Dick Wilson, opened in 1957 ...

SARASOTA, FL. — It’s getting exciting now.  We’ll soon have a new golf course – or at least a “re-imagined’’ one – to look at while we’re enjoying either our early morning coffee or late afternoon beverage of choice from the lanai of our new home. The Champions Course, at Palm Aire Country Club, was in ...

Sandra Fullmer lives in California, now but the Women’s Western Golf Association gave its top honor – its Woman of Distinction award – to her at the WWGA’s annual meeting on Thursday at Lake Shore Country Club in Glencoe. Fullmer was selected for the coveted award in 2020 but the annual meeting was canceled because of ...

The golf lessons that Richard Franklin offers aren’t for everybody. “Some people look at what we do and say it’s not even golf,’’ admitted Franklin, but he can live with that. Franklin, 38, calls himself “a game designer.’’ That’s what his group lessons are – a series of games for youngsters as young as 4 years old ...

Book reviews were once a regular thing for me, until I realized I hadn’t done one in quite awhile. It’s not because I haven’t kept up a steady diet of reading on a fairly wide variety of topics. I continued to have a book going at all times,  virtually all of the non-fiction variety, but I ...

SARASOTA, FL. – Mike Benkusky had worked basically in the Midwest throughout his career as a golf course architect.  That’s not surprising, given that he grew up in Iowa, did his college work at Iowa State and then entered the architectural world under the tutelage of long-time Chicago-based architect Bob Lohman. In 2005 Benkusky opened his ...

  I wish I could say that I knew Arthur Hills better than I really did. Our only in-depth meeting came in 1993, when – as a Chicago golf columnist – I was invited to the Grand Opening of one of his designs, called The Thoroughbred in Rothbury, Mich. I do know Hills’ work quite well, ...

Being the son of a famous father isn’t always easy. Frank Jemsek, however,  had a famous father, Joe. He  did many great things in golf, as both a player and course operator, and Frank has followed in his footsteps. Frank, who turned 80 in December, followed his father into the family business at the tender age ...

Friday was a big day for Len Ziehm on Golf and its partner websites.  Four of us won Outstanding Achiever designations at the 23rd annual International Network of Golf Media Awards, which is part of the 68th PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. I was especially happy for my broadcast partner Rory Spears, who was honored in ...

PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida — Tiger Woods has a new golf venture. Woods and PopStroke, a company based in his hometown of Jupiter, FL., announced a partnership agreement 13 months ago, and it seems a fine fit after making a visit to its first facility. There is a tendency to think of PopStroke as a souped ...

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — Robert Trent Jones Sr. was the premier golf course architect of his generation, having designed about 450 courses around the world. Both of his sons – Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Rees – became prominent – and prolific – architects as well. Rees, for instance, has worked on a ton of golf ...

Rees Jones has worked on a ton of golf courses —  about 230 world-wide, according to the best estimates. He’s  well known as “The Open Doctor’’ because he’s been brought in to get fine existing courses in shape for big championships. That number includes seven courses used for U.S. Opens, nine for PGA Championships and ...

This has indeed been a strange year for the Western Golf Association. The organization’s two national junior tournaments had to be canceled due to pandemic concerns and its two professional events were rescheduled for the same reason. The WGA’s two history-rich amateur championships, however, are going on as scheduled. The 120th playing of the ...

Youth caddies are facing an uphill climb during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Just ask members of the Western Golf Association. They campaigned relentlessly to make sure caddies were not forgotten as golf courses were in various phases of re-opening. Happily, progress is being made. Golf is back to being played in all 50 states ...

JUPITER, FL. – Lots of things have changed since Dick Sheehan decided to settle in the Jupiter area in the late 1970s. “Nothing was here,’’ he said. “When I moved down here my intention was to create a marketing consultancy and focus on real estate. The market wasn’t nearly as sophisticated then as it would ...

Saturday’s airing of the Golfers on Golf Radio show (WCPT 820-AM) was devoted largely to Jim McWethy, the owner of Mistwood Golf Club, in Romeoville. Mistwood general manager Dan Bradley and Golfers on Golf regulars Rory Spears, Ed Stephenson and Bill Berger joined me in paying tribute to McWethy, who passed away last week after a ...

Putting courses aren’t exactly new. Many golf facilities – even storied St. Andrews in Scotland – are adding them as a extra amenity at their facilities. The one that we played Monday in Santee, S.C., is one of the better ones. It’s called Palmetto Traverse. Santee is a town of barely 1,000 residents but ...

Tiger Woods was a winner in his first televised golf appearance in 98 days on Sunday. No, it wasn’t his 83rd tournament title that would have broken a tie with Sam Snead for most wins on the PGA Tour but this was a big win nonetheless. It came in an event called The Match: Champions ...

It was, at the very least, a good start. Live televised sports competition returned on Sunday, and the TaylorMade Driving Relief event didn’t look much like the golf played by Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff at the last PGA Tour event on March 12. On Sunday the players all wore shorts, ...

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 ...

ONE IN A SERIES Rory Spears and Len Ziehm are combining efforts on golf travel destinations they’ve visited over the years. This one is on Myrtle Beach, S.C. MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Golf courses here – and there’s about ...

If ever a movie – especially a sports-themed one – merited an anniversary celebration it’d be “Caddyshack.’’ This movie didn’t really have a plot. It was just a series of memorable scenes with actors Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield the lead characters. Still, over the years its fan base grew and the ...

The opening of Chicago area golf courses was short-lived. Many, under the impression that Gov. J.B. Pritzker had given his approval, opened on Wednesday in an announcement made by a group named the Allied Golf Association. Its members encompassed the Illinois Section of the Professional Golfers Association, the Chicago District Golf Association and Midwest ...

To play golf, or not to play golf — that’s been a hot topic around lots of states during this coronavirus pandemic. In Illinois – especially since the recent snowfall has melted and temperatures have climbed over 60 degrees — it’s created confusion that was somewhat cleared up with a statement by the Illinois ...

It was back in 2010 that then Indiana governor Mitch Daniels triggered the creation of the Pete Dye Golf Trail to stimulate tourism in the Hoosier State. The following year Joy and I became among the first to play all seven courses on it. Back then I wrote that Dye was the most innovative golf ...

The number of men among the PGA of America’s 29,000 members far outnumber the women. That’s no secret, and the number of married couples working in the business as PGA members isn’t very big either. It’s under 100 nation-wide. What might be surprising out of that segment of the golf industry, though, involves two ...

The John Deere Classic has been played in the Quad Cities of Rock Island and Moline in Illinois and Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa for 48 years, but this year’s staging represents a significant milestone. It’ll be the 20th year the tournament has been played at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, which is on the outskirts ...

