Author: lenz

TRAVERSE CITY, MICH.: Two resorts have withstood the tests of time

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Golf course openings are rare in these tough economic times. Three decades ago that wasn’t the case, but none back then were as celebrated as Jack Nicklaus’ The Bear at Grand Traverse Resort.

Grand Traverse, then just five years old, took an extraordinary step when The Bear was ready for play. Virtually very member of the media covering the 1985 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills was invited to play the layout the day after Andy North won his second Open title, and most of them showed up.
That type of sendoff for a new golf course was unheard of, and media members from throughout the country found the layout appropriately named. It was indeed a bear.

The Grand Traverse tower over looks the humps and bumps of The Bear.

Over the years the course has been changed a bit, and Grand Traverse has undergone ownership changes. It remains, though, the heart of golf in the Traverse City area – and I consider that region the golf capitol of Michigan. Apparently I’m not alone. Golf Digest lists Traverse City as one of its Top 10 Best Buddies-Trip Golf Destinations this year.

Traverse City has grown considerably since The Bear opened. Now the area has 17 championship courses. The Bear is just one of three at Grand Traverse. Spruce Run, which pre-dates the resort, opened in 1979 as a Bill Newcombe design. Gary Player’s first Michigan course, The Wolverine, opened in 1999.

Now owned by the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Grand Traverse has a 17-story hotel that features most interesting upscale dining (The Aerie Restaurant and Lounge) on the 16th floor and two casinos are nearby. Also new this year is an expansion of the golf teaching staff. Director of instruction Scott Hebert, lead instructor Terry Crick and assistant Charlie Hathaway have been joined by two new lead instructors – Randy Ernst and Adam Roades.

The Bear, still the toughest course in the area, was strangely bypassed as a site for pro tour events. A Senior PGA Tour event, the now defunct Ameritech Senior Open, was played there in 1990 before moving to Chicago for a 12-year run. The Michigan Open was played on The Bear for 28 years, and Hebert won it six times.

That tourney may have left in 2008, but The Bear has maintained its high profile without hosting an annual big event. In 2012 the Michigan Golf Course Owners Assn. named The Bear and Grand Traverse its Course-of-the-Year. That’s one lofty honor, given that Michigan has more public courses (768) than any other state. And, only two other states have more total golf courses. Golf is indeed big business in Michigan.

Traverse City golf, though, isn’t limited to The Bear and Grand Traverse. Shanty Creek, another long-time favorite in Bellaire, has four courses including two that have been widely recognized – Arnold Palmer’s The Legend (its popular par-3 fourth hole is shown above) and Tom Weiskopf’s Cedar River. The Bear and The Legend together started making Traverse City a significant golf destination. Now both United and American have direct flights from O’Hare to Cherry Capital Airport in part at least to accommodate golfers.

Shanty is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and Cedar River has long been one of my all-time Michigan choices. Interesting things are going on at another Shanty layout, though. Eight-inch cups have been added on all 18 greens of the Summit course, a move to make the game easier and encourage more people to give this challenging sport a try. A new set of forward tees, set at between 95 and 125 yards, have also been added to the layout, designed as a par-71 by architect William Diddel that plays 6,260 yards from its tips. This innovative moves are – at the very least – a good try to freshen things up a bit.

One of Traverse City’s other resorts, A-Ga-Ming, is also a multi-course facility. Located in Kewadin, it has three 18-holers.

Best of Traverse City’s other seven courses may be LockenHeath (a Steve Smyers design in Williamsburg that is the longest of the region facilities at 7,239 yards) or Manitou Passage, in Cedar, which offers great views overlooking Lake Michigan. The views are so good, in fact, that ABC’s Good Morning America named its Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore as “America’s Most Beautiful Place.’’ It was selected after judging 10 contenders that included spots in California, Hawaii and North Carolina.

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 PGA’s rookie-of-the-year in 1980. He won on the PGA Tour three times, the Nationwide (now Buy.com) circuit and the Champions Tour. He also won in Japan. Last year he was runner-up to Fred Couples in the Senior British Open.

