Illinois Golfer PGAPGA Show Show • •Kotlarek Kotlarek on Eagle Ridge • Ziehm on Sand Valley IllinoisIllinois GolferGolfer DigitalDigital EditionEdition FebruaryFebruary 20192019 GameGame changerchanger InsideInside Mistwood’sMistwood’s high-techhigh-tech domedome Page 2 • February 2019 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– In This Issue The Buzz –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– News –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Mistwood’s game-changing dome 4 Chicago-area dome guide 7 Inside the PGA Merchandise Show 8 Wilson battles back 10 Our man in Galena 12 Chicago Golf Show preview 18 Opinion –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Grill Room: Two of our own 3 Departments –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Road Warrior: Sand Valley 16 Minne Monesse is sold Around Illinois: Gumbach earns honor 23 The Calendar 23 Courtesy Minne Monesse Golf Club The Directory 25 Scenic setting Clubhouse set into the hillside, Minne Monesse isn’t your typical flat Illinois prairie course. Tour Guide 34 Charming and out-of-the-way, but always a test, driving from the south suburbs. In 1961, Sullivan’s son Minne Monesse Golf Course has a new owner. Tommy bought the course and not only reopened it, After 38 years, the Hurley family sold the gem of but hired architect Ted Lockie to add nine holes. Illinois Golfer Grant Park to Anthony Wunsch of Crown Point, Ind. The reworked course opened in 1964. Quickly, –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– early in February. The price was not disclosed, but the what regulars had called “The Proving Ground“ was February 2019 • Digital Edition Hurleys put Minne Monesse up for sale at $1.2 million thriving again. Vol. 5, No. 1 • Issue 38 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– last July. Sullivan sold to Ed Hurley in 1981, and the fun Published monthly in season, Wunsch is only the fourth owner of the Kanka- continued. But with Bloomington’s Crestwicke Country with occasional special issues kee County layout since it was opened as a nine-hole Club under his family’s wing, two courses distant from –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Publisher & Editor Tim Cronin course, designed by William Watson – he of the long- each other proved too much, and the course was put Travel Expert Len Ziehm gone third course at Olympia Fields, San Francisco’s up for sale. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Olympic Club and the recently-shuttered South Shore A remodeling early in the 2000s by Bob Lohmann Join us online at www.illinoisgolfer.net Country Club in Momence – in 1926. brought three new holes to the property – plus the clos- Write us at P.O. Box 541, Worth, Illinois 60482 E-mail us at [email protected] Dennis Sullivan was the pro there – and the post- ing of the original ninth, a vexing volcano par 3 where Call us at (708) 638-1164 master of Grant Park’s post office – when the original those hitting over the green risked breaking a car wind- Follow us on Twitter: @illinoisgolfer –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– owners shuttered it before the 1943 season, knowing shield in the parking lot beyond – and the platting of a Display / classified advertising: that World War II gas rationing would stop players from dozen or so lots for homes. Call (708) 638-1164 for particulars. Illinois Golfer assumes no responsibility for unsolicited ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– materials or claims of advertisers. Caveat emptor. The Cover The Toptracer flight-tracking system tracks your ball all the way to the wall (or ceiling) of the Mist- –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– © 2018 Illinois Golfer LLC, a unit of Cronin Multimedia wood Golf Dome and enables everything from playing games to honing your game. / Tim Cronin Page 3 • February 2019 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The Grill Room by Tim Cronin Anderson, Russell are two of our own t’s a phrase that goes back a century and case of the USGA, the championship committee Connected in the extreme, Anderson’s a more in Chicago government, which is to and executive committee occasionally send the member of Chicago Golf Club, is on the board say Chicago politics. big show, the U.S. Open, toward the area where of the RTA and of World Business Chicago and “Who’s your clout?” their officers hail from. Not always, but often chairs the board at Perspectives Charter School. IIn other words, who’s your backer for this enough. Those officers join the committee years He spent 35 years at and retired as vice chair of idea, or scheme, or swindle? Who can make it before and their voice in favor of a particular Enrst & Young. He sits on many corporate boards. happen? course is heard. Make a persuasive case and have Chicago also has a voice on the PGA of Without