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Illinois Golfer Monday, The Opening 9 February 8, 2021 Hardy’s run continues The Week Ahead It’s good to be Nick Hardy these Illinois 1 days. The 25-year-old Northbrook na- CDGA tive is playing the best golf of his career CDGA Mid-Amateur Qualifying, and being rewarded for it. Maple Meadows, April 26 The latest example came last week, Illinois PGA which Hardy opened by surviving a IPGA Las Vegas Pro-Am starts March 22 playoff to grab the last spot in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, and then National closed by finishing tied for 42nd and PGA Tour padding his wallet by $23,852.75. AT&T Pebble Beach, CBS/GC Hardy’s seven days in Scottsdale LPGA came on the heels of a big week in Gainbridge starts Feb. 25, GC Hawaii. He four-spotted for the Sony Korn Ferry Open at Wai’alae in Honolulu, and fired Suncoast Classic starts Feb. 18 four rounds in the 60s to tie for 14th, Champions Cologuard Classic starts Feb. 26, five strokes behind winner Kevin Na, GC winning $113,850. All that while he’s waiting for the International Korn Ferry Tour to get rolling this month. European Tour At this pace, the KF crowd may not see WGC at the Concession starts much of him again. Bill Ibrahim / Southwest PGA Feb. 25, GC All this fuss about rolling back Happy qualifier Nick Hardy hugs 2 distance – needed in the big time so a good friend after the playoff success. courses don’t get obsoleted – shouldn’t The hunch here is the opposite. A Tour Guide apply to the rest of the golf world. Which rollback would force the equipment firms How Illinois bred and connected is to say, us. to roll out entire new lines of clubs, and players fared last week: Do you hit it too far? Apply too much presumably, balls. They would huff and Phoenix Open backspin? Make too many birdies? puff and then cash in. Steve Stricker T- 4 $307,208.33 Didn’t think so. Rory McIlroy doesn’t And if bifurcation comes to be, with Kevin Streelman T-22 $ 64,422.50 either. He sees the need for different the buying public getting one standard Nick Hardy T-42 $ 23,852.75 equipment rules for pros and the com- and the pros limited to equipment that –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– moners. would produce less distance, the compa- A Monday feature returns “I like the idea of bifurcation, nies would still be ahead. The Golf In Chicago website that because the golf that I play and the golf They could have their pros test preceded Illinois Golfer ran The you play – no offense – (is) completely the goodies we could buy and make Opening 9 occasionally in 2012, with different,” McIlroy said in Scottsdale. commercials touting them, saying, “I’d IG renewing it as The Morning Nine “For 99 percent of golfers out there, golf in 2014. It’s high time we brought it like to use this club in tournaments, but back, with news and views we hope courses aren’t too short. The ball doesn’t I can’t. But you can, and chase yardage won’t make you snooze. It will run go too far for 99 percent of golfers. So I and your dreams.” weekly in season – except when we would be in favor of a set of parameters How to decide who can play what? have a regular issue – and occasion- for the pros and another one for the The USGA would probably say pros ally out of season when there’s news amateurs.” and high-index amateurs – say, anyone worth reporting and commenting on. Some say that bifurcation would be eligible to qualify for the U.S. Open or As in this week. – Tim Cronin –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– bad for golf, causing strife among the rul- U.S. Women’s Open – couldn’t use Publisher / Editor Tim Cronin ing bodies – the USGA makes the rules general-public clubs in competition. The ILLINOIS GOLFER / THE OPENING NINE and everyone else follows them – and Monday, February 8, 2021 – Vol. 1, No. 1 – Issue 1 pro tours would likely say the same thing © 2021 Illinois Golfer the equipment manufacturers. for their competitions. More on P. 2 A Division of CRONIN MULTIMEDIA Which means many amateurs would house remains. Olympia Fields Country designed by Illinois Golf Hall of Famer end up with two sets of equipment – Club is also on the prestigious list. Tom Bendelow about a century ago, into which the companies would love. The Rockford Park District has one 18-hole layout, plus a family golf Speaking of Phoenix, let’s not forget 6 closed Elliot Golf Course, even learning area. 3 Kevin Streelman. The Winfield though it lost the least money in 2020, The plan, by