About to turn 55 on May 31, Hallberg is a regular on the Champions Tour. He’ll be competing in the Senior PGA Championship, at Bellerive in St. Louis, starting on Thursday, and has entered the Encompass Championship, which begins at North Shore in Glenview on June 21. That event marks the 50-and-over circuit’s return to Chicago for the first time in 12 years.

Hallberg is happy to compete in Chicago again, though he’s lived in Colorado for several years. Born in Berwyn, Hallberg’s family lived in Park Ridge before moving to North Barrington in 1969. His parents still live there, and Hallberg’s heart has never left the area. He was back last week, in part for a practice round at North Shore before heading to St. Louis.

“My folks are here and my daughter goes to school here,’’ said Hallberg. “It’s my home away from home. I love to reminisce about the good days here.’’

His father George, a Swedish immigrant, introduced Hallberg to golf when he was 8 years old. His first round was at Rob Roy, in Prospect Heights. He developed his game playing the former Thunderbird (now Makray) course in Barrington and still holds the course record (a 64) at Stonehenge, the Barrington private facility. He also caddied at Biltmore, another Barrington private club.

“All I wanted to do back then was play golf,’’ said Hallberg. “If there was a patch of green grass I wanted to hit a ball off it. I developed an addiction to the game. I’d polish my clubs with a tooth brush.’’

The passion for golf has never left, though Hallberg is married with two grown children now. His son Eric, 19, is showing interest in playing golf.

“He wants to give it a shot, but it’s whatever he wants,’’ said Hallberg. “I stand back a little. It’s his journey. That’s what my dad did.’’

This Champions Tour season hasn’t been a rousing success yet. Hallberg’s best finish in a tie for 17th. But he’s well rested going into this week’s first major championship for the circuit at Bellerive. He’s also looking forward to North Shore, where he played several times as the guest of the club’s late long-time professional Bill Ogden.

“I feel prepared after a few works off to work,’’ said Hallberg, “and it’s fantastic we’re going to North Shore. I think we’ll get a great turnout.’’

More honors for Small

Life couldn’t get much better for Illinois men’s coach Mike Small these days. As a player he shot 69 and earned the last of four U.S. Open sectional qualifying berths offered in a local qualifier at Sangamore Club in Noblesville, Ind. As a coach, his Illini won an NCAA regional at Fayetteville, Ark., to advance to the finals starting next Tuesday (MAY 28)_in Atlanta.

To cap off the month Small was selected to the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame. The selection committee voted in Small, Champions Tour veteran Jay Haas and Bob Harris, former head professional at Sunset Ridge in Northbrook. Induction ceremonies will be held in October at The Glen Club in Glenview.

Another big event at Medinah

Medinah will never have an event as big as last fall’s Ryder Cup, but the club will host perhaps the year’s biggest charity event next Tuesday (MAY 28). It’ll include play on the famed No. 3 course, the Ryder Cup site.

The fourth annual Medinah Patriot Day will be played on both the Nos. 2 and 3 courses. No. 1 is undergoing a renovation supervised by architect Tom Doak. The event provides financial assistance to support Illinois military families.

Encompass outing is memorable with putter announcement looming

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 Crenshaw, Steve Elkington, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle, Mark O’Meara, Larry Mize, Corey Pavin, Nick Price, Jeff Sluman, Craig Stadler, Hal Sutton, Bob Tway and Fuzzy Zoeller.


Also included was the announcement of two more celebrity pro-am participants – ex-Bear Brian Urlacher and Chad Watson, a wounded warrior serviceman who will participate in the Friday and Saturday portions of the event.

Of more immediate interest was today’s announcement by the U.S. Golf Assn. of its decision on the use of long putters. Rocco Mediate, the first player to win with the controversial club on the PGA Tour — at Doral in 1991, thought the proposed ban of the club should be dropped.

“They should have made it illegal in 1991 if they were going to do it,’’ said Mediate, whose team won the day’s pro-am competition (see accompanying photo. Our team included former Sun-Times teammate Herb Gould and Bears’ kicker Robbie Gould was our partner on the front nine).

“Obviously the (long putter) isn’t traditional, but what is now? ,’’ said Mediate. “ I don’t really care what they do. I went to it because of my (sore) back, and it definitely helped me.’’

Another tour veteran, Jeff Sluman. also went to the long putter and expects it will be banned today.