Book report time again – and this one’s different. I’ve always avoided political issues on both my Len Ziehm on Golf and personal Facebook pages. The many books I’ve read lately in the political arena only tend to trigger reactions – pro and con – that I’m not interested in exploring. Rick Reilly’s recently released ...

Chicago area players reaching the Ladies PGA Tour are few and far between. Only Nicole Jeray made it regularly over the last three decades and this year she’s decided to focus on a teaching job at Mistwood, in Romeoville. There will still be a local rooting interest on the premier women’s tour, however. ...

Dustin Johnson doesn’t live in Myrtle Beach, S.C., anymore but his game blossomed there when he was still an amateur, and he hasn’t forgotten those days. Johnson keeps many of his trophies at TPC Myrtle Beach. His golf academy is also there, and it got a major upgrade in time for the fourth playing of ...

We are delighted to announce another partnership agreement for the Len Ziehm on Golf website. Ohio-based Fred Altvater, a long-time friend and a golf teacher as well, is joining us on two levels. Fred’s Back 9 Media Group includes the Ohio Golf Journal, a fine digital publication that provides golf tips and articles on ...

In the early 1980s the Chicago amateur ranks were dominated by a fabulous foursome, David Ogrin, Gary Pinns, Gary Hallberg and Jerry Vidovic. Toss in Lance Ten Broeck and Roy Biancalana, who were slightly younger than that group, and you had what I consider the Golden Years of Chicago amateur golf. Ogrin, Hallberg and Ten ...

The Chicago area has hardly been rich in players on the pro golf tours in recent years, but that situation improved significantly last weekend. Arlington Heights’ Doug Ghim and Deerfield’s Vince India earned spots for 2019 on the Web.com Tour, the PGA Tour’s alternate circuit, and former world No. 1 Luke Donald, shaking off lingering back ...

The Illinois PGA changes its president every two years, and the most recent changing of the guard on Nov. 19 was much different than all the previous ones. When Jim Miller took over the reins from Mark Labiak the section gained an unusual new leader. Rarely has the IPGA had a president from a club outside ...

The Chicago District Golf Association has honored Players of the Year since 1993 and the Senior Player of the Year has been designated since 1995. Those so honored have earned a cherished place in golf history, and some have taken the honor to even greater heights. Joel Hirsch was the first CDGA superstar, winning the first ...

Let’s make this perfectly clear from the outset. This is not a farewell/retirement column. It’s a reflection on my first 50 years covering golf in the Chicago area and beyond. It’s been a great run that I envision continuing for many years to come. I consider the start coming at the 1968 Western Open ...

The Myrtle Beach Fall Classic had been a four-year success in the South Carolina golf mecca, but the fifth staging – which starts on Sunday and runs through Thursday, Nov. 15 – has turned into an event that’s both bigger and better. Landing Short Par 4 — a golf-inspired subscription service that ships hand curated, top ...

Six decades ago the Tam O’Shanter Country Club in suburban Chicago was among the most famous golf courses in the world. It was owned by George S. May back then, and May was a man far ahead of his time when it came to golf promotion. Tam O’Shanter opened in 1925. May took ownership in ...

FRENCH LICK, Indiana – Two players are inducted into the LPGA Legends Hall of Fame each year, and this year – for the first time — the two honorees were inducted on separate nights. Shelley Hamlin was honored at Thursday night’s opening night gala preceding the Senior LPGA Championship and Sherri Turner was inducted the following ...

Pinehurst Resort has kept up with the times golf-wise since its opening in 1895, and our regular visits over the last 20 years have described the many new things that Pinehurst has contributed to the golf world. It goes far beyond the big tournaments that have been played there. This time, though, our report on ...

The Downers Grove and Tam O’Shanter golf courses, once among the most famous in the United States, aren’t what they used to be. Both, though, are proof of that time-worn adage – “You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.’’ Downers Grove was, back in 1892, the America’s first 18-hole course. It – or at ...

The Illinois PGA’s Birdies for Charity event is one of those things that was good from the start and keeps getting better. That’ll be underscored again on Sept. 4 when the event is held for the eighth time at River Forest Country Club in Elmhurst. Birdies for Charity involves golf professionals playing 72 holes in ...

Jim Sobb’s playing record speaks for itself. The 30-year director of golf at Ivanhoe Club won eight of the Illinois PGA’s four major tournaments, including the IPGA Championship three times. He also won nine of the section’s Senior majors, and this month he’ll go after his sixth title in the IPGA Senior Championship. He has ...

Six decades ago the Tam O’Shanter Country Club in suburban Chicago was among the most famous golf courses in the world. It was owned by George S. May back then, and May was a man far ahead of his time when it came to golf promotion. Tam O’Shanter opened in 1925. May took ownership in ...

Last year Highwood’s Patrick Flavin did something very special, winning both the Illinois State Amateur and Illinois Open. No player had won both in the same year since David Ogrin did it in 1980. This year Flavin will try to do something even more special. He’ll try to repeat in both. No player has ...

There are plenty of good players among the assistant professionals in the Illinois IPGA. That’s why Chris French’s domination of the 2017 Assistants Player of the Year race is so impressive. French, one of two assistants under director of golf operations Duncan Geddes at Aldeen Golf Club in Rockford, accumulated 3,139.9 points in last year’s ...

If ever there was a player who could dominate a tournament it’d be Bernhard Langer at the Constellation Senior Players Championship. The 60-year old German star won the tournament in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and finished second to Scott McCarron last year. Langer will try to get back on the winning side when the 36th staging ...

There was never a doubt about the beauty of Balsam Mountain Preserve, a private club located in the hills of Western North Carolina. The abundant views of Doubletop Mountain made the site attractive to – among others — the Arnold Palmer Design company, which built one of the most visually stunning mountain courses in ...

A golf professional’s job is never an easy one. Some inevitably wind up working harder than others, however. And then there’s Tony Semonick. Semonick, 28, has worked on head professional Jim Sobb’s staff at Ivanhoe Club since his graduation from Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., in 2012. His work days aren’t like any other assistant ...

While PGA Tour Champions has always been fun to cover, I’ve always felt there was one thing that was strange about it — the circuit’s designated major championships. Like the LPGA, the Champions circuit has designated five tournaments as major championships, while the PGA Tour has stuck to just four – the Masters, U.S. Open, ...

The Illinois PGA has been awarding its Bernardi Trophy to the section’s Player-of-the-Year for 46 years, and Jim Billiter has been a factor in two of the more interesting races. Understandably, more Bernardi points are available in the section’s four annual major championships – the IPGA Match Play, the Illinois Open, the IPGA Championship and the ...

`Caddyshack’ may not be my favorite sports movie. I still lean towards `Chariots of Fire.’ `Caddyshack’ isn’t even my favorite golf movie. I give the nod there to `The Greatest Game Ever Played.’ Still, there’s no movie I’ve watched more times than the classic golf comedy that was filmed nearly 40 years ago. I had ...