Beau Welling of Tiger native also showed well, finishing tied for the Rockford Register Star reported last Woods’ design firm, has been reworked 22nd and collecting $64,422.50. He and Wednesday. over the years, but still has one diffi- Hardy were tied after 36 holes at 7-un- Elliot lost $752,916 in the last de- cult-to-overcome flaw: how to get from der 135, then Streelman scored 69-69 cade, the park district said, noting Elliot’s Jackson Park to South Shore’s lakefront on the weekend in a home game for him. play had dropped annually since 1999. area without spending millions for an He lives near TPC Scottsdale. The Register Star reported Aldeen, underpass adjacent to Lake Michigan. Streelman has been on Tour since the district’s premier course, had needed That’s a major problem. In January 2008, and has quietly – sometimes too $2.3 million in subsidies since 1999, 2018, Chicago Park District Superin- quietly for his tastes – put together a fine while Ingersoll needed $1.3 million and tendent Mike Kelly said the course and career. He hasn’t won a major – his best the nine-hole Sinnissippi layout needed all the attendant infrastructure – under- finish is tying for 12th in The Masters $493,000 in tax help. passes included – would cost about $60 and the PGA – but he’s won twice and The park district, which says closing million. The Chicago Parks Golf Alliance earned more than $21.9 million on the Elliot will save $400,000 in 2021, opened is supposed to raise $24 million for the Tour. (Trivia that could win you a bar bet: the 6,433-yard par-72 layout for two “last course construction and an operating He’s actually won at Augusta National swing” days in early December, with fund to run the rebuilt layout, while – the 2015 Par-3 Contest.) temperatures in the 50s. Designed by Chicago and potentially state taxpayers And let we forget, that Wisconsin Larry Packard and later revised by Bob would be on the hook for the rest. The native and Fighting Illini alum, Steve Lohmann, it opened in 1968. non-profit CPGA’s latest available tax Stricker, nearly stole the show, tying for What’s in a name? “Oak” is, if you’re form, for 2018, shows assets of just over fourth and cashing over $300,000. 7 running the Northbrook Park District. $202,000. Supposedly, more is prom- It’s over at Lansing Country Club, The new name of Sportsman’s Golf ised, but that’s what was in the bank. 4 which has been all but shuttered for Course, which has been called that Things are at a standstill, and not several years. since it was formed in 1929, is Heritage just because of the pandemic. The In late December, Saxon Partners Oaks Golf Club. CPGA website hasn’t been updated closed on the purchase of the property Why? Marketing. A Chicago brand- since the middle of 2019. that straddles the Illinois-Indiana line, ing firm was brought in to ask focus Originally, the rest of the taxpay- and intends to use the 59 acres in the groups what the course should be called. er-funded construction was supposed Hoosier state for a $160 million tech- Like Waveland-as-Marovitz, people to be $6 million. In 2018, it ballooned to nology hub with a medical focus. Some will still call it Sportsman’s. $36 million, with Kelly properly adding 2,500 are expected to work there. That there’s no love lost between in the cost of underpasses and road Saxon’s Gary Warfel called it “a 8 Patrick Reed and his cohorts on reconstruction to the project. (There are highly desirable location,” The Times of the circuit isn’t news. What is news is other costs in Jackson Park that have Northwest Indiana reported. someone putting it on the record, as been tied to the Obama Center.) That portion of the property is in Xander Schauffele did in San Diego Today’s cost to reduce 27 holes Munster and encompasses the newer after Reed’s latest rules dustup. to 18? Who knows? We know this, nine holes of the course, a full-size “I mean, he did everything by the however: The plan for the First Tee to nine that went with the original near- book according to the official and ev- headquarter there is gone. That youth pitch-and-putt nine on the Illinois side to eryone stood by there,” Schauffele said. golf operation broke ground at another create one of the odder 18s around. “Obviously the talk amongst the boys Chicago Park District-controlled layout, That 40 acres will remain as green isn’t great, I guess, but he’s protected Marovitz Golf Course – Waveland, that space, though not as a golf course.

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