Illinois Golfer RememberingRemembering twotwo greatgreat professionals:professionals: LeonLeon McNair,McNair, HubbyHubby HabjanHabjan IllinoisIllinois GolferGolfer Digital Edition July 2016 WhoWho willwill wearwear thethe Crown?Crown? InternationalInternational CrownCrown hosthost MeritMerit Club’sClub’s parpar 33 17th17th Page 2 • July 2016 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Buzz In This Issue –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– News –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Remembering Leon McNair 5 Ibrahim to Southwest PGA Cover story: Here comes the International Crown 6 In every organization, there are people who work Miller wins Illinois Women’s Open 8 behind the scenes and do the grunt work that makes Illinois Open Preview 10 the organization run. Price cashes in at CDGA Amateur 11 Prassas wins all-Loyola Illinois Jr AM 14 At the Illinois Section of the PGA, Bill Ibrahim was Western Women’s Am to Hollis 16 that person. When executive director Michael Miller Opinion left for the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Southwest Section, –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– and took media expert Mike Schoaf along, it was up to Grill Room: Time for USGA to play fair 4 Ibrahim to keep the operation going while a search for Departments a new executive director was undertaken. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– He did that brilliantly throughout the tournament Around Illinois: Hubby Habjan 18 season, even while two people short. Tour Guide 19 Tournament calendar / Scoreboard 20 Now, after 16 years at the Illinois PGA, he’s joining The Directory 22 Miller and Schoaf in Scottsdale. That means executive The Directory 21 director Carrie Williams, who took over last August, is again a person short, needing a senior director of operations / public relations. Ibrahim was behind the successful stagings of Illinois Golfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Hall of Fame Induction Night and the annual Section July 2016 Awards soiree, as well as the section’s major tourna- Digital Edition • Vol. 2, No. 4 ments. While he had help, especially from Schoaf, be- –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– fore his departure, his absence will be felt. Published monthly April through October Plus, he put up with golf writers. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tim Cronin / Illinois Golfer Publisher & Editor Tim Cronin RE-RUFFLED: Ruffled Feathers Golf Course in Man at work Bill Ibrahim in his element, getting –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Lemont has completed a $2 million renovation that in- things done. Now he’ll do that in the Valley of the Sun. Join us online at www.illinoisgolfer.net cludes new sand and drainage in every bunker, tweaks Write us at P.O. Box 541, Worth, Illinois 60482 E-mail us at [email protected] to the course that include better sight lines, and what tions.” A major clubhouse renovation includes a 1,000- Call us at (708) 638-1164 owner Arcis Golf is touting as “tour-qualify turf condi- square foot wraparound deck for outdoor dining. Follow us on Twitter: @illinoisgolfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Display / classified advertising: ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Call (708) 638-1164 for particulars. Illinois Golfer assumes no responsibility for unsolicited The Cover Merit Club, primped for its first big tournament in 16 years, should be filled with fans from the eight par- materials or claims of advertisers. Caveat emptor. ticipating countries (indicated by the flags of Australia, People’s Republic of China, Republic of China, England, Japan, South –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– © 2016 Illinois Golfer LLC, a unit of Cronin Multimedia Korea, Thailand, and the U.S.) for the International Crown. / Merit Club photo by Rory Spears / GolfersOnGolf.com Page 4 • July 2016 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Grill Room by Tim Cronin A plea for common sense within the USGA or decades, the United States Golf son decision – and that’s the problem. Association’s image has been that of the Here’s an idea: Get rid of As written, rewritten, amended and append- all-knowing blue blazer-clad group that ed by the USGA and the R&A, they are simply creates – with the R&A – the rules of the (moving ball) rule. too complicated, too riddled with loopholes, ex- Fthe game, helps keep turfgrass green and alive, Whether you hit it or not, ceptions and those lawyerly favorites, “deemed” and sets up golf courses exceedingly hard. and “presumed.” Today? The USGA has the appearance of if the ball moves and you Here’s an idea: Get rid of the rule. Whether well-meaning bumblers using a set of conflict- you hit it or not, if the ball moves and you didn’t ing rules designed to embarrass golfers, enforc- didn’t