In this chaotic year for scheduling golf tournaments the Illinois PGA did the best of the three major local organizations. The pandemic forced the cancelation of the Western Golf Association’s two national junior championships and the Chicago District Golf Association had to call off its two biggest events – the Illinois State Amateur and Chicago…
Daily Herald Columns
Healy wins, but Paeglow is IPGA Senior Player of the Year
It’ll be the senior members of the Illinois PGA in the spotlight this week as the Chicago golf tournament season wraps up. The IPGA Senior Players Championship concluded on Tuesday at Twin Orchard, in Long Grove, and the key players in it headed for Port St. Lucie, FL., for the Senior PGA Professional Championship,…
PGA’s fall tournaments have been good to rookie Doug Ghim
The PGA Tour’s top stars generally sit out the fall tournaments after the FedEx Cup Playoffs are over. That’s been the case again this season, even though the Masters – rescheduled from April until Nov. 12-15 because of pandemic issues – is still to be played. Doug Ghim, the PGA Tour rookie from Arlington…
Revised Players tourney will determine IPGA Player of the Year
In moves that are sure to bring more drama, the Illinois PGA will unveil a new format for its Players Championship next week at Conway Farms, in Lake Forest. Only the top 35 players on the season-long Bernardi Player of the Year standings, plus the host professional, received invitations to the 36-hole event that…
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…
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…
Illinois Open, PGA run back-to-back this week
The biggest tournament for Illinois residents, the 71st Illinois Open, concludes today at White Eagle in Naperville. A day later the PGA Tour’s major championships for 2020, the PGA Championship, tees off at Harding Park in San Francisco. Before August is over the PGA Tour will have completed its FedEx Cup Playoffs, which conclude…
Defending champ Cooke has a dilemma going into the Illinois Open
David Cooke won the Illinois Open as an amateur in 2015 and last year as a professional. He may well have problems just making his first-round tee time to open his title defense when the 71st playing of the tourney tees off on Monday at White Eagle Club in Naperville. Cooke’s win last year was…