Category: Uncategorized

IT ZIEHMS TO ME: New pros for Medinah, Exmoor; 50th anniversary for Eskimo Open

IT ZIEHMS TO ME: New pros for Medinah, Exmoor; Eskimo celebrates 50th anniversary

Mike Scully ended a 10-year stint as Medinah Country Club’s director of golf as soon as the Ryder Cup ended. Now the club has selected his replacement.

Marty DeAngelo will take over Scullly’s former position on Jan. 21. Like Scully he comes to Medinah from Florida, where he had been director of golf at Isleworth – the home club for Tiger Woods and several other PGA Tour players.

Also like Scully, DeAngelo had deep roots in Chicago before going to Medinah. DeAngelo earned his Class A status with the PGA of America after working as an apprentice at Deer Park.

Unlike Scully, DeAngelo comes with a solid background as a tournament player. He has played in tournaments on the Canadian PGA, Hooters, Ben Hogan and PGA circuits.

DeAngelo is ending a long run at Isleworth to come to Medinah. He started working at the Florida facility in 1995, became head professional in 1998 and director of golf in 2004. In 2007 he was named Private Merchandiser of the Year by the Florida chapter of the PGA and he also serves on the Florida Special Olympics board.

Scully left Medinah to become director of golf at Desert Mountain, a resort facility in Scottsdale, Ariz., that boasts five 18-hole courses.

Another long-established Chicago private facility, Exmoor in Highland Park, also dipped into the Florida ranks for its next head professional. David Schmaltz was hired by the club that hosted the Western Amateur in 2012 after having worked as an assistant at Jupiter Club.

A major milestone for the Eskimo Open

The Northern Illinois Men’s Amateur Golf Assn. organized a January event for its most diehard members. It was played at times in a foot of snow (I know. I was one of the participants back in the 1970s when my late brother Rich and I played in the Eskimo 10 straight years when Buffalo Grove Golf Club was the site).

Despite some challenging weather conditions over the years as well as some course and organizational changes, the Eskimo Open has lived on and this year’s staging on Jan. 6 over the Nos. 1 or 3 courses at Cog Hill will mark the event’s 50th anniversary.

Registration begins on Monday, Dec. 31. Fees, payable on the day of play, are $42. Carts, if available, will cost an additional $16. A chili lunch, beverages and prizes are also included.

The event will be held over 18 holes with tee times ranging from 7-11 a.m. If there’s snow a nine-hole division will be also available.

Did you know?

X — Northbrook-based KemperSports has opened a well-publicized Florida resort, Streamsong, and taken over the management of one of the Sunshine State’s older private facilities, Rockledge Country Club. Both are located near Orlando.

X – Cantigny, in Wheaton, will begin offering 75-minute fitness workshops twice a month starting on Jan. 8. They’ll be directed by Dr. Paul Callaway.

X – Tickets to the Feb. 24-26 Chicago Golf Show at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont will be on sale at reduced rates through Jan. 6. Purchasers can get four tickets to the show for $25 until that date.

X –Chicago’s Wilson Sporting Goods has re-signed Irish star Padraig Harrington to another multi-year contract. The winner of three major championships, Harrington will again play Wilson clubs on both the PGA and European PGA tours. He started with Wilson in 1998.

PINEHURST: Famed resort’s banner year will come in 2014

PINEHURST, N.C. – It may seem silly for a golf addict from Chicago to visit the famous Pinehurst Resort – if only for a few days around Christmas – and not hit a shot. That’s what I did at the start of a long winter trip that will include plenty of golf, I guarantee that.


A Pinehurst stop, though, was appropriate because in 2014 that resort, its entrance pictured above in the heart of the Christmas season, will take on something no golf facility has ever done. It’ll host – on successive weeks in June – the men’s U.S. Open and the U.S. Women’s Open on the same 18-hole layout.

The buildup to the big golf doubleheader should be followed closely in coming months. In my book, it’s a far more cutting edge, risky endeavor than the U.S. Golf Association’s more recent, highly publicized decision to eventually ban anchored putters. Playing the two national Opens back-to-back on the same course should give a particularly big boost to the women’s game, but will also impact the elite players, the amateurs who will be watching on TV and the resort itself, which has never been reluctant to take on big projects.

The USGA made the tournament schedule announcement amidst limited fanfare in 2009. The following year architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were hired to supervise a restoration project on Pinehurst’s No. 2 course. They completed the project in March, 2011, with the return of wire-grass in the rough areas the most striking feature. It had been part of the original course, designed by Donald Ross in 1907.