Book review time. If you ever wanted to know what Tiger Woods’ life has really been like this creation – titled simply “Tiger Woods’’ – is a must read. Certainly anybody who has reported on golf should check it out. Co-authors Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian were more than qualified to take on this project ...

Jane Blalock, who provided the only tournament options for Ladies PGA members once they reached the senior ranks, was – most appropriately – among the first two special exemptions into the first U.S. Senior Women’s Open that will come to Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton in July. The U.S. Golf Association also issued a special invite ...

ORLANDO, Florida – The PGA Merchandise Show is – as far as the golf industry is concerned – the major annual event for the sport, and last week’s 65th staging of the show at the Orange County Convention Center underscored that. The Show, which draws about 40,000 visitors annually, featured more than 7,500 PGA professionals from ...

RevelationGolf has done lots of good things since Elk Grove resident Donna Strum created the program in 2005. Strum, a therapeutic recreation specialist, quit a job at a hospital to work with children and adults with physical disabilities, breast cancer survivors and at-risk youth. It wasn’t until two years later, Strum and her assistant, Kathy Williams, ...

I’m excited, and most appreciative. Last night three of my pieces from 2017 were cited in the 24th annual International Network of Golf Media Awards presentation, which climaxed the first day of the 65th PGA Merchandise Show at the Orange County Convention Center. My Daily Herald piece, “Koepka wins first major,’’ was the winner in the ...

PGA National Resort & Spa, home of the PGA Tour’s Honda Classic, is up for sale. The resort, which includes five courses in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., fetched $170 million when it was acquired by Walton Street Capital of Chicago in 2006 from a Florida investor, according to a report in the Palm Beach Post. Another ...

I was just sad to learn of the passing of Dick Nugent, the long-time Chicago golf course architect, on New Year’s Day. I don’t know more details, but Nugent was 87 — a very nice man and and one of the most prolific architects in the Chicago area. A University of Illinois graduate — he also ...

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida – This is what I was told. Jack Nicklaus designed the Legend Course at The Club at Ibis for an opening in 1991. More than 20 years passed, and club members asked Nicklaus to come back and check it out again. He did, and his immediate comment was `What was ...

I have a new favorite golf hero, and his name isn’t Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth or even Tiger Woods. Did you ever hear of Ralph Kennedy? Not many have. Kennedy died in 1961 at the age of 79. His claim to golfing fame didn’t come in winning big tournaments. It came from ...

The Illinois PGA has few members to rival Katie Pius. In fact, there really aren’t any with the background that this assistant professional at Biltmore Country Club in North Barrington has. Gender-wise the Illinois Section is noteworthy in having, in Carrie Williams, one of the three women to hold executive director posts in the PGA of ...

When it comes to analyzing the latest in golf equipment I tend to defer to Jason Bruno, my Florida golf website partner who is a scratch player. I’m clearly not. Bruno, the creator of the LinksNation website, and I had a catch-up round this week – our first since I returned from the Chicago ...

With cold weather bringing the Chicago golf season to a close, the top players need to travel to find competition – and that’s what the PGA Junior League team from Cog Hill in Lemont is doing again. Cog Hill’s team, captained by Kevin Weeks and coached by Clayton Pendergraft, earned a return to this week’s eight-team ...

Ed Stevenson’s name doesn’t appear on the leaderboard in any Illinois PGA tournaments. Only very rarely has he even played in them. Still, Stevenson is considered by all as the consummate PGA professional. That was underscored recently when Stevenson was promoted to a lofty position beyond his duties as director of golf at The ...

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina – For 50 years now Myrtle Beach has been one of America’s foremost golf meccas for one major reason. The owners of its nearly 90 courses know how to work together. That’ll be underscored shortly when Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday puts on the biggest tournament in golf – at least when ...

Finally, after several years of political debate and two years in the construction phase, The Preserve at Oak Meadows is ready to welcome golfers. Economic conditions being what they area, new golf courses are a rarity anywhere and the wait to see how The Preserve would turn out has been a tantalizing one. “We looked at renderings, ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – How significant is the first Senior LPGA Championship that tees off today on the Pete Dye Course here? Well, it’s so important that Murle Breer was willing to come out of a long hibernation from tournaments to be involved in big-time golf just one more time. Breer is 78 years old and ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – The Legends Hall of Fame inductions had been a seasonal highlight at French Lick Resort the last four years, but none of the previous celebrations was like the event staged on Saturday night in the Hoosier Ballroom of the hotel’s Event Center. According to script the induction was to honor two more ...

Just how good can things get for the John Deere Classic? Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event will be played for the 47th time from July 10-16 at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, IL., on the outskirts of the Quad Cities of Moline and Rock Island in Illinois and Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa. That’s the smallest ...

I suspected finding a theater to watch “Tommy’s Honour,’’ the newest golf-themed movie, might be difficult and I was right. The movie made its U.S. debut on April 14 when we were in the golf hotbed of Myrtle Beach, S.C. Much to my surprise, no theaters were showing it there. A few days later ...

NICEVILLE, Florida – Every year we’ve made a conscious effort to visit some of the 53 courses on the Florida Historic Golf Trail. This Trail isn’t like many of the others around the country. Its courses are selected for historical purposes, and more states should create such trails. The Florida courses must be open ...

I’m happy to announce the addition of a sixth golf website partnership for www.lenziehmongolf.com. Jason Bruno’s LinksNation.com is our first website partner in Florida. Bruno, from West Palm Beach, founded LinksNation in 2009 and is also a contributor to GolfLife.com as a PGA Tour reporter While LinksNation specializes in course and resort travel features Bruno’s site will ...

Who is the smallest player to compete successfully on the PGA Tour? My guess is that it was Bob Toski. He stood 5-foot-7 and his fighting weight in his playing days was just 118 pounds. There may have been shorter players, but none lighter. Now 90, Toski’s stature in golf is that of a giant. ...

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida – The Florida Swing of the PGA Tour season, which tees off on Thursday at PGA National, has changed dramatically from a year ago. One tournament, known since 2011 as the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship, left its home of 55 years at Trump National Doral’s Blue Course in Miami and moved to ...

PORT ST. LUCIE, Florida — We received a great inside look at women’s college golf when we volunteered to host a player participating in the Central District Invitational on the St. Lucie Trail course here. What an eye-opening experience it was! Michigan State University hosted the tournament, and the players on all 14 participating ...

BOCA RATON, Florida — You don’t see this very often any more. Fred Couples is healthy for a change, and John Daly is not only belting his tee shots further than last year, his drives are straighter, too. Those two items are what matter most going into the start of Florida’s turn to host the men’s ...

