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 Golf the past three years, will announce a name change for his publication.

The Show begins at noon on Friday at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont and runs through Sunday. The first 200 visitors each day will receive practice round tickets to September’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms. Each visitor can also claim a coupon for one free round of golf at one of the many area courses managed by Golf Visions. Wilson Sporting Goods is also having a golf ball give-away as part of the Show.

Featured celebrity will be World Golf Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins, who will take center stage at noon on Saturday. Recently named Golf Channel’s analyst for the Champions Tour, Wadkins will be on hand to promote Chicago’s return to the circuit at June’s Encompass Championship at North Shore.

Last year the Show had a record 16,000 visitors. This year’s gathering will check out 400 booths, each offering information about destination resorts, courses, tournaments and equipment. The Shannon Rovers will open the show each day.

Show hours are noon-7 p.m. on Friday, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. on Saturday and 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Adult admission is $5 on Friday and $10 on Saturday and Sunday. Youngsters 12-18 will be admitted for $4 and those 11 and under are free.

Illini add assistant coach

University of Illinois men’s coach Mike Small has a new assistant. Eldorado, IL., native Justin Fetcho has replaced Zach Guthrie. Guthrie left the Illini to work as caddie for his brother and former Illinois golfer Luke – a rookie on the PGA Tour.

Fetcho was assistant men’s coach at South Florida from 2009-11 and assistant women’s coach at Oregon from 2011 until joining Small’s staff.

The Illini, ranked 19th nationally, are coming off their first victory in the Big Ten Match Play tournament. Thomas Detry, a freshman from Belgium, was named the league’s player-of-the-week for his showing in that event. Detry never needed to play beyond the 15th hole en route to winning all three of his matches.

Did you know?

X — KemperSports has added still another Illinois club to its growing portfolio. Rockford Country Club, one of the state’s most prestigious private facilities dating back to 1899, will now be managed by the Northbrook-based firm.

X – CareerBuilder has been named presenting sponsor the the Encompass Championship — the first Chicago stop on the Champions Tour since 2002. It’ll be held at North Shore from June 17-23. It’ll feature a Wednesday-Thursday celebrity pro-am before the 54-hole main event that has already attracted Ben Crenshaw, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Bernhard Langer, Nick Price and Tom Watson.

X – Fyre Lake, a course under new ownership in Sherrard, IL., near the Quad Cities, is now managed by GolfVisions.

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 as Ogden, and his myriad of accomplishments were recognized this week when he was named among eight inductees into the PGA Golf Professionals Hall of Fame. He’ll be inducted posthumously at PGA Village in Port St. Lucie, FL., on March 12.

As a competitor Ogden was the Illinois PGA Player-of-the-Year a record six times and the only golfer to win the Illinois Open, Illinois PGA Championship, IPGA Match Play title and IPGA Assistants crown.

From 1953-72 Ogden won 31 of the section’s major titles and also competed effectively in PGA Tour events, gaining a tie for third in the 1956 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am and a tie for fourth in the 1968 Tucson Open.

Ogden was much more than a player, though. In his 40 years in charge at North Shore he became well known for grooming his assistants. Forty-three of them went on to land head jobs.

In 1970 Ogden was not only the IPGA president, he was also the section’s Professional-of-the-Year – and North Shore wasn’t exactly a full-time job for him. In the winters he was head professional at five different clubs in Palm Springs, Calif., between 1970 and 1980.

Ogden was the man among Illinois pros when I came on the golf-writing scene here in 1971. He retired from North Shore shortly after that and lived in California until his death at age 78 in 2005.

NU goes for a four-peat

Illinois, ranked 17th in the national collegiate polls, is the top-seeded team for the fifth straight year in the Big Ten Match Play Championships, which begin Friday at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Concession course in Bradenton, FL.

The Illini, though, have never won the league’s Match Play event. Northwestern has dominated, winning the last three titles. The Wildcats are the second-best Big Ten team in the national rankings, standing 29th.

KemperSports adds Harborside

KemperSports manages a wide variety of golf facilities in 26 states as well as internationally. Now the Northbrook-based firm will take on one of Chicago’s premier public facilities, 36-hole Harborside International.

Harborside, designed by Dick Nugent, was one of the first golf facilities created on what had been a landfill. Its development was a big boost for the far South Side, and now it’ll get the Kemper touch.

“We plan to introduce a variety of new programs at Harborside to cater to the residents of Chicago and surrounding areas,’’ said Kemper chief executive officer Steve Skinner. “We look forward to elevating the service, playing conditions and guest experience to make Harborside a must-play for Chicago golfers and visitors to the city.’’

Wadkins featured at Chicago Golf Show

World Golf Hall of Famer Lanny Wadkins will take over center stage on the second day of the 30th Chicago Golf Show, which comes to the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont from Feb. 22-24.