“And that’s unfortunate,’’ said Sluman. “I tried every way (to putt) because I had the yips, but some guys have putted that way their entire lives. Statistics say (use of the long putter) isn’t an advantage, and everybody can use it.’’

Chip Beck, another veteran tour player, just hopes golf’s ruling bodies agree on the ruling. The PGA Tour has already voiced reservations on proposals made by the U.S. Golf Assn. and Europe’s Royal & Ancient Golf Club.

“If they split up, that won’t be good for the game,’’ said Beck, who thinks it’s “a little too late’’ to ban the long putters.

“Long putters aren’t as good as they’re going to be,’’ said Beck. “They’re too heavy. As they get lighter kids will start using them, and better equipment will bring lower scores. That will be good for golf.’’

IPGA MATCH PLAY: Malm notches an historic repeat

Curtis Malm won both player-of-the-year awards handed out by the Illinois PGA last year, and – judging by what happened in the first of the section’s four major championships of 2013 – there’s no reason to think he won’t pull off another sweep this season.

Malm became the first player in 25 years to win back-to-back titles in the IPGA Match Play Championship when he defeated Doug Bauman 3 and 1 in Thursday’s title match at Kemper Lakes in Long Grove.

In his fifth year as an assistant professional at St. Charles Country Club, Malm became the first repeat winner of the 62-year old tourney since Aurora’s Bob Ackerman triumphed in 1987 and 1988.

“The format and golf course are absolutely perfect for me,’’ said Malm, who turned pro a day after winning the 2000 Illinois Open. He doesn’t think he’s as good a player now as he was then.

“I might be smarter,’’ he said. “Back then I never had a negative thought. You just played golf, and I was playing pretty much lights-out. Now my game may be more diverse.’’

After coming up one stroke short of qualifying for U.S. Open sectional play on Monday Malm stormed past six opponents over the next three days. His first four matches didn’t last beyond the 15th hole.

All three matches played at Kemper on Thursday concluded on the 17th green. Malm beat Matt Slowinski, assistant at Glen Oak in Glen Ellyn, in the morning semifinals while Bauman ousted Ivanhoe’s Jim Sobb. All four semifinalists were former winners of the tournament, and both matches were decided by 2 and 1 scores.

Bauman, a three-time winner, finished as the runner-up for the sixth time. In his 25th year as the head man at Biltmore in Barrington, Bauman started the final with three straight birdies. Malm, however, was able to overcome his opponent’s 3-3-2 start.

“The putt he made (for birdie) at the No. 2 and his bunker shot (that set up a win) at No. 4 were huge,’’ said Bauman. “I tried to put the pressure on him, but he didn’t flinch.’’

Bauman, 56, is 21 years older than Malm,. Though consistently outdriven by his opponent, Bauman’s 235-yard 5-wood to 18 feet at the par-5 11th was the shot of the match. It set up an eagle that put him just 1-down, but he left a shot in a bunker at No. 13 and missed a three-footer for par that would have won No. 14. Those letdowns enabled Malm to stay in command, and Bauman’s tee shot at the par-3 17th went wide right, leading to a bogey that ended 2-hour 41-minute duel.

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 self-proclaimed “longest day in golf’’ – on June 3, when the 11 sectionals, all 36-hole sessions, are contested around the country to complete the 156-man field for the 113th Open proper at Merion, in Ardmore, Pa., from June 13-16.

Chicago’s 10 can pick their own sectional. Chicago won’t host one for the first time in at least five decades. Based on geography the closest is at Old Warson in St. Louis, but some players may opt for Columbus, Ohio. More qualifying spots will likely be available there with most of the PGA Tour players who haven’t already qualified the week before at the nearby Memorial tournament.

Most of the record 9,865 entries for this year’s Open were eliminated in the 111 local eliminations. Chicago’s 10 survivors are headed by 2011 Illinois Amateur champion Brad Hopfinger of Lake Forest, who has been playing on the Gateway Tour since leaving the University of Iowa. He posted the low round at the Chicago locals – a 66 at Northmoor.

Co-medalists at Seven Bridges were Chicago’s Michael Smith and Libertyville’s Michael Schachner, a perennial Illinois Open contender and mini-tour player who once shot a 60 while playing collegiately at Duke. Both posted 69s at the local.