ORLANDO, FL. — Be it clubs, balls, training devices or apparel, the PGA Merchandise Show always has something to intrigue every type of golfer. The 64th staging of this biggest show in golf ended its four-day run on Friday at the Orange County Convention Center with 40,000 industry members from all 50 states and 19 ...

The Chicago Golf Show, presented by French Lick Resort, is expanding the program available to its visitors. A new four-color glossy magazine-style program will be available when the show is staged for the 33rd time from Feb. 24-26 at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. Chicagoland Golf, which publishes monthly during the local season, will oversee ...

Arcadia Bluffs and Forest Dunes have battled for the status of Michigan’s best public course for several years, so it should come as no surprise that construction of a second course will begin on Nov. 1 at Arcadia. And there’s no better place to begin another round of our “offseason” travel-related golf reports. Forest Dunes, in ...

The course reconstruction is done, at least for this fall. Course architect Greg Martin has the new routing for what had been the Oak Meadows golf course in place, the turf is starting to grow in and the Wadsworth Construction equipment is departing the 288-acre property in Addison. In short, the anticipation is growing – ...

For at least two decades Jeff Sluman has been the Chicago area’s premier player on the Champions Tour. He still is, but no longer can he be referred to as “Hinsdale’s Jeff Sluman.’’ Sluman revealed at the Western Golf Association’s preview for the 2018 Constellation Senior Players Championship on Wednesday that he’s no longer a ...

GLENVIEW, Illinois – SpeedGolf, a sport created 14 years ago, combines a player’s golf score with his time covering 18 holes – and Jamie Young is good at it. So good, in fact, that he’s now the world champion. Young, 52, from Kenosha, WI., won the World SpeedGolf Championship at The Glen Club on Tuesday. ...

Emily Fletcher may not have been the best known of the 22 winners of the Women’s Western Golf Association’s Woman of Distinction Award, but she certainly was a popular choice at the group’s annual meeting and luncheon on Thursday at Indian Hill Club in Winnetka. Fletcher received two standing ovations while accepting an award that was ...

It took considerable time to find the book “Unfriended: The Power Brokers, Political Correctness and Hypocrisy in Golf.’’ That’s Ted Bishop’s account of the events surrounding his controversial impeachment as president of the PGA of America. Apparently it’s most readily found as a Nook offering. At least that’s how I found it. After getting ...

Arlington Lakes has been an 18-hole facility operated by the Arlington Heights Park District since 1979, so it was due for its first renovation. The result, though, was far beyond most expectations when the course re-opened on July 1. The course had been closed for 13 months to allow architect Mike Benkusky to completely ...

ERIN, Wisconsin – The first thing you notice is the scorecard. The official yardage for Erin Hills at the 2017 U.S. Open is whopping 7,693 yards. That may make it the longest course in the 117-year history of the U.S. Open, though U.S. Golf Association staffers on site weren’t ready to confirm that. “But ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – Weather conditions were less than ideal when the fourth annual Legends Championship teed off Saturday on the Pete Dye Course at French Lick Resort. A tee time adjustment, calling for play to begin off both the Nos. 1 and 10 tees, was made when afternoon rains entered into the forecast. The ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. — The Ladies PGA Tour took two weeks off from tournaments to avoid conflict with the Olympic Games in Brazil, and the men’s PGA Tour greatly revised its schedule during that time period. That wasn’t the case with The Legends Tour, the official senior circuit of the LPGA. Its biggest tournament ...

Lake Shore’s Bob Koschmann and Itasca’s Phil Benson were honored Monday at the 24th Illinois PGA Senior Masters Championship at Onwentsia Club in Lake Forest. Koschmann is wrapping up his 40th, and final, season at Lake Shore in Glenview. He learned of an opening at Lake Shore while working as a caddie for PGA Tour player ...

This is a milestone year for one of the Chicago area’s very special golf facilities. St. Andrews is turning 90 years old, and only a handful of other golf clubs – private or public — have lasted that long. Not only that, but St. Andrews’ road to success has been done family style. None of ...

A sports event like no other will soon be hitting the Chicago area soon. The UL International Crown is a women’s golf event – nothing so unusual about that – but it’s also a team competition with a global feel. Only the Ryder Cup, for men, and Solheim Cup, for women, fall into that category ...

After eight years the Web.com Tour is back. This is going to be fun. The PGA Tour’s developmental circuit was just that when it held tournaments at Kemper Lakes in 2002 and The Glen Club from 2003 to 2008. The return event has very little to do with those. In fact, the only link ...

SOUTHERN PINES, North Carolina – The GolfBoard wasn’t exactly a smash hit when it made its debut at the PGA Merchandise Show in 2014. Still, those who tried this means of golf course transportation that falls somewhere between a skateboard and cart generally gave it favorable reviews. During our ongoing roving nationwide tour of golf ...

DURHAM, North Carolina — Everything that I had heard suggested The First Tee program was a most worthwhile thing, but I’d never seen the program in action until my grandson, Sterling Stewart, joined The First Tee of the Triangle for youngsters between the ages of 7-10. Sterling, 7, had a better introduction to golf than I ...

The Diversey Driving Range is a Chicago landmark, no doubt about that. There are bigger ranges around the country. Some also might be considered more beautiful, or more elaborate, but few – if any – have as much history or are as popular as this facility that has withstood the tests of time. Diversey was built ...

Big-time women’s golf has come to Chicago only sporadically over the years. Now that’s about to change. Next year the UL International Crown comes to Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. In 2017 the new KPMG Women’s PGA Championship will be played at Olympia Fields, and then in 2018 that same big championship will come ...

PGA Tour players see a lot of golf courses and, somewhat amazingly, they remember – at least in general terms – what most of them look like. That wasn’t quite the case when the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup Playoffs gathered at Conway Farms in Lake Forest in September for the BMW Championship. ...

Theirs is a success story unlike most others in the world of golf. For starters, the Aurora-based Nadler clan has the longevity factor going. Nadler Golf Cars has been in business over 50 years and is still going strong. Through it all, it’s remained a family business that is now a third-generation operation servicing nearly ...

The 115th U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields couldn’t have gone much better. The weather was great, the champion showed potential for long-term greatness and Fox Sports – new to golf broadcasting – presented Olympia Fields in a very positive light. Dave Allard, the club’s chairman for the event, said U.S. Golf Assn. officials told him ...

Eri Crum arrived at Stanford University in 1994, the same year that Tiger Woods did. They were teammates on the school’s golf team for two years, before Woods started his legendary career as a touring pro. Crum stayed at Stanford, earning his letter in golf his final two seasons, and now he’s still involved in ...

What would be your reaction be if a playing partner arrived at the first tee with a full set of golf clubs, but no golf bag? That’s what happened to me when long-time friend Brett Detterbeck arrived with a backpack – much like the type that high school students use to carry their books. A ...

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 — ...

