Illinois Golfer JohnJohn DeereDeere ClassicClassic preview;preview; HowHow KoepkaKoepka wonwon thethe OpenOpen IllinoisIllinois GolferGolfer Digital Edition July 2017 KangKang rulesrules atat OlympiaOlympia FieldsFields Page 2 • July 2017 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Buzz In This Issue –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– News –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Deere preview: Can Moore repeat? 4 Lansing CC to close Summer golf preview 8 It never hosted a big tournament, unless you’re Cover Story: Women’s PGA Kang: This one’s for Dad 9 talking about bocce ball, and the scorecard has to be Koepka throttles Erin Hills 14 seen to be disbelieved, but the members of Lansing Canadian wins Women’s Western Am 20 Country Club will miss their 175-acre oasis from the mad swirl of the rest of the world when it’s gone. Opinion –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– That will be after this season. Lansing’s member- Grill Room: No to Jackson Park rebuild 3 ship, which has been declining from year to year, is Departments selling the club for $5 million. The property has been –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– bought by Chase Development, with the Indiana side Around Illinois: Jackson Park saga continues 22 slated to become an industrial park. Plans for the Tour Guide 23 smaller Illinois portion are uncertain. Tournament Calendar / scoreboard 24 The sale was forced by Illinois’ high property tax- Lansing Country Club The Directory 26 Final weeks Lansing’s layout – par 3 front es. According to the Times of Northwest Indiana, Lan- nine, regulation back – is unique in the area. sing paid about $10,000 annually in Indiana property tax, but about $150,000 annually for to Illinois, up from great “Champagne” Tony Lema than anything else. $30,000 a decade earlier. If not fo an appeal, the an- The plane carrying Lema, his wife Betty and the two pi- Illinois Golfer nual Illinois tab would have been $180,000. lots crashed on the course’s seventh hole, apparently –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The members saw the writing on the wall – and the out of fuel just short of the nearby Lansing Municipal July 2017 Digital Edition • Vol. 3, No. 5 checks they were paying – and sold. Airport, on July 24, 1966, killing all aboard. Lema had –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Illinois side was the original nine, and it was a finished tied for 34th in the PGA Championship at Fire- Published monthly April through November, par-3 course flanked by a pair of large lakes that pro- stone Country Club hours earlier, and was slated to with occasional special issues –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– play in the Lincolnshire Open the next day. duced more good fishermen than golfers. Indeed, for Publisher & Editor Tim Cronin decades from the 1940 founding the facility was known Since 2011, a plaque commemorating Lema has –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– as the Lansing Sportsman’s Club. Golf was No. 3 be- been at the seventh hole. Join us online at www.illinoisgolfer.net Write us at P.O. Box 541, Worth, Illinois 60482 hind fishing and hunting. KUDOS TO JERAY: Berwyn native Nicole Jeray, E-mail us at [email protected] The direction changed when the vacant land in spending much of her time on the Symetra Tour lately, Call us at (708) 638-1164 Indiana was picked up and a regulation-size nine was finished seventh at 4-over-par 220 in the inaugural Se- Follow us on Twitter: @illinoisgolfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– built. Now the course measured 4,763 yards with a par nior LPGA Championshp at the French Lick Resort’s Display / classified advertising: Pete Dye Course. Jeray’s check for $16,827 was one Call (708) 638-1164 for particulars. of 67. Illinois Golfer assumes no responsibility for unsolicited But Lansing is more famous for the death of the of her bigger paydays in some time. materials or claims of advertisers. Caveat emptor. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– © 2017 Illinois Golfer LLC, a unit of Cronin Multimedia The Cover Danielle Kang with the Women’s PGA trophy after her triumph. / Tim Cronin / Illinois Golfer Page 3 • July 2017 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Grill Room by Tim Cronin No thanks to a rebuilding of Jackson Park here has been a great deal written about This is a solution for a problem that does not immediate area around Jackson Park and South the proposed rebuilding of the public golf exist. Shore – indeed, one of the neighborhoods is named courses at Jackson Park and South Shore Nobody asked for a rebuilt course with in- after the old country club – is among the poorest on Chicago’s South Side. creased green fees. and most crime-ridden in Chicago. Any good idea