Two of the top teaching club pros, Rich Dukelow and Travis Johns, also qualified for the sectionals. Dukelow was the Illinois PGA player-of-the-year in 2011. Johns, who won that honor in 2010, joined the staff at Medinah last week.

St. Charles assistant Curtis Malm, who swept Illinois PGA player-of-the-year and assistant player-of-the-year honors in 2012, didn’t survive the locals. He shot 74 at Seven Bridges, one shot out of a playoff for the final two sectional berths available.

Jeray advances

The lone Chicago area member on the LPGA Tour has qualified for the U.S.Women’s Open. Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray made it by posting a 143 total for 36 holes at Elkridge Club in Baltimore in last week’s first qualifying session. She was five strokes behind medalist Christina Kim and is assured a spot in the Women’s Open proper at New York’s Sebonack course June 27-30.

Life is looking up for Jeray, who missed the cut in her first three LPGA starts. In addition to surviving the Open qualifier she made the cut in her last two LPGA events and now has season winnings of $6,211.

Tuesday’s Chicago sectional at Cantigny didn’t produce a Chicago qualifier, though Chelsea Harris, a former University of Iowa golfer from Normal, was the first alternate. She lost in a playoff with Ana Menendez of Raleigh, N.C., for the second and last Open berth. Carolina Powers, of East Lansing, Mich., was medalist with a 71-72—143 for the 36 holes.

NCAA-bound

Northwestern is in the NCAA women’s finals for the second time thanks to a final-round charge in last week’s East Regional. With Winnetka freshman Elizabeth Szokol shooting a 4-under-par 68 coach Emily Fletcher’s team climbed from 10th to sixth in the final 18 of the 54-hole test.

NU’s only other berth in the finals came in 2000. This time the freshman-dominated squad will compete May 21-24 at the University of Georgia’s course

Both Big Ten champion Illinois and Northwestern are in the men’s NCAA tourney, which starts with regional play on Thursday. The Illini are the sixth seed of 14 teams in a regional in Fayetteville, Ark., while the Wildcats are the sixth seed among 13 teams at Baton Rouge, La.

Did you know?

The 62nd Illinois PGA Match Play Championship, first of the section’s four major tourneys, is in progress at Kemper Lakes in Long Grove. The semifinals and finals are on Thursday.

CENTRAL MICHIGAN: New lodge triggers a rebirth for Forest Dunes

ROSCOMMON, Mich. – There never was a doubt about the quality of the 18 holes at Forest Dunes. The course has consistently been ranked as the No. 2 public layout in golf-rich Michigan, behind Arcadia Bluffs.

A Tom Weiskopf design that opened in 1999, Forest Dunes is –in the words of general manager Todd Campbell — “in the middle of nowhere.’’ Still, the national course raters have found it. Golf Digest had it No. 20 among America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses for 2011-12 and No.99 among America’s Greatest 100 for the same period. GolfWeek ranked Forest Dunes No. 87 on its Best Modern Courses list. And, in August of 2013, Golf Magazine added Forest Dunes to its Top 100 Courses in the U.S. Forest Dunes made that prestigious poll at No. 72.

Despite consistent recognition from raters, Forest Dunes has spent most of its existence in limbo – until now. The new Lake AuSable Lodge (pictured above) opened in April and every room was sold out the first two nights. The opening of the $1.5 million facility, built in just seven months, is the most significant new addition to the Michigan golf scene in 2013.

Forest Dunes has been largely lacking in lodging options despite its out-of-the-way location (Grayling, 20 miles away, is biggest nearby town). Now, however, Forest Dunes is prepared to welcome overnight guests. The Lodge has 14 luxury rooms and suites. Its 28 beds can accommodate 32 people, plus it’s located 35 yards from the No. 1 tee.

Six cottages, built 10 years ago by Forest Dunes’ original owners, can accommodate another 30 comfortably.

“But we never marketed them,’’ said Campbell. Now the effort to do that is on.

Though snow had to be shoveled off some spots on the course a week before its 2013 opening Forest Dunes reported 188 rounds on some weekend days in early May, which exhausted the supply of golf carts available. Various promotional efforts, particularly on social media, obviously got the word out about the rebirth of the place.