A three-year project to renovate its bunkers is over, and Kemper Lakes is ready to “Restore the Roar.’’ The club, based in Chicago’s northwest suburb of Kildeer, wants big tournaments again, and the new looks that Libertyville architect Rick Jacobson created with the bunkers should help. “The renovations are now complete, and it’s been a seamless ...

You might think that Carlos Sainz Jr. would be down in the dumps after enduring eight missed cuts, seven of them in a row, to start his rookie season on the PGA Tour. That was certainly not the case, though, as the Elgin golfer approached the midway point of the season. “I’m excited,’’ said Sainz during ...

I guess you can learn something every day. I thought I knew a bit about Donald Ross, the famed golf designer, but I didn’t realize he had designed only one public course in Illinois. That course is Ravisloe in Homewood, which went public when Claude Gendreau purchased the club in 2009. Cheryl Justak, publisher of Golf ...

For reasons that have long escaped me, Tom Bendelow is still not in the World Golf Hall of Fame. He was the course architect that, perhaps more than any other, got golf started in the United States. That’s especially evident in the Chicago area. Bendelow’s name has been on about 800 courses that were built ...

There doesn’t seem to be nearly as many golf charity events as there once was, but the Medinah Patriot Day outing certainly isn’t having any problems. In fact, after six years, it’s growing big-time. I was among the 140 golfers that participated in Tuesday’s event on Medinah’s No. 2 course. Jim Cornelison highlighted the pre-golf ...

Phil Mickelson called the soon-to-be-released “The Squeeze’’ as “the best golf movie ever.’’ That’s a stretch when you put it beside my two favorites – the first version of “CaddieShack’’ and “The Greatest Game Ever Played.’’’ “The Squeeze,’’ however, certainly provided a lot of fun for the audience at its Chicago premier showing in Skokie ...

The U.S. Golf Assn. has finally committed to holding a national championship for senior women players. Though long overdue, that’s good news. On the other hand, the first such tournament won’t be held until 2018 and there will be differences between the first U.S. Senior Women’s Open and the only other major event for senior ...

ORLANDO, FL. – The PGA of America has been holding its Merchandise Show for 62 years. In recent years it’s been generally overwhelming, frequently chaotic and always informative. It’s also, for many, a hint that spring – and the heart of the golf season –isn’t all that far away. This year’s PGA Merchandise Show ...

ORLANDO, FL. — Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Good celebrated in 100th anniversary in 2014 and more good things could be coming down the road. Wilson certainly has had the most entertaining TV ad campaign in golf the last few years. The latest version of the “Seriously!’’ ads, featuring Guy Johnson, made its debut on Golf Channel ...

Given the economic climate of the last few years it’s understandable that golf course owners might be reluctant to take on expensive projects. That hasn’t been the case at Mistwood in Romeoville, however. In the last three years owner Jim McWethy brought back Michigan architect Ray Hearn for a renovation of a course that he ...

Chicago has never been rich in PGA Tour players over at least the last three decades, but there’ll be a new one on golf’s premier circuit in the 2014-15 season. Elgin’s Carlos Sainz Jr. earned his PGA Tour card by virtue of his play on the Web.com Tour this year. Sainz, 28, barely made it through ...

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 ...

Long before there was a Ladies Professional Golf Assn. there was the Women’s Western Golf Assn. This organization has spearheaded golf for girls and women since 1901. This week the WWGA honored two of its longstanding leaders. Susan Wagner and Audrey Peterson were presented with Woman of Distinction Awards at the WWGA’s annual meeting ...

Sure, there’s plenty of golf to be played in the Chicago area for a few more weeks but the Chicago Open will be it as far as big-time competition goes. It begins with a pro-am on Oct. 3 and the three-day, 54-hole tournament proper tees off on Oct. 5, with everything again going on ...

WEST POINT, MS. – Juli Inkster’s biggest year in a stellar golf career came in 1999 when she won the U.S. Women’s Open, the LPGA Championship and three other tournaments while also qualifying for the Hall of Fame. There’s nothing wrong with looking back fondly on a year like that 15 years later, and Inkster had ...

WEST POINT, MS. – One of America’s premier golf families has a dilemma this week. In what is most likely an historical first, the family’s two most prominent golfijng members will be playing in major international team competitions at the same time. While Keegan Bradley will be trying to help the U.S. team regain the ...

As exciting as this first International Crown figures to be, the second staging in 2016 could well be even more eye-catching. It’ll be played at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, IL., 46 miles west of Chicago. Rich Harvest is a much different place than Caves Valley. The ultra-private club has only 100 members. ...

It’s back to Chicago for the BMW Championship. The Western Golf Assn. will continue its policy of playing its premier event close to its home base every other year, and Conway Farms will again be the site of tourney after it leaves Cherry Hills. It’ll next be contested from Sept. 14-20 in 2015. Conway ...

HARBOR SPRINGS, MI. – Terry Carlson thought his working life was done after being a head golf professional in the Chicago area for 26 years and then getting a big sendoff into retirement at a prestigious club in Arizona. Forty years as a club professional plus one as a player on the Champions Tour seemed ...

The U.S. Golf Assn. is based in Far Hills, N.J., and its leaders don’t get to Chicago all that much. That’s why Tom O’Toole’s recent stopover offered a good opportunity to find out what’s new with golf’s ruling body in the United States. O’Toole, the USGA president, is from St. Louis. He’s been ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. — Braden Tamosaitis got to roll some putts on the Pete Dye Course on Saturday and also meet many of the players competing in the second round of the LPGA Legends Championship. Braden, age 9, enjoyed the experience thoroughly and the players he touched most certainly did, as well. “He’s a special little ...

Ashtyn Brown’s final swing at the LPGA Legends Championship may not have produced the desired result, but there’s no doubt she was the star of the show. As the ambassador for Riley Children’s Hospital at IU Health, Ashtyn was the honorary starter for the 54-hole tournament on Friday. She hooked her tee shot, just a ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. — Jane Blalock and Nancy Lopez will be inducted into the LPGA Legends Hall of Fame on Thursday night. They’ll also oversee ribbon-cutting at the circuit’s new Hall of Fame at the West Baden Springs Hotel. The big night precedes Friday’s start to the 54-hole LPGA Legends Championship on the spectacular Pete ...

The LPGA’s first International Crown competition ended less than a week ago and already preparations are well underway for the second staging, in July of 2016 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove. Rich Harvest owner Jerry Rich, LPGA star Anna Nordquist from Sweden and LPGA commissioner Mike Whan (left to right) hosted a Launch ...

The first International Crown concludes Sunday at Caves Valley, in Owings Mills, Md., but a Saturday gathering that wasn’t held anywhere near the course will have a more direct bearing on how the event plays out at Rich Harvest Farms in 2016. Jerry Rich, in the forefront during the Crown’s creation, hosted a Watch Party ...

