Bill Abrams the Mortell Family Invites You to Play PGA Professional Balmoral Woods: Great Golf at a Great Value
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Uneasy lies the Crown • Jason Day’s wild BMW ride • Prep finals IllinoisIllinois GolferGolfer Digital Edition Autumn 2015 HallHall ofof FameFame 20152015 ClassClass ChandlerChandler EverettEverett MorrisMorris EverettEverett Jr.Jr. LeonLeon McNairMcNair JimJim SobbSobb Page 2 • Autumn 2015 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Buzz In This Issue –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– News –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Uneasy lies the Crown 6 Ivanhoe to welcome web.com Cover story: Hall of Fame Induction Night 7 In some ways, PGA Tour’s developmental tour is Jason’s Way dominates at Conway 10 what the real PGA Tour was 20 years ago and more. Illinois’ Prep Champions are crowned 12 Begun as the Ben Hogan Tour, and sponsored by that Home in the domes 14 famed equipment company for the first three years, it Columns has evolved into a circuit where, if a corporate boss –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– finds it worthwhile to sponsor a tournament, he can The Grill Room: Trump and golf 4 snap his fingers and see it happen. Departments Certainly, it’s more complicated than that, but not –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Around Illinois: Mistwood clubhouse nearly as complicated than sponsoring a tournament opens; gary player speaks 16 on the regular tour, where the purses are $5 million Tour Guide 18 and up and the annual financial committment is often The Directory 21 twice that. Rory Spears / GolfersOnGolf.com Enter the Rust-Oleum Company, headquartered in Ivanhoe’s 18th The ninth hole of Ivanhoe Vernon Hills, and president and chief operating officer Club’s Prairie Nine will be the 18th for the Rust-Ole- Tom Reed. um web.com tournament next June. Enter also the Ivanhoe Club in north suburban course the thumbs up. Some minor bunkering work Illinois Golfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Mundelein. Reed is a member there. has already been taken care of, so next spring, all that Autumn 2015 See where this is headed? will need to happen is for the grass to grow for the late- Digital Edition • Vol. 1, No. 7 Thought so. Rust-Oleum, itself a throwback name, spring tournament to look good for the eight hours of –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– will sponsor a web.com tournament next June 9-12 – coverage Golf Channel will devote to it. Published monthly April through October –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– the week before the U.S. Open – at the Ivanhoe Club. Membership approval came in September. It’s the Publisher & Editor Tim Cronin It’s a one-year deal with an option for two more, if first web.com tournament in Chicago since the LaSal- –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– the club, the company and the circuit find everything to le Bank/Bank of America Open disappeared following Join us online at www.illinoisgolfer.net Write us at P.O. Box 541, Worth, Illinois 60482 their liking. Rust-Oleum is moving its tournament from the 2008 season. The Western Golf Association spon- E-mail us at [email protected] Cleveland. sors the tour’s first playoff tournament annually in Fort Call us at (708) 638-1164 Ivanhoe has 27 holes, and will likely use its original Wayne, Ind. Follow us on Twitter: @illinoisgolfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 18, the Forest and Prairie nines, perhaps with a hole or Located on Rt. 60 northwest of the hamlet of Ivan- Display / classified advertising: two from the Marsh nine mixed in, for the tournament. hoe, parking will either be in a nearby big-box store lot Call (708) 638-1164 for particulars. Illinois Golfer assumes no responsibility for unsolicited Players on scouting missions last year gave the or on a nearby farm. materials or claims of advertisers. Caveat emptor. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– © 2015 Illinois Golfer LLC, a unit of Cronin Multimedia On The Cover Left to right, Morris and Chandler Everett, great-grandsons of H.Chandler Egan, joined by Illinois Golf Hall of Fame inductees Leon McNair and Jim Sobb on Induction Night. / Nick Novelli / Illinois PGA. Bill Abrams The Mortell Family invites you to play PGA Professional Balmoral Woods: Great golf at a great value. of the year • 2015 (logo here) Certified PING Equipment Expert Club Fitting Certified US Kids Golf Top 50 Teacher Wedding receptions, banquets and www.balmoralwoods.com golf outings www.countrytablecatering.com serviced by On Ill. Rt. 1, Crete The Country Table, (708) 672-7448 2015 champion: famed Kankakee Michael Fastert caterer. Page 4 • Autumn 2015 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Grill Room by Tim Cronin Donald Trump and major golf cannot co-exist ou