The biggest of the local tournaments come fast and furious now. They all started on Tuesday when the 122nd Women’s Western Amateur and 91st Illinois State Amateur took center stage. The Women’s Western Golf Association event, which has been held without interruption since 1901, is at Sunset Ridge, in Northfield, through Saturday. The Illinois…
Daily Herald Columns
How Eagle Ridge is celebrating The General’s 25th anniversary
Eagle Ridge, Illinois’ only full-fledged golf resort in Galena, is marking the 25th anniversary of its premier course, The General, in an unusual way. Call it a “Celebration Restoration.’’ Not only is The General one of the very best courses in the state, it’s also the most different. No 18-holer in Illinois has the 280…
Baseball Cancer Charities golf event is back in business
Golf’s celebrity events to benefit charitable causes used to be commonplace, especially in Chicago. In fact, Chicago had one of the first really big ones – the Chicago Baseball Cancer Charities event. It returns to the Chicago calendar for the first time in three years on Thursday, July 14, at Twin Orchard Country Club in…
Chicago golfers create the buzz before Poston completes his JDC win
SILVIS, IL. — “Magic Happens Here’’ has been the promotional motto for the John Deere Classic the last few years, and – from a Chicago player perspective – it certainly was pertinent during Sunday’s final round. Yes, J.T. Poston won the tournament wire-to-wire – the first to do that since David Frost in 1992….
Poston could be a wire-to-wire winner at the John Deere Classic
SILVIS, IL. – This has been one weird John Deere Classic. Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour stop usually has a few big names. This one had such mainstays on the circuit as Bubba Watson, Daniel Berger, Steve Stricker and Jason Day among its entrants, but none made it to the starting line. The local players…
JDC sponsor exemption is paying off for Flavin
SILVIS, IL. – Highwood’s Patrick Flavin is taking a precarious route to the PGA Tour, but…so far, so good. Flavin has no status on the PGA Tour, so the only way he can get into tournaments is through Monday qualifiers or sponsor exemptions. Neither is easy. The qualifiers usually draw about 200 players, with just…
This JDC will be Peterson’s last as its tournament director
This week’s John Deere Classic, Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event, will be the last with Clair Peterson as its tournament director. Peterson, 69, will drop down to a player liaison’s role with Andrew Lehman, a JDC staffer for 16 years, assuming full time director’s duties after the post-tournament details from this year are completed. …
JDC will share its new PGA Tour dates with the LIV Tour
The U.S. Open is history, and now the focus turns to what’s coming up in two weeks. The John Deere Classic, Illinois’ only annual PGA Tour event, goes head-to-head with the first American event on the controversial LIV Tour. This week’s PGA Tour stop is the Travelers Championship in Connecticut and all the Chicago-connected players…
Hardy, Gannon are late qualifiers for the U.S. Open
The Illinois contingent in the 156-man field for this week’s U.S. Open at The Country Club, in Brookline, Mass., tripled in the last week. Only Adrien Dumont de Chassart, the Belgium-born standout for the University of Illinois, qualified during regulation play in “Golf’s Longest Day,’’ the nation-wide 36-hole series of sectional qualifiers for the Open….
Illini golfer is only local player to qualify for the U.S. Open
This week’s “Longest Day in Golf’’ was an especially long one for 20 Chicago-connected players who had hopes of qualifying for the 122nd U.S. Open. Only one made it through Monday’s 10 sectional qualifiers. Belgium’s Adrien Dumont de Chassart, the star of the University Illinois team, squeezed in thanks to a solid second round in…