Forest Dunes’ clubhouse includes the upscale Sangamore Restaurant, appropriate for weddings and proms in addition to business gatherings, and the Kendall/Seltzer Golf Getaway School flourishes with a 10-acre practice facility. Dave Kendall is a two-time Michigan PGA Teacher-of-the-Year and Jack Seltzer a member of the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame.

“People have been intrigued by what we have going on here,’’ said Campbell, hired in January of 2011 after spending 17 years at Garland Resort – a 72-hole Michigan favorite. “Before our doors were opened we had two-thirds of our budget booked. We created a frenzy.’’

In truth, Forest Dunes has had an interesting history. A group of investors from Arizona got the project started. They envisioned a very exclusive private facility and hired Weiskopf, whose Michigan design work includes the well-regarded Cedar River layout at Shanty Creek, in Bellaire.

“They wanted to build a phenomenal golf course in an unbelievable setting in Central Michigan,’’ said Campbell. That wasn’t an easy thing to do at the time.

Weiskopf was still moving dirt when financing was shifted to the Carpenters Union Pension Fund. The course was well-received upon its opening and a clubhouse was built in 2004, but the Pension Fund tried four different management companies and couldn’t decide what direction to take. Should it be exclusively private? Should it be a high-end public layout? Should it be something in between?

In 2011 the course was put up for sale, and that’s when Lew Thompson entered the picture. A recreational player, he has only dabbled in golf. From Huntsville, Ark., he made his fortune in the trucking industry but his arrival was just what Forest Dunes needed long-term.

“His is an absolutely American story,’’ said Campbell. “He looks like Abe Lincoln without the beard – a 6-6 gangly guy who lived in a home with a dirt floor as a teenager and sold his car to marry his high school sweetheart. As a young man he wanted to be a truck driver, so he bought a truck.’’

He used that truck to haul poultry from nearby Arkansas farms, and his business grew from there. Now Lew Thompson & Son Trucking delivers nation-wide.

Thompson’s introduction into golf came when he bought a Jack Nicklaus-designed layout, The Bridges, in Montrose, Colo. He immediately fired Troon Golf, its managing company, and the general manager. That GM moved to Forest Dunes, which was then under Troon management, and advised Thompson to consider buying that course.

He eventually did, then hired Campbell in January, 2012. Thompson’s been largely a hands-off owner, as Campbell combined duties selling real estate with managing the course. He had no interest in making Forest Dunes a private facility, but it still has members from the previous ownership.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere, but we’re near two main arteries (I-75 and US-27),’’ he said. “We’re not going to discount. We needed 15,000 players to pay $100 to $150 to play Forest Dunes, and we got them. We took a business that was losing close to $2 million and nearly brought it into the black last season.’’

His goal now is to put Forest Dunes on par with Arcadia Bluffs and its beautiful lakeshore setting. The next step in that process came in June, 2013, when Campbell announced the hiring of Chad Maveus as the club’s head professional. A Northern Michigan University graduate, Maveus had been an assistant for nine years at California’s Pebble Beach Golf Links.

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 last fall. Unfortunately storms cancelled the grand opening outing.

All 18 holes are open now, though, with Martin improving the irrigation and creating new practice and chipping areas. He also replaced cart paths, re-designed some bunkers and altered some of the holes to create more challenging options.

Fox Run isn’t the only new Martin project opened in the past few days. The West Nine at the 27-hole Arrowhead facility in Wheaton has also re-opened, completing a project that had Martin renovating the East Nine in 2010 and the South in 2011.

Chicago’s busiest architect also completed bunker work at Prairie Bluff, in Romeoville, late last fall and will tackle two local courses this year – Wilmette and Settler’s Hill, in Batavia. Work on his biggest project, though, isn’t expected to begin until the fall of 2014. That’s when Oak Meadows, the historic Addison facility operated by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, becomes his main focus.

Even the courses most severely his by flooding have re-opened, and Mistwood has an added attraction for its players. The Romeoville site of the Illinois Women’s Open now has its new state-of-the-art Performance Center in operation.