clout, nothing happens in Chicago. it backed up by interest from the club, and the America board, and has since last year, when It was that way with the original mayor Daley’s roulette wheel can spin in your favor. Terry Russell, who currently hangs his shingle at Democratic machine, and for mayors before and This is not to say the fix is automatically in. Medinah’s teaching facility, began a three-year since. Maybe in the late 1960s, when Hazeltine National term as the District 6 representative. The Illinois When Tip O’Neill – another Democratic near the Twin Cities got the 1970 U.S. Open PGA section president in 2007-08, Russell’s pol – said “All politics is local,” this is what he because Totton Peavey Heffelfinger – we don’t always been active in board matters, and knows meant. make these names up – was the club’s founder how to make a point in a meeting. Guess what? All golf is local. It’s about who and a former USGA president. Tot, as he preferred Sites for the PGA Championship and Ryder you know, who those you know know, and so on. to be called, did some arm-twisting and his old Cup have been assigned for a decade out, but it’s On the national scene, Chicagoans – Il- pals handed Hazeltine the Open. good to know that at least there’s someone from linoisans, for that matter – haven’t had anyone That was the course Dave Hill said could be the capital of the Midwest who can explain the we know on the major governing boards of the improved by adding 80 acres of corn and some benefits of bringing a tournament to town. USGA or PGA of America for quite a while. cows. Bob Rosburg said there were so many The PGA of America has been Midwest-cen- Remember Buzz Taylor? The north suburban doglegs, Lassie must have designed it. The Robert tric with the Ryder Cup in recent years – Medi- business magnate was president of the USGA the Trent Jones layout has been greatly improved nah, Valhalla near Louisville, Hazeltine have all last time the U.S. Open played through town. And since, and has ably hosted another U.S. Open, had it, and Whistling Straits will have it in 2020 2003 at Olympia Fields is now a long time ago. plus the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup, but – but the U.S. Open’s been played once in the Remember Roger Warren? He began to work that 1970 Open, won by Tony Jacklin, bared the region since 2003. That was 2017 at Erin Hills. his way up the PGA of America leadership ladder course as not ready for the big show. Sorry, Pittsburgers, Oakmont is not in the Mid- while the head pro at Seven Bridges Golf Course Connections help. west even if Penn State is in the Big Ten. Every in Woodridge, and was the president – though by Chicago is connected again. The USGA’s Open through 2027 (Pebble Beach, also the site then hailing from Kiawah Island in South Caro- annual meeting on this last weekend of the month this year) has been assigned. lina – when the PGA Championship was held at sees the confirmation of Tony Anderson to the Hope, then, that Tony Anderson distributes Medinah Country Club in 2005. executive committee. He didn’t play golf until he maps of the U.S. with Illinois circled at his first Coincidence? Not quite. Especially in the was 28, but took to it instantly. meeting. With arrows pointed at Chicago. Illinois Golfer Cover TracingTracing thethe Story futurefuture ofof golfgolf Mistwood’sMistwood’s ToptracerToptracer takestakes domedome golfgolf toto thethe nextnext stepstep Photograph by Tim Cronin Page 5 • February 2019 • Illinois Golfer www.illinoisgolfer.net ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Bolingbrook dome now the only one in the U.S. with innovative ball-tracking system By Tim Cronin Reporting from Bolingbrook ––––– cience fiction has a funny way of becom- ing science fact. Remember the original Star Trek se- ries? Except for the transporter – created Sby producers as a stylish jump-cut to segue from the ship to the planet of the week – all the high- tech gadgets in the show are now real, or have been surpassed. Spock had a flip phone, not an iPhone. Science fact has come to golf in the form of ball-tracking technology. What was a dream real- ized for video-game designers came to the real world in the middle of the last decade, when Pro- Tracer first appeared on television screens during the 2006 Solheim Cup. Now it’s the unusual telecast that doesn’t feature the colored line racing across the screen like a rainbow from tee to, hopefully, fairway or green. ProTracer became Toptracer when TopGolf bought it a couple of years ago, a move that paved the way to bring it to a golf dome near you. The Mistwood Golf Dome in Bolingbrook, to be spe- cific. Walk in there, and all the usual golf dome characteristics are there – almost. The familiar Tim Cronin / Illinois Golfer targets are gone, replaced by different targets that Like magic Andy match up what will pop up on the monitors.