Sooner rather than later one of Tiger Woods’ longest-standing course records will be broken. I suspect it won’t take long. Curtis Malm just needs to find someone willing to play the championship tees with him at White Eagle Golf Club. No one plays back there these days on White Eagle’s Red-White rotation of nines ...

The John Deere Classic wasn’t always the John Deere Classic. Illinois’ only visit from the PGA Tour in 2014 had a modest beginning. For starters, it was called the Quad Cities Open and was only a satellite event on the circuit in 1971. That first event was played on 6501-yard Crow Valley Country Club in ...

Erin Hills has undergone more than its share of tweaks in its brief history, but interest in the layout 35 miles northwest of Milwaukee has never wavered. In fact, enthusiasm for the course has grown with each of the changes made since the opening in 2006. It’s good news, though, that the alterations are just about ...

I found this interesting. My introduction to golf came at age 11 when my mother took me to Mission Hills, then a 27-hole public facility in Northbrook, IL., along with another mother and her son, who was about my age. We still lived on the northwest side of Chicago then and didn’t move to ...

The Champions Tour players didn’t all leave town after the Encompass Championship concluded. Many in Sunday’s field stayed around for Monday’s sectional qualifying round for the U.S. Senior Open at Village Links of Glen Ellyn. Ninety players will battle for six spots in the Senior Open proper, to be held at Oak Tree in Edmond, Okla., ...

The 12th event on the Champions Tour’s 2014 schedule, the $1.8 million Encompass Championship, begins its 54-hole run on Friday at North Shore Country Club in Glenview. Last of the event’s three pro-ams is on tap for Thursday and the first two rounds of the 54-hole tourney proper will have a tournament within a tournament, with ...

For American golfers June is the biggest month of the year. It’s U.S. Open time, and this June will be different than all the others. This time you need a primer to know what will be going on, so here goes: The men’s U.S. Open dates back to 1895 and the U.S. Women’s Open to ...

By Len Ziehm There’s a drawback to designating one prime superstar in a sport. That policy can work to the detriment of others, and that’s what happened this week, when Tiger Woods announced he wouldn’t play in this year’s Masters. In this case the victim was the LPGA, which had its own big news to ...

DAYTONA BEACH, FL. – I’ll let you in on a secret. The trophy that will go to the winner of the LPGA’s biggest-ever event will be one of the most impressive in all of sports. I received a sneak preview of the prize that the players in the new International Crown event will play for ...

The lenziehmongolf.com website is proud to announce a sixth partnership agreement – and this one is much different than the other five. Dave “Links’’ Lockhart (left), who has worked for over 20 years in the golf media business and created three award-winning golf TV shows, is bringing his LinksVideo.net to a golf promotional effort that includes ...

We Illinois golf fanatics had best disregard the state line boundaries. Our neighbor to the north, Wisconsin, isn’t far away – no matter where you live in Illinois – and that’s where the action is these days. It’d be a shame not to enjoy it to the fullest. For whatever reason, golf progress in Illinois ...

ORLANDO, FL. – It’s become a tradition now. For the ninth straight year David Glod, president of Batavia-based Tour Edge, has gotten a jump on his club manufacturing rivals at the massive 61st annual PGA Merchandise Show. The biggest show in golf begins a three-day run at the Orange County Convention Center on Wednesday with ...

The LPGA Legends Tour announced its schedule for 2014 last week, and it’s good one. This circuit for players 45 and over continued its slow but steady growth and created more attractive dates for its biggest championship. Still, the circuit has a glaring absence on the slate for its 14th season. The Legends – ...

By Len Ziehm The Chicago area will have three new players competing on a major pro golf tour in 2014. Carlos Sainz Jr., Andy Pope and Vince India all advanced through the rigorous Web.com Tour qualifying school this week. With the PGA Tour revamping its qualifying procedure, its satellite Web.com circuit claimed the survivors of ...

BRADENTON, FL. – The Ryder Cup matches have produced plenty of drama over the years, but one of the most memorable events in the competition didn’t involve anyone hitting a shot. It came in 1969 at England’s Royal Birkdale, in the final singles match between American Jack Nicklaus and England’s Tony Jacklin. Nicklaus conceded a two-foot ...

Jerry Rich’s dream took its first big step towards reality immediately after the 2013 LPGA season concluded Sunday with Shanshan Feng’s victory in the CME Group Titleholders tourney at Tiburon in Naples, FL. That was the last event in which countries could earn points for participation in next year’s inaugural International Crown event. Rich (pictured below) ...

The best player in the Illinois section of the PGA is moving. Curtis Malm, the IPGA Player-of-the-Year in 2012 and 2013 while an assistant professional at St. Charles Country Club, has moved to White Eagle in Naperville as the head professional. Malm, who spent five seasons at St. Charles, won the Illinois Open as an amateur in ...

The top high school golfers from across the country made their college commitments this week in the NCAA’s early signing period. One of them earned his scholarship the hard way. Doug Ghim, an Arlington Heights resident and senior at Buffalo Grove, landed a scholarship to traditional collegiate powerhouse Texas even though he didn’t play a ...

The team of Matt Kuchar and Gary Woodland gave the U.S. its first victory in 11 years in the last staging of the World Cup of Golf. Now Wheaton’s Kevin Streelman will be part of the U.S. title defense. The World Cup, first played in 1953, is a two-man team competition with players chosen off ...

Pat Goss and Jeff Mory, both long prominent in Chicago golf, are busy guys. Goss is director of golf at Northwestern, head coach of the NU men’s team and the swing coach of Luke Donald. Mory is director of golf at Conway Farms, the Lake Forest course that includes Donald among its members. It will ...

Owner Jim McWethy has made still another enhancement to his Mistwood golf club, in Romeoville, IL. McWethy has announced that Dr. Jim Suttie has joined the teaching staff that will work out of Mistwood’s Performance Center. Suttie said that the chance to work in the new state-of-the-art facility led to him ending his long relationship with Cog ...

Lenziehmongolf.com is delighted to announce another partnership agreement, this one with veteran Wisconsin golf writer Brian Weis. Weis is publisher of GolfTrips.com – a network of golf travel and directory sites that include GolfWisconsin.com, GolfMichigan.com, ArizonaGolfers.com and GolfAlabama.com. His venture into golf began in 2004 with the launching of GolfWisconsin.com. Its success spurred the creation of a network ...

Big golf events used to be commonplace in Chicago. Now, not so much. No U.S. Opens or PGA Championships are scheduled in these parts. The PGA Tour comes only every other year, for the BMW Championship. The LPGA and Buy.com Tour no longer make annual stops here. Only the Champions Tour, with its new ...

Clair Peterson, tournament director for the John Deere Classic, has felt blessed – and with good reason. From 2009-2011 he had a very popular champion whose presence enhanced the interest in the JDC. Steve Stricker, from nearby Madison, Wis., tried to become only the fifth golfer in 140 years to win a major professional tournament ...