Wadkins was just named as lead analyst for Champions Tour telecasts on The Golf Channel and he’ll be in Chicago to promote the new Encompass Championship, which comes to North Shore June 21-23. That event will mark the first Champions Tour stop in Chicago since 2002 when Harborside hosted.

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. It’ll make its debut July 21-27 at Caves Valley, a Tom Fazio design in Owings Mills, Md., and the second staging will be in the summer of 2016 at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.

Jerry Rich, owner and designer of the Rich Harvest private facility that hosted the 2009 Solheim Cup matches, was a leader in making the new event happen.

“Three days after Mike became commissioner (in 2010)_ I brought him to Chicago and said we’ve got to do something special,’’ said Rich. “The greatest players aren’t just from America. They’re from Asia and around the world.’’

That started the planning process that led to Thursday’s announcement before a standing-room-only press conference at the Orange County Convention Center.

Rich Harvest’s Solheim Cup was a rousing success, but didn’t lead to the return of an LPGA annual stop to Chicago. The LPGA has only sporadically staged tournaments on Chicago courses, the last being the Kellogg-Keebler Classic at Stonebridge, in Aurora, in 2004.

That tourney had a three-year run in the aftermath of the U.S. Women’s Open being played at Merit Club in Libertyville in 2000. Karrie Webb won at Merit Club and at the last Kellogg-Keebler with Annika Sorenstam dominating at Stonebridge in 2002 and 2003.

The International Crown, though, will top all those and might well rival the success of the Solheim with the top players world-wide guaranteed to compete.

“At the Solheim Cup (of 2009) we had the largest event (the LPGA) ever had,’’ said Rich. “We had 120,000 people in Chicago – the greatest golf city in the world. Maybe this (new) event won’t approach the Ryder Cup that we just had at Medinah, but it will be huge.’’

Rich probably could have hosted the 2014 International Crown, but decided against it.

“I needed four years to wait because of our junior programs,’’ said Rich. His staff has studied the nearly 2,000 high school girls programs in five states. Those players, along with college players, will be invited to the International Crown with lodging already being arranged at Northern Illinois University and Aurora College.

The International Crown will present a different type of competition and have a broader world-wide appeal than the LPGA’s previous tries at one-week individual championships here. Whan predicted the event will “take women’s golf to the next level and allow fans to rally behind their homelands.’’

The International Crown will be held in even-numbered years to avoid conflict with the Solheim Cup. It’ll feature 32 players from eight countries battling to determine, according to the LPGA, “the world’s best golf nation.’’

Competition will be over four days, three for best-ball matches and one for singles matches. Teams will be determined by the top four players on the Rolex World Rankings after the 2013 CME Group Titleholders event, the last tourney of the LPGA season. If the International Crown were to be held now the eight teams participating would be South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Sweden, Australia, Taiwan, Spain and England.

The four players who will compete for each country when the competition begins will be determined at a later date.

“Our tour is so global, we need this type of an event,’’ said Stacey Lewis, the top-ranked American player. “People always want to know why golfers from Asia are so good. Now we can see how all the countries stack up.’’

Taiwan’s long-time world No. 1 player, Yani Tseng, likened the lead-in to the International Crown to “preparing for the Olympics.’’ The Rich Harvest version of the International Crown will about a month before the Olympics in Brazil, when golf will make its return to the Games.

The first International Crown event will offer a $1.6 million purse with each member of the winning team receiving $100,000. Ambassadors and financial supporters will be announced at a later date as will the nature of the trophy going to the winning nation

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 just one in a line of new products unveiled by Tour Edge president David Glod, but it drew the most attention.

Tour Edge isn’t the first company to test variable-fit clubs. Putter manufacturers were the first to do it, and now it’s spreading throughout the industry.

With Tour Edge’s Exotic line of clubs (shown above) a players can change the loft, face angle and shaft.

“You have options at your fingertips,’’ said Glod, who founded his company in 1986. “We’re planning on having an adjustable fairway wood, too, but it’s too net yet. It makes more sense with the driver.’’

Glod accepts the trend toward such state-of-the-art equipment and believes it’ll be around for awhile.

“It’s a great technology,’’ he said, “but it depends on the consumer. The guy who studies the game gets it. That’s why it’s been sticking around.’’

Training devices are also getting increasingly high-tech. Sky Golf, a pioneer in developing electronic yardage books with its Sky Caddie, now also offers Sky Pro – a swing analyzer that the company bills as “one of the most exciting products in golf today.’’ Many more were on display, in a series of colorful displays (pictured above), at the Demo Day lead-in to the PGA Merchandise show.

Swing Jacket, which isn’t so high-tech, is back on the market after a fire burned down its production facility in China. A player wears the tight-fitting jacket on the practice range and instructor Dave Brisbee says that player’s swing “can’t get out of position….It constrains range of motion to affect a better swing.’’

