Illinois Golfer ChickChick Evans’Evans’ legacy:legacy: sendingsending caddiescaddies toto college:college: PagePage 1212 IllinoisIllinois GolferGolfer Digital Edition June 2016 ProsPros prevailprevail inin RadixRadix Page 2 • June 2016 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Buzz In This Issue –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– News –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Illinois foiled in NCAA quest 5 Players on USGA ruling: !?!?! Pros score victory in Radix Cup 7 Homa rallies to win Rust-Oleum 10 The reaction was swift and unanimous. Those are three former U.S. Open champions, if Cover story: The Evans Centennial: PGA Tour and European Tour players couldn’t be- you’re keeping track, and they had company. On Fox, Chick’s caddies-to-college legacy 12 lieve the move of the United States Golf Association to Paul Azinger, Brad Faxon and two-time U.S. Open Joliet Am no worry for Burry 16 tell Dustin Johnson he might be penalized for some- champion Curtis Strange criticized various aspects Opinion thing that had happened seven holes before. of the decision. Rich Beem hammered away on Sky’s –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– That was over an hour after Mark Newell, the of- broadcast to the UK. Dan Jenkins, who has covered The Grill Room: Challenge cancelled 4 ficial with Johnson andLee Westwood – and the chair more majors than anyone, noted as only he can, “And Departments of the USGA rules committee – had ruled that Johnson to think that the USGA’s in-house seminar on crisis –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Around Illinois: was not at fault for his ball moving on Oakmont’s fifth management is scheduled for next Thursday.” Northwestern women fall short 17 green. Johnson, who had grounded his putter next to The USGA is lucky Johnson finished at an uncor- Tour Guide 18 the ball, and then saw it move several seconds later, rected 5-under-par 275. Had Johnson won by a stroke Tournament calendar 19 Scoreboard 20 after he had placed but not grounded the putter behind or tied for first, and then was penalized, the fecal mate- The Directory 21 the ball, was absolved of a penalty by Newell. rial would have hit the ventilator. Not only is a ruling a ruling – Rule 34.2 says DID YOU KNOW?: Thanks to our old pal Phil decisions of an on-course official are final – but how Arvia for prodding us to confirm the following: When Johnson’s fate was left dangling in his head for the final it hosts the KMPG Women’s PGA Championship next seven holes of the U.S. Open was the cause for the year, Olympia Fields Country Club will become the only Illinois Golfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– explosion of negativity on Twitter and beyond. facility to host that and the U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, June 2016 Here was Jordan Spieth, who found out after fin- U.S. Senior Open and PGA Championship. Digital Edition • Vol. 2, No. 3 ishing: “Lemme get this straight. DJ doesn’t address it. That’s quite the feather in the cap of the famed –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– It’s ruled that he didn’t cause it to move. Now you tell south suburban club. Published monthly April through October him he may have? Now? This a joke?” ABOUT OUR COVER PHOTO: We’re happy to –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Publisher & Editor Tim Cronin And Rory McIlroy, who was hoping Shane Lowry say this arrangement of Radix Cup, Old Glory and blue –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– would rally and beat Johnson: ““This is ridiculous ... No sky was all ace photographer Nick Novelli’s idea. The Join us online at www.illinoisgolfer.net penalty whatsoever for DJ. Let the guy play without this photographer for the Illinois PGA, and the archival con- Write us at P.O. Box 541, Worth, Illinois 60482 E-mail us at [email protected] crap in his head. Amateur hour from @USGA.” sultant to Oak Park Country Club, the permanent home Call us at (708) 638-1164 And Ernie Els: “@USGA treatment of @DJohn- of the Radix Cup, Nick found a staircase that brought Follow us on Twitter: @illinoisgolfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– sonPGA absolutely shocking. No way he made the ball the old bowl toward the sky. Note the engraving on the Display / classified advertising: move.” left, under the turned-down (by design) bowl. Call (708) 638-1164 for particulars. Illinois Golfer assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials or claims of advertisers. Caveat emptor. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– © 2016 Illinois Golfer LLC, a unit of Cronin Multimedia The Cover The Radix Cup in all its glory, as seen at Oak Park Country Club on June 8. / Tim Cronin / Illinois Golfer Page 4 • June 2016 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Grill Room by Tim Cronin Challenge caught in the numbers game he idea came from not, sorry to say, a 160 were as welcome as those scoring 70. As sense of altruism, but from competition. This year, there will be no long as they played fast, at least – and they did! Back in the late 1980s, we were Your correspondent’s Southtown employ posted at the then-Southtown Econo- Challenge. Those few who ended in 2011, but we ran the Challenge for the mist, covering golf and myriad other sports. The entered have gotten or are paper in 2012, and then took it under the ILLINOIS T OLFER paper was locked in a battle with the Times of G wing in 2013. Northwest Indiana for readers in the towns on getting their checks Alas, this year there will be no Challenge. and close to the Illinois side of the border with The number of entries just didn’t drop, it plum- Indiana. Lansing, South Holland, Flossmoor, returned to them. meted, and as a result, we made the difficult de- Homewood, and so on. cision to not hold the ILLINOIS GOLFER Challenge The Times ran a series of golf tournaments in 1989, when it was first played), the Southtown Junior Golf Championship this year. the summer, designed as much to fill the sports Economist Challenge, the Daily Southtown Those few who entered have gotten or are section with copy as anything else. One, the Challenge, and finally the SouthtownStar Chal- getting their checks returned to them. Illiana Amateur, dated back to the 1930s and, lenge. Always, with the postscript of “Junior We felt it that with fewer entries than tro- complete with qualifying rounds, was one of the Golf Championship” added, as this would not be phies on hand, it wouldn’t really be a competi- leading amateur shows in the area. The paper an exhibition played with winter rules, as so much tion on anything close to the level of those we also had tournaments for juniors and seniors. youth golf was played in the late 1980s – it was a conducted from 1989 through last year. To compete, the Southtown decided to start different time – but with full USGA Rules in effect. The good news is, from 1989 through today, a tournament itself. It would be a junior tourna- There were 60 players for the opener, and the number of opportunities for youth golfers ment, and, thanks to Carol McCue, then a vice over 100 for the second edition in 1990. Within to play in tournament competition has grown president with Jemsek Golf, arrangements were a few years, we had more players than our 144 exponentially. The Illinois Junior Golf Associa- made to play the tournament at Glenwoodie Golf spots, and expanded to 156. In 1995, even that tion, run quite stylishly by John and Jean Barney & Country Club, which the Jemseks were then wasn’t enough, and the Glenwoodie manage- out of their den in the early days, has expanded leasing from the Archdiocese of Chicago. ment – Joe Jemsek never turned down a green to a multi-person staff operating the schedules of This was a coup. Not only is Glenwoodie fee – allowed us to jam in all our alternates, so both the IJGA and the Mid-America Junior Golf a first-class public course, it had the advantage 174 players, if memory serves, were in the field. Tour. So while there is no Challenge this year, of being located in the area the Southtown was Phil Robbins and his staff has been equally gra- there’s still a place for a kid to play. fighting the Times over for readers. cious since the village bought the course. We’ll investigate bringing the Challenge All we needed was a name. “The Challenge” There were birdies and bogeys, eagles and back next year. Nothing would please us more, was settled upon. Over the years, it would be others, aces and playoffs. Trophies went out the but for now, words come to mind that Henry tagged the Pulitzer Challenge (after the owner door to smiling winners and many runners-up. Longhurst once used for the title of a book: It of both the Southtown and The Daily Calumet in Designed to take all comers, those who scored was good while it lasted. Page 5 • June 2016 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– 119th NCAA Men’s Championship So close they could taste it Illini lose in semis; Oregon wins it all By Tim Cronin ––––– ome-course advantage never hurts in golf. In stroke play, a putt here or there can move a player up the leader board. In match play, it can move someone Hinto the next round.