Officials for the Encompass Championship, which brings golf’s Champions Tour back to Chicago for the first time in 12 years next month, held their kickoff event on Monday at North Shore Country Club in Glenview. They announced the latest player commitments for the June 17-23 event included 16 major championships winners – Mark Calcavecchia, Ben ...

There are two major changes coming to amateur golf in the Chicago area for 2013. Both involve scheduling, and both represent improvements from the way things were. For starters, the Chicago District Golf Assn. made one major schedule change, as well as a few others. The big one has the men’s 83rd Illinois State ...

Luke Donald is just one of three Illinois players in their year’s Masters field. The other two – Kevin Streelman and D.A. Points – are in the field for the first time since making their tournament debuts in 2011. Streelman (75-74) and Points (72-76) both failed to survive the 36-hole cut in their Masters debuts, ...

Winfield’s Kevin Streelman wasn’t the only Illinois golfer earning a trip to the Masters in March. D.A. Points, the former University of Illinois golfer, also did it by winning the Shell Houston Open last Sunday. Like Streelman, Points will be making his second Masters appearance next week; both missed the cut in 2011. Unlike ...

The Daily Herald joined forces with the staff of the Cantigny Golf Academy in Wheaton to celebrate the start of another Chicago golf season. Following introductions by Eileen Brown, the Herald’s director of Innovation and Audience Development, over 80 Daily Herald Total Access subscribers received a tour of the Academy from head professional Patrick Lynch and ...

You might notice there’s a new, old golf publication making its debut at the 30th Chicago Golf Show. Sound confusing? Let me explain. Chicago Area Golf was the publication that provided coverage of the Chicago golf scene the last three years. Starting with this issue the publication that will do the same job ...

The Chicago Golf Show celebrates its 30th anniversary beginning on Friday, and some significance announcements will be made as part of the festivities. For one thing, the Chicago Open will be revived again, this time as a fundraiser for the Illinois Junior Golf Association. And Val Russell, publisher of the golf newspaper called Chicago Area ...

A golf professional’s job was much different when Bill Ogden ran the shop at North Shore Country Club. Ogden not only could compete at the highest level, but he also was a master at handling the detail work that was required on the job. The Chicago area never has had a club pro as widely successful ...

ORLANDO, FL. – The Ladies PGA Tour is returning to Chicago – but it won’t be until 2016. And then it will be for the staging of an extraordinary new team event. Mike Whan, the LPGA commissioner, highlighted the first day of the 60th PGA Merchandise Show by announcing the arrival of the International Crown event. ...

ORLANDO, FL. – The 60th annual PGA Merchandise Show teed off with a massive Demo Day on Wednesday but Chicago club manufacturer Tour Edge got a jump on the opposition a day early. The Batavia-based company, in its eighth annual Multi-Manufacturers Media Day outing at the Legacy Club, introduced its first variable-fit driver. It was ...

The Chicago Golf Show will get a big boost for its 30th anniversary staging next month. Rarely has the show, to be held Feb. 22-24 at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, had a presenting sponsor. The last time the Show was so blessed was in 2009, when South Carolina golf mecca Myrtle Beach took the ...

IT ZIEHMS TO ME: New pros for Medinah, Exmoor; Eskimo celebrates 50th anniversary Mike Scully ended a 10-year stint as Medinah Country Club’s director of golf as soon as the Ryder Cup ended. Now the club has selected his replacement. Marty DeAngelo will take over Scullly’s former position on Jan. 21. Like Scully he comes ...

After reading “King of Clubs: The Great Golf Marathon of 1938’’ I felt there was a message to be delivered about how bad slow play has gotten. Virginia-based sports writing veteran Jim Ducibella recounts the story of J. Smith Ferebee, a Chicago stockbroker and Olympia Fields Country Club member who was briefly in the national spotlight ...

Rarely does a Chicago golfer get through a qualifying school for any of the professional tours. This year, though, two did – and their roads to success couldn’t be much more different. Wilmette’s Eric Meierdierks, a 27-year old with only one PGA start to his credit, made it all the way to the PGA Tour ...

PGA Tour qualifying school hasn’t been kind to the few Illinois golfers who have tried it over the years, but that wasn’t the case this week. Eric Meierdierks, the 2010 Illinois Open champion from Wilmette, and Scott Langley, the 2010 NCAA champion for the University of Illinois, both earned their PGA Tour cards during the six-round ...

Anybody who follows the golf scene in Illinois should tune in to what happens the next few days in the final stage of the PGA Tour’s Qualifying School at PGA West in California. Wilmette’s Eric Mierdierks, winner of the 2010 Illinois Open at Hawthorn Woods and runnerup (in a playoff) to Chicago’s Max Scodro at The ...

There wasn’t much movement in Chicago’s club professional ranks the past few years, but that’s not the case now. Already five well-established head pros have announced plans to move on. The move creating the most ripple effect was Mike Scully’s departure from Medinah immediate after the Ryder Cup. He is now in charge at Desert ...

Illinois PGA will have a different challenge if the section decides to keep its first major tourney of 2013 at Kemper Lakes. The club, which hosted the 1989 PGA Championship, the 1992 U.S. Women’s Amateur and several Champions Tour stops before it became a private venue in 2009, has begun a renovation project. Taking small steps ...

I may have felt that a 125-pound 14-year old would have to be teeing it up in the Masters before there was a need for me to write a golf column for primarily Midwest readers in the cold weather months. Oops, now there is such a rare golfer– or at least there will be in another ...

The Western Golf Assn. and the Women’s Western Golf Assn., now in partnership, are honoring two of the greats of the game. The WWGA named Mickey Wright this year’s Woman of Distinction honoree at a luncheon on Thursday at Lake Shore Country Club in Glencoe. The award was first passed out in 1994 when another ...

The first big thing that Jose Maria Olazabal, the European Ryder Cup captain, did for team was get his players some special golf bags. All 12 of them arrived at the first tee this week at Medinah with bags emblazoned with the iconic silhouette depicting the late Seve Ballesteros’ British Open title in 1984. That silhouette ...

Go ahead, I dare you! Show me one American city that has a richer golf history than Chicago. I don’t think you can do it. Of course, as a golf writer here for over 40 years, I may be prejudiced. Still, I can’t think of another city with such a broad background of action on the ...

It’s hard to imagine Luke Donald drawing hecklers when the 39th Ryder Cup matches tee off on Friday at Medinah Country Club. But it could happen. A former NCAA champion for Northwestern, Donald has been a class act since establishing residence in Chicago 15 years ago. He married a Chicago woman, kept his NU coach ...