And then there’s Polara, a company not reluctant to admit that it’s equipment is usually “non-conforming’’ with the rules of the U.S. Golf Assn.

Polara drew plenty of attention with its no-slice golf balls. Now president David Felker said Polara is going into wedges, the first of which will be on the market before the year it out. Polara says its wedges “will help the ball spin more,’’ and Felker admits “it’s very unlikely’’ that they will conform to USGA specifications.

Still, the company believes it’s helping golf grow by making it an easier game for the estimated 85 percent of players who don’t carry USGA handicaps. To that end Polara is joining forces with the new Recreational Golf Assn. of America to push its products with more casual golfers.

The big show has plenty of golfers of all shades of interest. Over 40,000 will attend the three days of exhibits at the orange County Convention Center. Attendees will come from about 75 countries and walk down 10 miles of show alleys to check out the products of more than 1,000 manufacturers and brands.

Wednesday’s Demo Day, held at the Orange County National Golf Center in Winter Garden, drew out over 100 manufacturers. The Center has a circular range with 200 hitting bays spread over a 42-acre practice facility.

All the top manufacturers, including Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Good and Tour Edge, had the wares on display at Demo Day. So did other major manufacturers Bridgestone, Callaway Cleveland/Srixon, Cobra Puma, Mizuno, Nike, Ping, TaylorMade and Titleist.

Stars players past and president will also be making appearances, among them Davis Love III, Annika Sorenstam, Ian Poulter, Luke Donald, Lexi Thompson, Lee Trevino and Nancy Lopez. Ricky Fowler had a big presence — or at least his hat did. An enlarged replica of Fowler’s orange headgear enticed lots of picture takers — even though Fowler wasn’t there.

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 marathon that concluded at PGA West in LaQuinta, Calif., on Monday.

Meierdierks, a New Trier High School graduate who didn’t play golf in college at Michigan State, followed his Illinois Open win of two years ago at Hawthorn Woods with a playoff loss to Chicago’s Max Scodro in this year’s championship at The Glen Club, in Glenview. Meierdierks, who turned pro in 2009, has spent most of his time since then on the Gateway Tour in Arizona but he did return for his state’s premier championship.

Since turning pro he also had a Gateway win to his credit, but he also had to deal with personal issues in getting through Q-School. His father passed away six days before the first stage of the competition.

“That was the hardest tournament I ever played,’’ Meierdierks offered after the battle for his card ended successfully. “It made (the final stage) a walk in the park.’’

He also had good vibes as he toured the TPC Stadium Course and Nicklaus Tournament Course, the 18-holers at PGA West used for the qualifying rounds. Meierdierks’ family had vacationed off the No. 7 fairway of the Nicklaus’ course, and his glimpses of the lodging there triggered good memories for him in the heat of the competition.

This year’s Q-School – the last one to send players directly to the PGA circuit – had 1,558 registrants. There was a pre-qualifier and then three stages of eliminations before the top 25 and ties were awarded PGA playing privileges. Mierdierks tied for 14th, and Langley tied for 17th. Low man over the six tense rounds was Dong-hwan Lee, at 25—under-par. Mierdierks was at 20-under and Langley was another stroke back.

Also making it was Kris Blanks, the winner of the last Chicago area Nationwide (now Web.com Tour) tournament – the Bank of America Open at The Glen Club in 2008. Blanks earned a return trip to the PGA circuit. A shoulder injury had led to his failure to reach money-winning standards necessary to retain membership this year.

Another plus for the Illini

Langley’s arrival on the PGA Tour was just the latest in major accomplishments for University of Illinois alums. Five will play on the PGA Tour in 2013, with Langley joining Steve Stricker, D.A. Points, Luke Guthrie and Joe Affrunti. Affrunti is still recovering from major shoulder surgery last spring.

Like Langley, Guthrie will be a PGA Tour rookie. He qualified for the big tour by finishing second on the Web.com Tour money list – and he needed only 10 tournaments to do it. Guthrie didn’t turn pro until the Illinois season was over in June. Interestingly, Meierdierks’ Illinois Open win came in a duel with Guthrie.

Langley’s advancement was no surprise. In addition to winning his NCAA title the left-handed golfer was a factor in the last two U.S. Opens. He tied for 16th in 2011 and tied for 19th this year.

Illinois’ run of success hasn’t been without a cost. Coach Mike Small lost his assistant coach when Zach Guthrie, Luke’s brother, resigned that post. He’ll be Luke’s caddie on the PGA circuit in 2013.

They didn’t make it

Those who didn’t crack the top 25 (actually 26 earned turn cards) at PGA West included Camilo Villegas, Heath Slocum Billy Mayfair, Nick O’Hern, Skip Kendall, former Northwestern star Chris Wilson, ex-British Open winner Todd Hamilton and Patrick Cantlay, who dazzled the PGA Tour when he shot a 60 as an amateur in the 2011 Travelers Championship.