Ross was head professional at Pinehurst and lived off the third hole on the No. 2 course, which has come to be called “The Deuce.’’ His architectural efforts world-wide are legendary and the wire-grass will become a household name for golfers once they see how it impacts the two Opens. I’ve played it, and I like it, but – like the USGA’s decision to schedule the major championships back-to-back on the same course – opinions in the golf world are not unanimous on either.

The Christmas visit was my fourth to Pinehurst since 1999. I was there for two successful U.S. Opens and again when wire-grass was re-introduced in the spring of 2011. Given the long preparatory saga that Medinah went through leading into this year’s Ryder Cup, I suspected I’d see some evidence of preparatory work at Pinehurst.

I didn’t see much, the most notable being Lee Pace’s latest book — “The Golden Age of Pinehurst,’’ which was on sale in the Newstand at the resort’s hotel. Pace, a freelance writer who lives an hour away in Chapel Hill, previously authored two versions of “Pinehurst Stories’’ (1991 and 1999) and “The Spirit of Pinehurst’’ (2004).

Pace’s latest book updated the 2004 version, including in it the details of the architectural work done by Coore and Crenshaw. I had a talk with Pace after ending my latest visit, and he pointed out that the restoration project and the unusual scheduling of the two big tournaments weren’t related.

“The restoration had absolutely nothing to do with the U.S. Open,’’ he said. “That work was done because the course had gotten away from what it had been years ago.’’

The men’s U.S. Open is returning to Pinehurst in large part because of the success of the previous tournaments there, and the U.S. Women’s Open had three successful stagings at nearby Pine Needles since 1996.

There was some doubt that Pinehurst could handle a U.S. Open prior to 1999. They were unfounded.

“But it was such a success inside and outside of the ropes,’’ said Pace. “That’s why it got another Open so quickly (in 2005).’’

Hotel space was limited in 1999 but improved in 2005 and four more hotels have since been built in the neighboring towns of Aberdeen and Southern Pines. Population of Moore County has also increased, from about 50,000 seven years ago to nearly 90,000 now.

Reg Jones, who had worked for Pinehurst while directing the two previous U.S. Opens there, now has an administrative office at Pinehurst in preparation for 2014. Otherwise, there aren’t many outward signs of the big things coming.

“You won’t see much change until a couple months out,’’ said Pace. “(Pinehurst leaders) don’t want to disrupt the ebb and flow of the club experience. They have (big tournament preparations) down to a science. There’s not another club the USGA would have tried to do this with, and everything will be fine.’’

As for our stay, everything was very much fine – even though the atmosphere was much different than it will be in June, 2014. Christmas at Pinehurst didn’t have the hustle-and-bustle of other places, visitors weren’t as numerous as they are in the golf season and some of the quaint little shops in the village operated on limited hours.

Instead Pinehurst offered its trademark great breakfast buffets in the Carolina Room and more casual dining in its Ryder Cup restaurant. The courses were open, with the exception of No. 8. It was closed to facilitate work projects. Rather than play golf, a hike in the nearby arboretum area was a worthy substitute.

All in all, not a bad way to celebrate Christmas. I certainly can recommend it.

IT ZIEHMS TO ME: `King of Clubs’ uncovers piece of Chicago golf history

After reading “King of Clubs: The Great Golf Marathon of 1938’’ I felt there was a message to be delivered about how bad slow play has gotten.

Virginia-based sports writing veteran Jim Ducibella recounts the story of J. Smith Ferebee, a Chicago stockbroker and Olympia Fields Country Club member who was briefly in the national spotlight for his bid to play 600 holes of golf in eight cities over four consecutive days.

Think about this. Seven decades ago Ferebee played more than 33 rounds of golf in 96 hours and never shot 100. Had he hit triple digits he would have lost the bet that started his whole ordeal, and Ferebee did post 99 in one round. Most of his scores were in the 80s, however, and he was playing on many courses – located from Los Angeles to New York – that he’d never seen before.

To put the feat in better perspective, Ferebee would play at least 144 holes per day, keeping a very brisk pace between each shot. There were no golf carts involved, and Ferebee had to tee up his drives and take the ball from each cup after he putted out. Those were the terms of the bet.

Then he’d board a plane, with an entourage that included a doctor, caddie and publicist among others, and fly to the next stop to do it all again. I recall twice playing 45 holes in a day, walking all in the second, in tours of the five Chicago Park District nine-hole courses. Those tours were organized by KemperSports in the early 1990s. They were a lot of fun, as a few media friends would get van transportation between each course.