mean it, no penalty. mean to hit it, put it back with no penalty. That’s ing them on grass surfaces that lend themselves how it works if you tap the ball off the tee by ac- toward the ball moving rather than remaining is incorrect. The fine print says the referee can cident in addressing it. Why not everywhere else? stationary, and on golf courses that, at least for be overruled by other evidence, even when the After l’affaire Johnson, USGA boss Mike the U.S. Open, are close to unplayable. referee, in this case Mark Newell, is the head of Davis pleaded for a mulligan – Mike, there’s no Oh, and with their non-profit hand out dur- the USGA’s rules committee. such thing as winter rules – and promised the ing most every commercial break, asking for a So why is the rule in the book? group would speed up its processes. Thus, at the donation “for the good of the game” before the And we learned the USGA’s decision in the U.S. Women’s Open, after a Fox camera spotted action resumes on Fox, which is paying about wake of the penalty for a moving ball on Tiger Anna Nordqvist tipping a tiny, teeny clump of $100 million annually for the television rights. Woods during the 2013 BMW Championship in sand over on addressing the ball in a bunker on And did we mention the group’s inability to Conway Farms, the decision that prohibits use the second playoff hole, a quick decision was control the distance the ball goes? At least when of zoomed-in high-definition video to make a made: two-shot penalty. the big guys hit it, that is. call, could also be ignored if the USGA decided Fine. But Nordqvist was told after her third The flaws in the organization – imperfec- to ignore it. (The circumstances of Woods, who shot on the final playoff hole, but Brittany Lang tions that can and should be corrected – have didn’t think the ball moved and didn’t believe was told before her third shot, and immediately been on garish display of late. The worst was the video, and Johnson, who told Newell the changed clubs. the rules fiasco at the U.S. Open, where Dustin ball moved but that he didn’t make it move, are Oops. Johnson’s penalty for the ball moving on the sev- different, but the spy-eye video was used in each Given the timing, neither player should have enth green wasn’t applied until after the round, case.) been told until both third shots had been played. and where he had to play the last six holes in the This sounds like the NHL, where things are Better yet, since it’s a playoff, blow the horn chase for the title not knowing exactly what his often made up as the game goes along. and stop play once the replay appears. That leaves score was. It would take three pages to print all the fine both players waiting on their second shot. Along the way, we learned the rule call- print from the Rules and Decisions books that That’s fair. ing the decision of the on-course referee final can be used by one side or the other on the John- Isn’t it time the USGA plays fair? Page 5 • July 2016 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Leon McNair • 1941-2016 A man taken far too soon By Tim Cronin sworth’s Links Across America initative to boost ––––– youth participation in the game. t’s difficult to write about Leon McNair “Leon was devoted to the mission,” Wad- without getting sentimental. sworth told the Aurora Beacon-News. “He felt a He was the kind of guy who, just by go- loyalty to the game and a desire to do as much as ing about his business and his life, more of- he could for young people. He was just a wonder- Iten than not brought out the best in others. ful person through and through.” McNair, inducted into the Illinois Golf Hall It was a longtime passion of McNair, who of Fame last year, died Sunday, July 3, of amyo- wanted to see kids on golf courses. trophic lateral sclerosis, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s Dis- “The reason we launched Links Across ease. He was 75. America is, other than a few rare cases, afford- The longtime professional at Fox Bend Golf able golf for youth does not exist in this country,” Course in Oswego, for which he was part of the McNair said in his Hall of Fame acceptance talk. construction crew, fought the disease for which “The mission was to develop feeder short courses, there is as yet no cure valiantly. three-, six- or nine-hole across the country to pro- A standout at Glenbard West High School vide affordable golf, especially for youth, fami- and graduate of Southern Illinois, where he was lies, adult beginners and individuals with injuries a member of their 1964 NCAA Division II cham- or disabilities.” pionship golf team, Leon was lured into staying By last fall, 29 courses had been built in 16 at Fox Bend by architect and construction guru Leon McNair states. Brent Wadsworth. McNair was at Fox Bend from McNair was also honored last fall by the state, 1967 until his retirement in 2005.