Next year’s Q-School will only offer spots on the Web.com Tour. That circuit will play a bigger role in determining who advances to the big circuit. This year the top 25 on that tour’s money list was promoted to the PGA Tour for 2013.

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 Glen Club in 2012, hit the halfway point in the six-round marathon in a tie for ninth place. The top 25 and ties after the six rounds earn berths on the PGA Tour for 2013.

Mierdierks, 27, has never played in a PGA Tour event. A New Trier High School graduate, he developed his skills playing on Arizona’s Gateway Tour the past few years, and his game appears to be peaking at the right time.

The PGA Tour Qualifying School will be radically transformed in 2013. This is the last year its top players will earn berths for the following year on the PGA circuit, and Mierdierks wants to take advantage of what might be a last-chance opportunity. Q-School will offer only spots on the Web.com Tour in 2013. That means it’ll be even harder to get on golf’s premier circuit, and it’s plenty difficult already.

Mierdierks was one of 1,558 players submitting entries to the 2012 Q-School, which is being conducted in three stages. This final stage, still in progress, began with 172 players battling for the coveted PGA Tour spots. Through the first three rounds Mierdierks is at 203, and five strokes behind leader Meen Whee Kim. Mierdierks shot 66-67 in rounds 2 and 3 on Thursday and Friday over the Nicklaus Tournament Course and TPC Stadium Course to climb the leaderboard.

Saturday, Sunday and Monday rounds remain before playing privileges are determined. Most of the finalists will get privileges of some sort on the Web.com Tour in 2013 but, of course, the PGA spots are more coveted.

The last of the very few Chicago area players to earn a PGA Tour card was Crystal Lake’s Joe Affrunti. He earned his in 2010 by finishing in the top 25 on the Nationwide Tour money list. Affrunti, like Mierdierks, was an Illinois Open champion (2004) and also won the Chicago District Amateur in both 2000 and 2001. His PGA Tour hopes, however, have been hampered by a shoulder injury that required surgery.

Mierdierks won his Illinois Open title with a one-shot win over Luke Guthrie, the University of Illinois star who made it to the PGA Tour in a hurry. Making good use of some sponsor exemptions, he was a smash hit on both the PGA Tour and Web.com Tour in the second half of the 2012 season.

KemperSports update

KemperSports, the Northbrook-based golf management firm, continues to build a broad impact world-wide. Its latest project is the Vista Mar Golf & Beach Resort in Panama, and the soon-to-open 36-hole Streamsong Resort in Polk County, FL., has already received rave reviews in various golf publications.

Scott Wilson has been named director of golf at Streamsong. He had been at another KemperSports location, Vellano Country Club in California.

On the more local front, Nate Mather is leaving his job as general manager of Glen Flora Country Club in Waukegan to become GM of The Club at Fairvue Plantation in Gallatin, Tenn. – another KemperSports facility.

For the record

Hopefully this is the end of media reports suggesting Oak Brook’s Butler National might return as a big-tournament venue. Some club members would like the exposure Butler received as site of the Western Open from 1974-1990, but the vast majority want it to remain all-male and therefore not acceptable for U.S. Golf Assn. and PGA events. A vote was taken on the issue recently and my sources tell me only one or two members wanted to accept female members. Until that sentiment changes Butler as a tournament site is a non-issue.

Just my opinion

This joint announcement by the U.S. Golf Assn. and Royal & Ancient Golf Club banning the anchoring putting stroke isn’t that big a deal. Of course, anchoring a club against your body should be banned. It represents too big a departure from golf’s traditions. Royal & Ancient likely felt stronger about this issue than the USGA did, and the rule proposal was too long in coming.

And don’t forget, long putters (the belly variety and the longer “broom-handle’’) are still legal. That’s fine by me, though I suspect there’ll be some controversies over just what is anchoring and what isn’t once the rule is put into effect in 2016. How close to your body does the club have to be to be considered “anchoring?’’ Players might be willing to test the rule on that.

As far as I’m concerned, though, golf has a bigger issue to solve – slow play. That would be at the top of my list.

Calendar material

I’ve found golf just fine in this late-fall, early-winter period in Chicago and only wish more courses were still open. The Nos. 1 and 3 layouts at Cog Hill, in Lemont, are among the few that will remain open year-around, and some fun events are coming up on those.

The Frosty’s 3-Club Open will be held over No. 1 on Dec. 9 and the Eskimo Open will be played on both courses on Jan. 6.

Also notable is the Jan. 1 deadline established by the Western Golf Assn. for the sale of its holiday ticket package. The package includes two any-day tournament tickets, lanyards and ticket holders to next September’s BMW Championship at Conway Farms for a great price — $65. Only 2,500 such packages will be available.