In moves that are sure to bring more drama, the Illinois PGA will unveil a new format for its Players Championship next week at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest. Only the top 35 players on the season-long Bernardi Player of the Year standings, plus the host professional, received invitations to the 36-hole event that…
Author: lenz
Kilmarlic’s Cottages provide a big boost to golf on the Outer Banks
POWELLS POINT, N.C. – Golf has been played around the Outer Banks of North Carolina since 1988 but its development was a slow one. Nags Head Links was the first to open, and The Sound Links, The Pointe, Currituck, Carolina Club, Kilmarlic, The Pines and Scotch Hall Preserve all were taking players by 2008….
Tournament golf — locally and nationally — is far from over this fall
At least there’s one nice thing that came out of this dreaded pandemic. Thanks to all the postponements from March through June, it necessitated an extension of the tournament season for golfers. Now the schedule of big events will carry all the way in December. In previous years the Chicago area campaign concluded with the…
Chaussard goes after third straight IPGA Match Play title
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The Illinois PGA Match Play Championship had long been played in May as the section’s first major championship of the season, and the site was traditionally Kemper Lakes in Long Grove. This week, though, it’ll be the IPGA’s third major of the year and it won’t be…
Chicago’s Korn Ferry stop is latest tour event to include a pro-am
Slowly but surely the pro golf tours are getting back to normal. PGA Tour Champions, the 50-and-over circuit, will be the first major one to welcome spectators at this week’s Sanford International in South Dakota. The PGA Tour itself, which has gone 14 straight weeks without fans since ending a three-month break over pandemic…
No doubt about it: Michigan’s LochenHeath is back in the swing of things
WILLIAMSBURG, Michigan – This is one of those golf feel-good stories that you don’t see often enough. It focuses on LochenHeath Golf Club in northern Michigan, on the outskirts of Traverse City. LochenHeath is a course that once was closed, but has since been rescued thanks to some extraordinary efforts by a few club…
Michigan’s Forest Dunes continues to expand its facilities
ROSCOMMON, Michigan – There was never a doubt that Forest Dunes had one of the very best golf courses in Michigan, if not the entire United States. Tom Weiskopf designed it in 2002 – the same year that Golf Digest named it Best New Course in the U.S. That started a rivalry with nearby…
Arthur Hills Golf Trail is up and running
TOLEDO, Ohio – Arthur Hills designed more than 200 golf courses and renovated more than 150 in his long career as a course architect. Few modern day architects have come even close to those numbers. Hills, now 90 and officially retired, spends most of his time on the east coast of Florida now but…
Valley Tower’s creation brightens the outlook at Indiana’s French Lick Resort
FRENCH LICK, Indiana — Our longest golf/travel writing tour of the year – 22 days with stops in six states — ended at a most familiar place. We’ve made at least one stop at French Lick Resort & Casino every year since 2009. This year’s visit was a bit different than the others in that…
Small back on top in time for another Illinois PGA title run
These have been quiet times for Mike Small, but that’s changing. The University of Illinois men’s coach is back in the spotlight going into the Illinois PGA Championship, which tees off on Monday on Medinah Country Club’s No. 1 course. Small, 54, has won the tournament 12 times and there’s no reason to think he…