Playing that much golf in a day that started at dawn at the Marovitz course on Lake Michigan and finished at dusk at Columbus Park was considered a noteworthy back then – at least by us – but we had nothing on J.Smith Ferebee. In one stretch he played 144 holes in 15 hours 7 minutes and averaged 86 for every 18 holes. In that time he walked an estimated 40 miles. I’m staggered by it all.

Olympia Fields, his home club, had four courses back then including one (now known as the North course) that has hosted two U.S. Opens and two PGA Championships. Ferebee played those four courses in the middle of his marathon in 89, 83, 85 and 89. All of the courses he played were short by today’s standards, but hardly of the pitch-and-putt variety.

Anyway, with all due respect to my Big-3 partner – golf historian extraordinaire Tim Cronin – Ducibella’s “King of Clubs’’ deserves a place in Chicago’s golf history archives. It is much more than a recounting of a whacky pre-World War II publicity stunt. Ducibella tells me that very few people (including the current membership and staff at Olympia Fields) knew much – if anything – about Ferebee.

That’s surprising, given that Ferebee’s quest to complete his marathon was closely followed by media outlets throughout the country. In Chicago his adventure shared the spotlight with a late-season charge by the Cubs to the National League pennant.

Perhaps Ferebee’s moment in the spotlight was simply a reflection of another, most colorful, era in the history of Chicago sports. Still, it makes for most interesting reading. I heartily recommend this book, published by Potomac Books of Dulles, Va.

BMW, JDC tourneys honored by PGA

The PGA Tour gave glowing reports to its 2012 tournaments with Illinois connections. The BMW Championship, conducted by the Western Golf Assn., was selected as the circuit’s Tournament of the Year and the John Deere Classic received the Most Engaged Community Award.

In 2012 the BMW raised $3.1 million for the Evans Scholars Foundation and was one of the top-attended tournaments of the year. The crowd count for the week at Crooked Stick in Indianapolis in September was 143,000 – a good reason for the WGA to continue its recent policy of moving its biggest event out of Chicago every other year.

The WGA took the event to Bellerive, in St. Louis, in 2008. The BMW Championship was also the PGA Tour’s Tournament of the Year that time.

Winning the Most Engaged Community Award isn’t anything new for the JDC, held annually at TPC Deere Run in the Quad Cities. The JDC previously won the award in 2008 and 2011. This year’s event showed a 12 percent increase in ticket sales, a 27 percent increase in money raised through its Birdies for Charity campaign and a record $6.79 million windfall for 493 local charities. That amount was raised from more than 20,000 individual donors.

Did you know?

Two Chicago golf leaders of a few decades back passed away with a month of each other recently. Nat Rosasco was owner and president of Northwestern Golf Co., a prominent equipment manufacturer, and Charles Chudek was the founder of Chicagoland Golfer, a twice-a-week publication that flourished in the early 1960s. Chudek’s publication is not to be confused with Chicagoland Golf, which operated under the late Phil Kosin from 1989-2009. Rosasco was 83, Chudek 82.

+ + +

The University of Illinois’ Luke Guthrie played in only 10 events on the Web.com Tour this year after using up his collegiate eligibility, but he was one of three finalists for the circuit’s player-of-the-year award. It went to money-leader Casey Wittenberg through a vote of tour members. Guthrie, second on the money list, is headed for the PGA Tour in 2013.

+ + +

The NCAA announced its postseason sites for 2014 and 2015. Rich Harvest Farms was awarded a men’s regional, with Northern Illinois the host school, in 2014.

IT ZIEHMS TO ME: Meierdierks, Jeray Q-School successes are in sharp contrast

Rarely does a Chicago golfer get through a qualifying school for any of the professional tours. This year, though, two did – and their roads to success couldn’t be much more different.

Wilmette’s Eric Meierdierks, a 27-year old with only one PGA start to his credit, made it all the way to the PGA Tour for 2013 with his tie for 14th finish in the three-stage November elimination that started with 1,558 players.

Berwyn’s Nicole Jeray, 42, competed in the qualifying tournament for the LPGA Tour for the 19th time. It had 122 finalists, and she finished tied for 17th . That 90-hole competition ended earlier this week.

Meierdierks, though relatively new to the rigorous qualifying procedures, made it easily. The top 25 and ties qualified for PGA Tour cards at PGA West in LaQuinta, Calif. A week later Jeray survived in dramatic fashion at LPGA International in Daytona Beach, FL. Only the top 20 get LPGA cards in that circuit’s Q-School, and Jeray had to go to a seven-player playoff for the final four spots. She survived with a 20-foot birdie putt on the fifth extra hole.