can go to any golf course, public or Now the group has to figure out where to The Women’s British Open, administered private, in the country and bet good play it in the future. The PGA Tour, the USGA by the Ladies Golf Union, was played there less money that there’s at least one guy and the R&A are similarly perplexed. than a month after Trump first tore into immigra- whom the rest of the regulars can’t The PGA Tour announced on Dec. 11 it will tion from Mexico in the summer. The LGU was Ystand. look into moving the Cadillac Championship really stuck, and you had to laugh at Trump at They put up with him, either because he has – the Doral Open originally – from his Doral in telling the LPGA, which doesn’t run the tourna- a standing tee time or pays his dues on time, but 2017. Apparently the panjandrums of the Tour ment, it could leave after LPGA commissioner he’s the last guy whom you would care to fill out can’t find an alternative site in south Florida on Mike Whan criticized him. your foursome. short notice for the soiree coming in March. Donald Trump is Al Czervik in real life. The He’s the gent for whom the phrase, “Sorry, So why not go to north Florida and the Valley fictional version is preferred. we already have three,” comes to mind. Course at Sawgrass, the one next to the Players –––––– In the wide world of big-time golf, Donald Course? Donate the proceeds to the Miami-area A personal note, if you don’t mind. Trump is that man. charities that would normally benefit. The resumption of ILLINOIS GOLFER on a In running for president, he has run vari- The USGA has the 2017 U.S. Women’s Open monthly basis – more or less, as this issue, ous ethnic and religious groups into the ground. slated for Trump Bedminster in New Jersey. originally planned for October, was necessarily Some people have tried to hold their nose, hoping What will the kids in the blue jackets do? delayed by the completion of a book – has been he’d realize that running for president, while a Then there’s the R&A. Trump’s acquisi- fulfilling on all levels. We’ve reported in depth down-and-dirty business from colonial times to tion of the Turnberry Resort in 2014 essentially on golf on all levels in Illinois, brought you com- today, requires a modicum of tact, decorum, and bought him a place on the British Open rota. The pelling photography, and are even finishing the no small amoint of common sense. That concept championship has dropped by since 1977, when year a bit in the black. has proven impossible for Trump to grasp. Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus staged the “Duel The plan for 2016 is for more of the same, Given his unfounded broad-brush sullying in the Sun,” that drama all but assuring the resort and more beyond that. More features are on the of Hispanics – whom he employs on ground additional Opens. And Watson’s near-miss in drawing board, with more voices heard. crews and elsewhere at his golf courses – and the 2009 reminded the new kids what a great player Before the snow not only flies but sticks, a Muslim religion, golf groups are finally coming the flinty Missourian had been. special thank you to our advertisers, Balmoral around to the notion that Trump is about the last But, changes for the better to the Turnberry Woods, Cantigny, Cog Hill and Mistwood. Their guy you want to be associated with. layout aside, it’s impossible now for the R&A support is greatly appreciated, and we’ll try to That means not playing at his golf courses. to go back while Trump’s presence darkens the arrange company for them next year. After Trump’s slur of Hispanics, the PGA of entrance. Remember, check the website where you America canceled its Grand Slam when it “2020 will not happen here,” an R&A insider download this digital edition – www.illinoisgolf- couldn’t find an alternative to playing this year’s told The Independent on Sunday. “Turnberry er.net – for breaking news before this version of exhibition at a Trump course in California. will be back. But perhaps not Trump Turnberry.” ILLINOIS GOLFER returns in the spring. Page 6 • Autumn 2015 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Uneasy lies the Crown LPGA team tourney, bounced from Rich Harvest, finds refuge at Merit Club By Tim Cronin ––––– Some things just never happen in golf. Once a tournament site is fixed, that’s it. A club decides to host, and it hosts. There’s no turn- ing back. Until Nov. 11, that is, and the stunning an- nouncement that Rich Harvest Farms, the leafy backyard playground of Jerry Rich, would not be hosting next July’s International Crown, the LPGA country-as-team tournament brought to life by Tim Cronin / Illinois Golfer Rich himself and sponsored by UL, a firm with Change of venue This display at Rich Harvest Farms may remain, but the second edition of the Interna- deep roots in Chicago. tional Crown will be played at Merit Club in Libertyville. Wait a minute.