Alive in the U.S. Open

Northwestern golfers Jack Perry and Matthew Negri were among the five survivors of Monday’s U.S. Open local qualifying round for the U.S. Open at Northmoor in Highland Park.

Both made birdie on the last hole of the 90-player elimination. For Perry that assured him a spot in sectional qualifying. For Negri it meant he was in a two-man playoff for the fifth and last spot. Negri survived the first extra hole despite a water ball. He drained a 12-foot par-saver to stay alive and then won the spot with a birdie on the second.

Lake Forest’s Brad Hopfinger was medalist with a 4-under-par 66 and the other survivors were club pros Rich Dukelow of Cantigny and Travis Johns of Twin Lakes.

Chicago has another 90-player local elimination on Monday at Seven Bridges in Woodridge. It’s one of 111 contested between May 3-16 nation-wide. There’ll be 11 sectionals across the country on June 3 to determine the final qualifiers for the U.S. Open proper at Merion, near Philadelphia.

Going collegiate

NCAA tournament play begins on Thursday, with Northwestern’s co-Big Ten champion women’s team the No. 10 seed in the East Regional at Auburn, Ala. NU dominated the Big Ten individual honors after claiming its first league title. Coach Emily Fletcher was coach-of-the-year and Kaitlin Park was the circuit’s top freshman. Park and Hanna Lee were both all-Big Ten first-team selections.

Illinois’ men were also dominant after ruling the Big Ten for the fifth straight year. Mike Small of coach-of-the-year, Thomas Pieters player-of-the-year and Thomas Detry the top freshman. Northwestern was the only school with more than one first-team all-star. Perry and Nick Losole were so honored.

Michael Fitzgerald, the player-of-the-year in the Chicagoland College Conference for Holy Cross, also qualified for the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Championship in Salem, Ore.

Did you know?

The Illinois PGA holds its first of four major championships starting on Monday. The 62nd IPGA Match Play title have a four-day run at Kemper Lakes in Long Grove. Curtis Malm, St. Charles assistant, is the defending champion. He beat Dukelow 2-up in the final and used that victory as a springboard to earning IPGA player-of-the-year honors.

MEDINAH’S RYDER CUP MEMOIR: The biggest of our book projects

The 39th Ryder Cup matches, held in September of 2012 at Medinah Country Club, provided plenty of drama world-wide. An inside look at that big global sports event was developed in a Special Edition produced for Medinah’s membership.

Len Ziehm authored this 144-page book, which was produced by Nick Novelli, Medinah’s Archival Director. A professional photographer for 36 years, he established Novelli PhotoDesign in 1986 and has worked with Medinah’s Heritage Committee since 1999.

From left, Len Ziehm, Lynn Marinelli, Nick Novelli.

Also collaborating on the well-received Medinah Special Edition, presented to the club’s membership on April 27, 2013, was Lynn Marinelli. She has been active at Medinah since 1960 and took over the publication of the club’s Camel Trail publication in 1986. She declared the Ryder Cup Special Edition “frosting on the cake’’ and said it would mark the end of her editorial career at Medinah.

THESE ARE Len Ziehm’s other book contributions:

THE DREAM SEASON — a memoir of the 1995 Northwestern football season, which concluded with the Wildcats’ improbable appearance in the 1996 Rose Bowl. (Published in 1996 by Performance Media, Chicago Sun-Times Features, Inc.)

CHICAGO’S GREATEST SPORTS MEMORIES — a collection of decade-by-decade reports of the city’s biggest athletic events, edited by Roland Lazenby. (Published by Sports Publishing Inc. in 2000).

THE SOLHEIM CUP –a year-by-year account of the premier team event in women’s golf (Published by PING, Inc. in 2005).

CHICAGO FIRE: 10 Years of Tradition, Honor and Passion – a look back at the first decade of Chicago’s Major League Soccer franchise. (Published by Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Fire Soccer in 2008).

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, and about 10 of the amateurs will be celebrity types.

“The celebrity pro-am format will play well with the community here,’’ predicted Tom Ealy, president of Encompass – a Northbrook-based insurance firm that is a division of All-State. Very few pro tournaments on any of the tours have gone that route, the notable exception being the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the PGA Tour.