The first PGA Tour event for Meierdierks as a card-carrying member of the circuit will likely be the Sony Open in Hawaii on Jan. 7. Jeray has been on and off the LPGA circuit since earning privileges for the first time in 1994. She won’t make her full-fledged LPGA return until at least February, since that’s when the circuit begins play in 2013.

Meierdierks arrival on the PGA Tour was a feel-good story, just as much as Jeray’s grittiness was on the women’s side. He had been basically a mini-tour player since turning professional in 2009. His career highlight had been a victory in the 2010 Illinois Open at Hawthorn Woods, and he lost that tourney’s 2012 title in a playoff with Max Scodro last August at The Glen Club.

Six days before the first stage of this fall’s Q-School Meierdierks suffered a family tragedy. His father Dick, who had been in poor health after developing an infection following surgery, passed away at the age of 70. Making it through the first stage may have been Meierdierks’ toughest test in the qualifying process.

Fond memories of his father, however, played a role in Meierdierks’ success in the final stage, played over the Tournament and Nicklaus courses at PGA West.

“We had stayed in Palm Springs on spring vacations,’’ he said, “and I distinctly remembered one year.’’

That was when the family’s lodging was off the seventh hole of the Nicklaus’ layout. It was understandable he’d remember that, given an incident that happened to his father there when he and Eric went out on the course to play a few holes late in the day.

“He walked through a screen door and tore his patella tendon,’’ recalled Meierdierks. That misfortune aside, good family memories helped Meierdierks cope with the tension that always plays a part in Q-School. By the time his 90-hole marathon was over Meierdierks was set for the next stage in his golfing life.

“It’s been incredible,’’ he told me after a few days of reflection. “It’s been a long journey, and it feels really good to finally have a dream come true and see a lot of hard work pay off.’’

Except for caddie and boyhood friend Bill Bohr, Meierdierks winged in alone during the final stage of Q-School. His mother Linda debated coming after Eric moved into contention, but decided to stay in Chicago.

“She didn’t want to change the mojo that was going on in my week,’’ he said, “though I’m not sure it would have made any difference. Anyway, she’ll be able to see me play lots of tournaments now.’’

Meierdierks, who has spent considerable time in Arizona “chasing the money on mini-tours’’ the last two years, planned a return to Illinois for two weeks during Christmas. Then he’ll be off on a new adventure. His only previous PGA Tour event was the 2009 Frys.com Open. He made it into the field through Monday qualifying but didn’t survive the 36-hole cut.

“I didn’t play particularly bad,’’ he said. “It was mainly a learning experience, and it was very eye-opening. I had placed the players on the PGA Tour on such a high pedestal, but I realized then that they weren’t that far away. It was a really big step for me. I also saw how well they were treated out there.’’

Now Meierdierks will find that out more frequently. He expects to get into quite a few early-season events, and his play will dictate how much he plays as the year progresses. Bohr, who carried his bag in all three stages of Q-School, will remain his caddie. They grew up together as caddies at Sunset Ridge, though Meierdierks went to high school at New Trier and Bohr at Loyola.

His equipment sponsorship, with TaylorMade, isn’t a concern and he feels prepared for what’s ahead the next few months.

“I could see (at Q-School) that the PGA Tour is a massive organization, and it has a lot of people in place to help you through this process,’’ said Meierdierks. “There’s going to be a little lifestyle change, but mainly I figure I’ll be paying a little more taxes.’’

Jeray has been the only Chicago player on the LPGA Tour for the last two decades. The last Chicago player to earn privileges on the PGA Tour was Crystal Lake’s Joe Affrunti, who earned his card by finishing in the top 25 on the Nationwide (now Web.com Tour) money list in 2010. He required shoulder surgery last spring and missed most of what would have been his rookie season on the PGA Tour. Coming off a medical exemption, he hopes to resume playing on the circuit in 2013.

MISSOURI OZARKS: Old Kinderhook is the place to go

Water comes into play frequently at this Tom Weiskopf masterpiece.

CAMDENTON, Mo. – It’s easy to have warm feelings about Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks region. Mine go back to college days, and that was way too long ago.

Not everything in the world is better now than it was back in those more carefree years, but Lake of the Ozarks fits the bill. It still has its beautiful lakes and down-to-earth charm, and – make no mistake – the golf has gotten better, too.

As recently as the early 1990s the area had just five 18-hole courses, the hotbeds being at the two big resorts – Tan-Tar-A and Lodge of the Four Seasons. Those spots are still thriving, but now the number of public courses in the region is up to 13 and nine having lodging available.