Roger Warren got his start in golf while living in the Chicago area. He went on to big things in the game, and now he’s back. Warren will captain the U.S. in the Junior Ryder Cup competition, which begins at 5 p.m. on Sunday with opening ceremonies at Olympia Fields Country Club. After two days ...

FRENCH LICK, Ind. – For 11 years Jane Blalock has tried to get a senior tour going for the veterans or retirees on the Ladies PGA Tour. Now she’s apparently done it. Blalock, the LPGA’s rookie-of-the-year in 1970 and a 27-time winner on the circuit, has made the LPGA Legends Tour her special project. She’s ...

The upcoming Ryder Cup is much more than a three-day golf competition between the top touring professionals from the United States and Europe. It also encompasses a load of junior events that the PGA of America hopes will help grow the sport. Medinah Country Club will host some – but not all – of them. Most ...

It’s getting close now. The biggest event in Chicago’s rich golf history tees off at Medinah Country Club on Sept. 28, but plenty will be going on before then. September will be a month like no other for golf excitement in Chicago. Medinah knows what big-time golf is all about, having been the site of ...

Four prominent members of golf’s Champions Tour learned of Augusta National’s decision to admit two women as members just as they were about to announce a new tournament coming to Chicago. All were delighted that the annual site of the Masters tournament was ending its all-male membership policy, and at least one wasn’t even surprised. “I ...

Jeff Sluman showed up at Chicago’s East Bank Club on Monday for the announcement of the return of golf’s Champions Tour to Chicago. The 50-and-over circuit will compete in the $1.8 million Encompass Championship at North Shore Country Club in Glenview next June 17-23. But, first things first. Long before the circuit’s return to Chicago for ...

The first in a long line of upcoming Ryder Cup announcements is coming up on Aug. 7. That’s when Roger Warren will announce the six boys and six girls on the U.S. team for the Junior Ryder Cup. This is just one of many events surrounding the big show coming to Medinah Sept. 25-30. The PGA ...

The “Big Three’’ was born on Jan. 2, 2012, when three Chicago-based golf websites joined forces to provide different perspectives on the game we love. While we have worked together on an informal basis the past six months, the impact of that joint affiliation will become more clearly evident in the next two weeks as ...

TINLEY PARK, IL. – At first it seemed a walk down memory lane. I hadn’t been back to the Odyssey Country Club in Chicago’s south suburbs since 1997 – the third and final year the course was used as the site of the Illinois Women’s Open championship. Odyssey got that tournament, the state’s most prestigious for ...

Len Ziehm on Golf is today announcing a fourth partnership agreement, this one with the website Hacker’s Central. Based in Minneapolis, this site provides information and rates courses in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Nevada and Illinois. For starters, LZOG will contribute Travel Destination blog-type pieces as well as occasional news items relating ...

ORLANDO, FL. — The biggest show in golf started on a sobering note Thursday, and it was offered by the game’s greatest player. Jack Nicklaus gave the keynote address as the 59th PGA Merchandise Show opened its three-day run at the Orange County Convention Center. In it he voiced concerns about the game’s future, then expanded ...

ORLANDO, FL. — Getting to the Demo Day kickoff of the 59th PGA Merchandise Show wasn’t easy. There were traffic jams and long lines at the check-in points — even when the gates opened at the Orange County National Golf Center. The Demo Day was closed to the public and required a 45-minute shuttle bus ride ...

ORLANDO, FL. — Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Goods may have the richest heritage in golf. More major championships have been won by players using the company’s irons than any other, the majors number won now at 62 and counting. Still, Wilson won’t be stuck in its past at this week’s 59th annual PGA Merchandise Show. Among its ...

This “Big Three” may not be anything like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, but we feel we can make a positive impact on golf — especially in the Chicago area. We are three golf reporters with a combined 102 years of experience covering the sport we love. We’re kicking off 2012 by announcing ...

On Sunday Luke Donald finished third in the Dubai World Championship and became the first golfer to win money titles on both the U.S. and European PIA Tours while holding membership in both. This is something for the history books, and the feat hasn’t gotten the attention it should have from the sports media both in ...

The Chicago District Golf Assn. and Western Golf Assn. have made major announcements in their tournament sites just a few days apart. In announcing its tournament slate for 2012 the CDGA revealed that Cantigny, the 27-hole public layout in Wheaton, will host the concluding four-day match play portion of the CDGA Amateur. That’s significant because the ...

Sure, Medinah’s week to host the 39th Ryder Cup is still a year away. Still, the task of getting ready for the biggest team event in golf is a major undertaking. Michael Belot, the tournament director, and five staffers have been working feverishly from Medinah and report making great progress. Belot should know, becuase he is ...

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

Just qualifying for the U.S. Open is a big deal. This year 8,300 tried, and only 156 will tee off in the first round on Thursday at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. One of them will be Bennett Blakeman, who isn’t exactly a household name in golf circles yet — but he is a U.S. ...

Surviving a rookie season on the PGA Tour is hard enough, but for Crystal Lake’s Joe Affrunti went through a nightmare in his first four months on golf’s premier circuit. Affrunti qualified for his PGA Tour card by finishing in the top 25 on the Nationwide Tour money list last season, but that status didn’t assure ...

Rich Flores wanted to be a touring golf pro, and was –for awhile. He even played in a couple PGA Tour events in the early 1980s. Flores’ calling, though, proved to be in teaching the game. He did that very well as director of instruction at both Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles and Mill Creek ...

Davis Love III’s selection as the 27th U.S. Ryder Cup captain on Thursday was no surprise, but he wasn’t ready for all the questions he faced during his introduction at Medinah Country Club. Medinah, which has already hosted three U.S. Opens as well as the PGA Championships of 1999 and 2006, will be the site of ...

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

First it was Elmhurst’s Mark Wilson winning two of the first three full-field events of the PGA Tour season. Then it was University of Illinois alum D.A. Points capturing the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Now still another local golfer has come to the forefront. Luke Donald, who graduated from Northwestern in 1999 and has maintained ...

Rarely does a golfer have a chance to make history — really significant history — in a specific tournament. Steve Stricker has that opportunity when the John Deere Classic comes to TPC at John Deere Run in Silvis. Stricker won the JDC in 2009 and 2010. Only 20 players in the history of the PGA Tour ...

Could Illinois suddenly be emerging as a hotbed for PGA Tour players? That seems unlikely, but look what happened in the first few weeks of the PGA Tour and Senior PGA Tour seasons. Mark Wilson, an Elmhurst resident, won the Sony Open in Hawaii in the PGA Tour’s first full-field tournament of 2011, then captured the ...

Now it’s North Shore’s turn. The Western Golf Assn. is now in the third year of its new policy of playing its Western Amateur championship at Chicago courses. After a 28-year run at Michigan’s Point O’ Woods the WGA took the Western Am to Conway Farms, in Lake Forest , in 2009 and Skokie, in Glencoe, ...