Ealy felt a Chicago version would be ideal after a Champions Tour event in Tampa lost the Outback restaurant chain as its sponsor. As part of an agreement with the PGA, Encompass agreed to sponsor the Tampa event in 2012 and move it to North Shore for the next three years.

“We only had 45 days from the day we signed our contract, but (the Tampa event) exceeded our expectations,’’ said Ealy. “It was a very well-run tournament for 25 years, and we loved what we saw.’’

So now Ealy, planning for its Chicago debut, is rounding up volunteers and pro-am participants. He’s also started his celebrity recruitment. This week he announced the first three – retired and present football stars Joe Theismann and Robbie Gould and TV and film actor Dennis Haysbert.

“We have asks out to some very high-profile people,’’ said Ealy. “Maybe some tournaments don’t have a celebrity format because – if they don’t get the right celebrities – it might not be positive for your tournament. But we think having a Chicago-themed event adds to people’s interest.’’

Standard pro-ams will be held on Wednesday and Thursday and the first two rounds of the 54-hole $1.8 million tournament will have 81 amateurs (some celebrities) playing with the 81 professionals. The tourney will conclude with only the pros playing on Sunday.

Ealy, who took over as Encompass president 18 months ago, went after the golf event “because it was very apparent that we needed to build our brand.’’ The tournament will do that and also help two charities – Bears Care and the Illinois Veterans Fund of McCormick Foundation.

Ealy expects the professional field to be outstanding.

“We’re really excited. The current commitment list has 27 of the top 30 from last year plus six Hall of Famers,’’ said Ealy. The Hall of Famers are Bernhard Langer, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Nick Price, Ben Crenshaw and Sandy Lyle. Fred Couples and Tom Watson haven’t entered yet but Ealy is hopeful.

The Encompass Championship falls between last year’s spectacular Ryder Cup at Medinah and the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship, which comes to Conway Farms in Lake Forest in September.

“We know about the Ryder Cup and BMW,’’ said Ealy, “but we’ll be the only tournament that stays here every year.’’

A strong statement

There’s no question about which state has the best golfers in the Big Ten these days. Illinois’ men won the conference tournament for the fifth straight year on Sunday and Northwestern’s women won their first-ever league title, tying with Purdue for the top spot at French Lick, Ind.

Not only that, but NU’s Hana Lee shot the low round (68) of the women’s competition, Illinois’ Thomas Pieters was medalist among the men and NU’s Jack Perry won the Les Bolstad Award for the lowest scoring average in the Big Ten this season. He’s the first Wildcat to win that award since Luke Donald took it from 1999-2001.

A wide Open field

Local qualifying rounds for June’s U.S. Open at Merion in Philadelphia begin here on Monday when Perry and 89 others compete for sectional berths at Northmoor in Highland Park.

Another 90-player local will be held on May 13 at Seven Bridges in Woodridge. Curtis Malm, the Illinois PGA’s player-of-the-year in 2012, heads the field there. The U.S. Golf Assn. announced a record 9,860 entries for the Open – 774 more than the previous high in 2009.

For the first time in many years Chicago won’t have a sectional qualifier, which sends its top players to the starting field at Merion. The closest one will be at Old Warson in St. Louis on June 3.

Celebrity involvement will make Encompass a spectator-friendly tourney

The Champions Tour is returning to the Chicago area for the first time since 2002 and nobody – repeat nobody – is as happy about this most positive development as I am.

Chicago’s been losing its pro tour stops, and the return of the Champions will help correct that. The Encompass Championship will be held June 17-23 at North Shore Country Club in Glenview. It will add to the rich history the 50-and-over circuit has had in Chicago – even if the cycle has endured an 11-year absence attributable to sponsorship problems.

Plus, the new event will introduce a new, spectator-friendly format and should draw virtually all of the top players. They’ll be well-rested because the Champions Tour doesn’t have an event the preceding week, when the U.S. Open is contested at Merion in Philadelphia.

The Champions Tour dates back to 1980, when it was known as the Senior PGA Tour and had just four events and purses totaling $475,000. An indication of just how far the circuit has come is reflected in the Encompass purse — $1.8 million with the winner receiving $270,000

Encompass Insurance, headquartered in Northbrook, sponsored the Encompass Pro-Am of Tampa Bay in April of 2012 as part of an agreement with the PGA Tour that called for the creation of a new tournament in Chicago for the following three years. This will be the first of those three.