Perhaps the best of the course now – and I’ve played most of them at one time or another — is Old Kinderhook, located in Camdenton (population about 4,000). It’s hard to describe Old Kinderhook, a place that got its name off the former name of Camden County.

Paul Hannigan, an all-purpose staffer at Old Kinderhook with a work background that includes doing sports radio in Illinois, admits that Old Kinderhook isn’t really a resort because it doesn’t have a hotel. That will soon change. The resort will reveal artists’ renderings and plans for The Lodge at Old Kinderhook on Oct. 30, 2013. It’s expected to be a five-story structure near the current pro shop.

Even without a hotel Old Kinderhook has plenty of lodging, thereby definitely qualifying it as a golf destination. On the premises are cottages, villas, patio homes and estate homes. There’s also a conference center and two quality restaurants – The Hook Café for breakfast and lunch and The Trophy Room, a most pleasant place for upscale evening dining.

You don’t have to give up the more homespun places that have marked the Ozarks for decades, though. RJ’s Family Restaurant (some Ozark veterans may know it as CJ’s, but the name was changed in recent years) and Tonka Hills are nearby spots that worked out for breakfast and Jake Culpepper’s Steakhouse was a fun dinner spot.

Normally, full-fledged golf resorts offer more than one course. Old Kinderhook doesn’t, but Lake Valley – a fun layout with six par-5s, six par-4s and six par-3s – is across the street on Rt. 54 and Deer Chase, newest of the Ozark courses (it opened in 2004), is a short drive away — though a bit off the beaten path — in Linn Creek.

As for the Old Kinderhook layout, it’s got a bit of everything. Tom Weiskopf, the long-successful PGA Tour star, designed it in 1999, and it wasn’t just a case of him putting his name on the course for promotional value. Weiskopf actually lived in the area for a few months when Old Kinderhook was under construction.

The 6,855-yard par-71 finished product reminds me of Cedar River, another Weiskopf design at the long-popular Michigan resort, Shanty Creek in Bellaire. Cedar River is outstanding, but Old Kinderhook may be even better thanks to its stunning elevation changes.

Old Kinderhook has zoysia fairways and large bentgrass greens, and it’s open year-around. After a mid-November round there I was most impressed with the variety of the par-3s. No. 3, at 206 yards from the tips, offers a dramatic downhill tee shot. The shortest, the 152-yard seventh (pictured above), plays over a ravine and is my most memorable of the four one-shotters. A great view of the lake on the left is featured at the 11th, another downhiller, and water is on the right at the 16th, which has a split-level green.

In addition to the course, considered perhaps Weiskopf’s best, there’s an 11-acre practice range and two putting greens. It’s a golf destination very much worth checking out, and it’s been getting better. Thirty homes were built in a 24-month span and a 12,000-square foot garden was created behind the No. 12 tee to supplement the restaurant’s food offerings.

Western golf groups honor two legends

The Western Golf Assn. and the Women’s Western Golf Assn., now in partnership, are honoring two of the greats of the game.

The WWGA named Mickey Wright this year’s Woman of Distinction honoree at a luncheon on Thursday at Lake Shore Country Club in Glencoe. The award was first passed out in 1994 when another LPGA legend, Patty Berg, was honored. The award is given bi-annually and other past winners include Louise Suggs, Betty Jameson, Peggy Kirk Bell, Wiffi Smith, Nancy Lopez, Carol Mann and Kathy Whitworth.

Wright won the Women’s Western Open in 1962, 1963 and 1966. The tourney was discontinued after the 1967 tourney, but the WWGA is considering reviving the event – once one of the women’s annual major championships – in some form.

Now 77, Wright was unable to receive the award but sent her thanks for the honor.

“This has been quite a year for me,’’ she wrote. “I apologize for not being there in person to tell you how honored and appreciative I am to receive this award. First to have the USGA honor me with “The Mickey Wright Room’’ at the USGA Museum in Far Hills, N.J., and now the icing on the cake with your Woman of Distinction award.’’

Wright won 82 tournament titles, second all-time behind Whitworth’s 88. She also won the Vare Trophy five times (1960-64) and is the only player in LPGA history to hold all four major titles at the same time. She won the final two majors in 1961, the U.S. Women’s Open and LPGA Championship, and then took the first two majors of 1962 – the Titleholders Championship and the Western Open.

In 1994 she finished second in the Sprint Senior Challenge, which earned her $30,000 – the biggest paycheck of her career.