TProponents believe the rebuild, originally Nobody asked for 27 holes to be shrunken to would be welcomed. priced at $30 million – of which the city would 18 – along with a six-hole mini-course for children. But a $200 golf course that is unlikely to be kick in only $6 million – would both revitalize Nobody asked for an expanded practice range. frequented by the monied is not a good idea. It the neighborhood in conjunction with the planned Nobody asked for two streets to be closed to will not bring ancillary business to area restaurants Obama Presidential Center in an adjacent part of add congestion to busy Stony Island Ave. and the like. Nor would a seven-day tournament. Jackson Park, plus give city residents a champion- Nobody asked for underpasses that would Just ask the restauranteurs of Lemont’s quarry ship golf course. likely cost upwards of an additional $20 million area, which expected more business during early Detractors believe the project would wipe out – all city money – for the streets that aren’t being Western Opens down the street at Cog Hill, only to two current courses that are both affordable and closed. (That would run the total to $50 million find spectators went to the tournament, ate on Pork popular with area residents, and note that every- before lakefront work is considered.) Chop Hill, and went home. thing from tennis courts to a dog park to a nature Nobody asked for any of this, but here came If the president of BMW North America didn’t preserve to baseball and softball fields would be Rolfing on his white horse, and Chicago Park Dis- want to keep the renamed Western Open at Cog sacrificed for the glory of a course that might cost trict superintendent Tom Kelly alongside, saying Hill, and rejected the idea of playing at Olympia non-residents $200 to play. this would revitalize golf in Chicago, create caddie Fields because the club is south of the Loop, well, This being Chicago, the hidden hand was work for neighborhood youths, attract the BMW Jackson Park isn’t exactly in Lake Forest. quickly identified. Michael Ruemmler worked for Championship, and so yawn. That’s where that last three Chicago-area Rahm Emanuel when the current mayor of Chica- Nonsense. BMWs – including this September’s – have been go was president Obama’s chief of staff. Ruemmler Kelly admitted to his public at the first meet- set, at Conway Farms Golf Club. The 2019 edition plays golf and knows how to pull political strings. ing on the topic that public golf in Chicago is is lined up for Medinah Country Club, the big west The public face is Mark Rolfing, the DeKalb struggling at the current prices, that Marquette suburban golf factory. native and Kapalua, Hawaii, resident who became Park’s operation, to name one, runs at a loss. (The That’s a long way from Jackson Park. intrigued by the possibilities when undergoing operation is contracted out to Billy Casper Golf, a If we were talking about a vacant 160 acres or cancer treatment at the University of Chicago privately-owned company.) so on a brownfield that could be turned from eye- Hospitals. If people aren’t playing golf at $30, who would sore to paradise, this would be a great idea, a plus. It was Rolfing that convinced budding course pay $50 if they lived in the city, or come from the This is not a plus. This is a minus, taking af- architect Tiger Woods to consider the project after suburbs to play at $200? That’s insane. fordable golf from the public. No thanks. Not one designers Tom Doak and Bill Coore nixed helping. One proponent of the project said the idea more penny of public money should be spent on They were the smart ones. was to revitalize the neighborhood. Certainly, the this boondoggle. Page 4 • July 2017 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 47th John Deere Classic Preview Once Moore, with feeling? By Tim Cronin Reporting from Silvis ––––– here’s a certain cachet to being a defend- ing champion. Your face goes on posters and bill- boards around the town the tournament Tis played in. Your name is mentioned more often. There’s extra applause when you step to the first tee in the opening round. You know you’ve won on the course you’re returning to. It’s fun, this defending champion business. Ryan Moore knows how to handle it. He’s defended successfully before, winning back-to- back titles in the CIMB Classic in Malaysia in 2013 and 2014. Now he gets a chance in the U.S., at TPC Deere Run at the 47th John Deere Classic. “Last time I just kind of showed up and was comfortable on the course that I had won on, and kind of went out and did the same thing,” Moore recalled in advance of the Deere. “It added up to a win again. Courtesy John Deere Classic “Every win is different. Every week is dif- Salute! Ryan ferent. I’ve had some success here. I’ve played Moore after winning some good golf over the years here.