Previous Chicago tournaments on the Champions Tour were known as, first, the Ameritech Senior Open from 1991 to 1999 and, finally, the SBC Open, from 2000 to 2002.

During Ameritech’s sponsorship run the tourney was considered one of the best on the Senior PGA Tour. The ASO was first held in 1989, at Canterbury in Cleveland, and Michigan’s Grand Traverse Resort was the site in 1990 before the tourney began its Chicago run. Bruce Crampton and Chi Chi Rodriguez were the first two champions.

Chicago had a taste of senior golf prior to the ASO’s arrival at Stonebridge, a then-new private club with a course designed by Tom Fazio. The facility had opened on the Aurora-Naperville corridor in 1990.

In 1988 the U.S. Golf Assn. staged its U.S. Senior Open at Medinah, with Gary Player winning. That event would also come to Olympia Fields in 1997, Australian Graham Marsh emerging as the champion. Those 72-hole competitions contributed to the popularity of the senior golf in Chicago but didn’t have the same free-wheeling flavor as the annual 54-hole tour stops that began in 1991.

Mike Hill, then the hottest player in the 50-and-over ranks, won the tourney’s first staging at Stonebridge and Dale Douglass took the second. Those tournaments were only mildly successful compared to what was to come.

Michael Jordan was in his heyday as a basketball player then, and his passion for golf was just starting. In 1992 he played 54 holes at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club in Florida even though he was scheduled to play in the NBA All-Star Game that night. After his golf marathon — but before he left Bay Hill for his basketball game — Jordan let it be known that he wanted to play a round with Palmer – any time, anywhere.

That round materialized at the 1993 ASO’s Thursday pro-am, with a then-record 17,500 following the two sports legends around the course. Palmer shot a 1-over-par 73 and Jordan, who billed himself as an 8-handicapper, had an 81. George Archer’s victory in the tournament proper seemed anti-climactic.

John Paul Cain’s win in the 1994 ASO was interesting, as he became a rare sponsor’s exemption to use the invitation as the prelude to a championship run.

The best golf at Stonebridge – and my favorite ASO/SBC memory – came in 1995, the tourney’s last staging on that course. Joe Jimenez, then 69 years old, shot a 62 and set a record for the most strokes below age. On the same day eventual champion Hale Irwin shot 63. Those dazzling scores, shocking at the time, underscored just how good senior golf could be.

That ’95 win earned Irwin the moniker of “Mr. Chicago.’’ He had won the Western Open at Butler National in 1975 and the U.S. Open at Medinah in 1990. (He wasn’t done, either. Irwin would go on to win back-to-back ASO titles in 1998 and 1999 after the event moved to Kemper Lakes).

Irwin’s wins there came in the third and fourth of six stagings at Kemper. The first two were won by a Morgan, Walter in 1996 and Gil in 1997.

The tourney remained at Kemper after Irwin’s victories there, but the tourney made a name change. The last three tourneys were known as the SBC Open, with Tom Kite the champion in 2000 and Dana Quigley in the last staging at Kemper in 2001. Irwin went to a playoff with Bob Gilder when the tourney moved to Harborside International in 2002. Gilder got the win that time, and the senior stars haven’t been seen here since. The end of the run was sad, for both the players and Chicago’s always loyal golf fans.

That’ll all change when the Encompass Championship tees off at North Shore, a private club that hosted the Western Open in 1928, the U.S. Open in 1933, the U.S. Amateur in 1939 and 1983 and the Western Amateur in 2011.

Tournament director Mike Galeski expects most every top player on the Champions Tour to compete in an exciting new format. They’ll have standard pro-ams on Wednesday and Thursday and then begin the tournament proper with an amateur partner. The 81 pros and their 81 amateur partners, some of them celebrity types, will compete as two-man teams Friday and Saturday in a tournament within a tournament, then the pros will decide their champion on Sunday in the third and final round of the 54-hole test.

The galleries should be sizeable, and not just because of the big names playing. Ticket prices are reasonable — $20 in advance or $25 at the gate, and those 18 and under will be admitted free.