The WWGA also welcomed in a new set of officers, headed by president Kim Schriver of Glen View Club. Other officers are Pat Stahl Cincinnati, first vice president; Sandra Fullmer, Eagle Ridge, second vice president; Cynthia Hirsch, Lake Shore, third vice president; Diane Kalthoff, Knollwood, secretary; and Judy Anderson, Glen View, treasurer.

Meanwhile, the Western Golf Assn. is preparing for its Nov. 9 Green Coat Gala at Chicago’s Peninsula Hotel. The event, already sold out, raised $350,000 for the Evans Scholars last year when Curtis Strange was the honoree and guest speaker. This year the spotlight will be on Tom Watson, a three-time winner of the Western Open.

Break in the FedEx playoffs is a good thing with two big weeks coming up

There’s a rare break in the PGA Tour season this week, and that’s a good thing. The best players are tired after playing three straight weeks of FedEx Cup playoff events and they’re welcoming a rest before the big two-week stretch coming up.

The climax to the playoffs, The Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta, begins its four-day run on Sept. 20 with one lucky competitor cashing in on a $10 million payoff. Then comes the most high-profile event in golf, the 39th Ryder Cup matches pitting the U.S. and Europe at Medinah Country Club. Players start arriving for that on Sept. 25 with the competition beginning Sept. 26.

Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy is the hottest Ryder Cup player, with wins in the last two FedEx Cup events, and Tiger admits he’s ailing despite a good showing in the BMW Championship last week in Indianapolis. He was limping after some bad shots, suggesting his surgically-repaired left knee isn’t completely healed.

“Those shots didn’t feel very good, those awkward shots,’’ said Woods. “My knee doesn’t like that position, so that’s kind of the way it goes.’’

Still in the top five on the FedEx Cup point standings, Woods (second) is in position to win the playoff’s biggest monetary prize and the Ryder Cup doesn’t come until after that. Eighteen of the 24 players who will participate in the Ryder Cup have qualified for The Tour Championship.

In fact only one player, American Nick Watney, is in the top 16 of the FedEx Cup point race. The other 15 will play for big money in Atlanta and national pride at Medinah.

“Having a week off just to rest, the guys will get refreshed for the last two weeks and that push,’’ said Woods. “Having this week off is going to help a lot.’’

One player not playing the FedEx Cup playoffs who could factor into the Ryder Cup big-time is Sweden’s Peter Hanson. He won the KLM Open on the European PGA Tour with a hole-out for eagle on the last hole on Sunday. Hanson, an automatic qualifier for the European team, is playing with a heavy heart. His 2-year old son has been hospitalized with a severe respiratory infection.

LPGA’s Legends Tour hits French Lick

Former LPGA player Jane Blalock has worked for 11 years to established a tour for the circuit’s early players. Now she’s done it. Blalock has spurred the creation of a few tournaments each year, and eight were held this year. In 2012 there’ll be at least 10, including a big one at Indiana’s French Lick Resort from Sept. 22-29.

“It’ll be the biggest event we’ve ever had,’’ said Blalock. “It’ll be an annual celebration of women’s golf.’’

The week will begin with the Alice Dye Championship, an amateur event that honors the wife of course architect Pete Dye. The Legends circuit, for women age 45 and over, will compete over 54 holes on the Pete Dye Course at the resort to conclude the big week.

Blalock and director of golf Dave Harner also announced that a Hall of Fame for the Legends players will also be established at French Lick, which hosted three LPGA events in the 1950s.

Here and there

The 32nd U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship runs through Thursday at Conway Farms with the the 36-hole championship climaxing the six-day competition for players 25 and over… Bill Murray, Justin Timberlake, Michael Phelps and Ryder Cup captains Davis Love III and Jose Maria Olazabal will participate in the Celebrity Scramble, a feature on Sept. 25 – the opening day of Ryder Cup week at Medinah…..The Thompson Cup matches, a team event between the top 55-and-over players in the Illinois PGA and Chicago District Golf Assn., will be played Friday (SEPT 14) at Chicago’s Ridge Country Club. The IPGA won last year, 7-5.….Pine Meadow, in Mundelein, has scheduled its second Super Senior Open for next Tuesday and Wednesday (SEPT 18-19).

BMW CHAMPIONSHIP: Ten-birdie round shows Mickelson is back in the groove

CARMEL, Ind. – Phil Mickelson was a reluctant competitor when the Western Golf Assn. held the Western Open and its successor, the BMW Championship, at Cog Hill in Lemont. He just didn’t like the course, and said so.

The results showed it, too. From his first appearance in 1992 until the final staging at Cog last year Mickelson had one good showing – a tie for eighth in 2010. He played 12 other times without making the top 25, missed the cut twice and skipped the event six times.

No player was happier than Mickelson to see the tourney leave Lemont after Rees Johnson renovated the course in 2008, and Saturday he was the talk of the relocated BMW Championship after posting 10 birdies en route to an 8-under-par 64 — low score of the week — in the third round at Crooked Stick.

The hot round elevated Mickelson into a tie with Vijay Singh for the 54-hole lead at 16-under-par 200 but they’ll have plenty of prominent contenders going into today’s final round. Lee Westwood and Rory McElroy, past and present world No. 1s, are two strokes back in a tie for third, Dustin Johnson is in a three-way tie for fifth and Tiger Woods is solo eighth after rallying with four birdies in the last 10 holes on Saturday.

But Mickelson’s game is peaking at the right time. Last of the four-tournament FedEx Cup playoff series, The Tour Championship, comes up in two weeks in Atlanta and the following week it’s the Ryder Cup at Medinah.

“My game went south for awhile, and it’s finally starting to come around,’’ said Mickelson. “I’m looking forward to the shootout tomorrow and the next couple weeks.’’

After a tie for seventh at the Byron Nelson Classic in May Mickelson went seven tournaments without a top-30 finish, missed the cut twice including the U.S. Open and withdrew from one event after shooting a first-round 79.

He barely hung on to the eighth, and last, automatic berth on the U.S. Ryder Cup team during that down stretch, but now the slump is over. Mickelson ended it with a tie for fourth at the Deutsche Bank Championship, second of the FedEx playoff events, last week in Boston. Now he’s in a great position to win at Crooked Stick, where low scores have become the norm thanks to difficult weather conditions.

For the third straight day the lift, clean and place rule was in effect because the fairways were so soggy. Friday’s second round started early so that it could be completed before predicted storms hit. They dropped 2.3 inches of rain on the course Friday night, and Saturday’s third round was pushed back to a noon start to allow for cleanup work.

None of it reduced the swarming galleries for Indianapolis’ first big men’s event since the 1991 PGA Championship.

“It’s great to play golf here,’’ said Mickelson, who never said that about Chicago. “It’s a great golf course, and it’s unreal how much support we’ve had.’’

Michigan’s Mecca had plenty to celebrate at 25th anniversary

GAYLORD, MI. – It has never ceased to amaze me how much better golf is in Michigan than it is in any other state. The season isn’t very long there, but the number of quality public courses is extraordinary. I should know.

For over 25 years – starting about the time of the 1985 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills – I’ve been a regular Michigan visitor just because of the golf offered. Most of the trips were between two and five days (a couple might have lasted a week), and usually there were two or three per year. And rarely have I played a course more than once. There are so many good courses in Michigan you don’t want to miss one.

This isn’t to spotlight specific courses, though. This is to put the state’s golf success story in perspective, and no one place could do it better than the Gaylord Golf Mecca, a marketing affiliation that celebrated its 25th anniversary in August with an outing and dinner at the Masterpiece — a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design at Treetops Resort.

Keith Gornick, owner of the Hidden Valley Resort, is credited with starting the Mecca. Tired of the area’s golf facilities fighting each other for business, he invited the owners of several of them to a winter lunch in 1987. The result was the formation of the Gaylord Golf Council.

To say that was a wise move is putting it mildly. Instead of battling each other the owners mounted a cooperative effort that has resulted in more than 3.6 million golfers playing on Mecca courses over the last 25 years.

The Mecca started with six courses – Wilderness Valley, Garland, Gaylord Country Club, Michaywe Pines, the then-new Masterpiece course at Sylvan Resort (now named Treetops) and the Classic – oldest of the lot (it opened in 1955) on the grounds of ski hotbed Otsego Club.

Now the Mecca encompasses 17 courses, 306 holes, four resorts and 21 hotel properties to accommodate stay-and-play properties. Course architects represented in the Mecca include, in addition to Jones Sr., include the likes of Tom Fazio, Tom Doak, Rees Jones, Rick Smith, Jerry Matthews and Gary Koch.

The courses include Threetops, which bills itself with justification as “the No. 1 Par 3 Course in America.’’ Lots of pro stars have played it, and Lee Trevino earned $1,090,000 with one swing when he made a hole-in-one on the No. 7 hole – a feat that is now described as “the shot heard round the world.’’

Elevation changes make the biggest impact on me when I play in Michigan, and none is more pronounced than the 219-yard straight downhill third hole at Threetops. The signature sixth hole at Jones’ Masterpiece (shown below) has a breathtaking vertical drop (120 feet) as well.

Everybody has their favorites at the Mecca. I’m a big fan of Otsego’s Tribute – a fun layout designed by Rick Robbins and Koch, the PGA Tour veteran and NBC golf analyst. This last trip involved playing three of the Mecca courses, but Gaylord is a full day’s drive from Chicago so catching other courses on the way is a must if time permits. For us it did.

Shanty Creek Resorts, in Bellaire, has been a frequent stop over the years starting when the resort opened The Legend, an Arnold Palmer design that celebrated its own 25th anniversary in 2011. Shanty’s a top-quality resort (it just completed a $10 million renovation) with three other courses, our favorite being the Tom Weiskopf-designed Cedar River. Most fun layout, though, is Schuss Mountain, which has long been popular with locals. For non-golf activity the view of Lake Bellaire is spectacular from the dining area of the Lakeview Restaurant and Lounge.

Michigan golf leaders have always been ahead of ahead of the national curve, and a good example of that came at Schuss Mountain. In an effort to make golf more enjoyable for beginners the layout has two cup placements on each hole. One has the traditional 4 ¼-inch cup and the other – usually in the back of the green – is eight inches wide. You can play to either or – as we did – try out them both. Head professional Brian Kautz said that two-cup plan may be extended to Shanty’s fourth course, Summit, next year. Though a full-length 18-holer, the Summit also features par-3 tee boxes on every hole.

Another stop on the way to Gaylord this year was Forest Dunes, in Roscommon. People who should know tell me Forest Dunes has the best greens in Michigan. The raters from both Golf Magazine and Golf Digest apparently agree. Golf Digest rated Forest Dunes No. 20 in its list of the top 100 U.S. public courses and Golf Magazine elevated it from 45th last year to 33rd on its Best Public Courses in the U.S. list.

Forest Dunes’ location is on the remote side, but you couldn’t tell that on the weekday that we visited. A youth tournament, combined with public play, made it a most busy place.

The Mecca anniversary outing, which included an inspiring speech from Michigan lieutenant governor Brian Calley at the post-golf dinner, climaxed our second golf journey into the state in 2012. Our next such adventure on the Michigan’s links can’t come soon enough.

ILLINOIS PGA: Finally a non-Chicago club pro wins

The likelihood of Steve Orrick winning the 90th Illinois PGA Championship Wednesday didn’t seem good.

No club professional from outside the Chicago area had won the event since Mike Sipula in 1952, and Orrick had two better established playing partners in the final threesome at Stonewall Orchard in Grayslake. Illinois coach Mike Small had won the IPGA title nine times and Curtis Malm, assistant pro at St. Charles Country Club, had been the hottest player in the section this season with titles in the Match Play and Assistants championships.

Small, Malm and everybody else was no match for Orrick, however. The Country Club of Decatur head pro shot a sizzling 65 – including a 5-under-par 31 on the back nine – to take the title by five shots.

Orrick posted an 9-under-par 207 for the tourney’s 54 holes to beat Malm, who shot 66 in Tuesday’s second round to open a three-stroke lead on Small. Orrick was a stroke back in third at the start of the day but found himself the sole leader after Malm made bogeys at Nos. 3, 4 and 5 and then put a ball in the water at No. 9 for still another.

“It was pretty awful for awhile,’’ said Malm. “I had a horrid start, and some of the worst tee shots I’ve ever hit were on 3, 4 and 5.’’

But Orrick definitely won this title more than Malm lost it.

“I wasn’t paying attention to what Curtis was doing,’’ said Orrick. “I just hoped my putter would get hot, and it did.’’

Orrick was in position to win the IPGA title in 2008 at Medinah but, playing in the last twosome, he finished runner-up to Small. Orrick had won the IPGA Fall Classic at Eagle Ridge in Galena in 2008 and 2009, but the IPGA Championship is much more prestigious.

“Steve’s a really good player. I knew he’d shoot something good, but I didn’t see 65,’’ said Malm. “He was unbelievable.’’

In his sixth season at Country Club of Decatur, Orrick posted his best-ever tournament round and achieved a career highlight. His best previous performance came at the 2010 Professional Players National Championship at French Lick, Ind., where he came up one stroke short of qualifying for the PGA Championship.

Kishwaukee’s Dave Paeglow, playing six groups in front of the leaders, shot 67 and edged Small for third. Paeglow, at 1-under 215, was the only player besides Orrick and Malm to finish under par at the only public facility in the championship’s three-course rotation. It’ll be played at Olympia Fields in 2013 and Medinah in 2014.