Writing from Chicago
Monday, January 6, 2014
No matter where you are in Illinois – or most of the country, for that matter, Kapalua excepted – it’s stupid cold. So while this winter hurricane plays through, let’s go around the area, for the golf news never stops coming:
1. Over 130 players were scheduled to play in Sunday’s Eskimo Open at Cog Hill. Here’s hoping they had morning tee times, before the wind picked up and the bottom fell out. No word on scores. Who can write in below-zero wind chill?
2. Mike Munro was pleased with the brisk business he was doing at the White Pines Golf Dome in mid-December, compared to the last two more mild winters. He should be really smiling now with Chicago in the deep freeze. In the past, his operation has gone gangbusters when it was frigid and the roads were clear. The same is probably true in Bolingbrook, where McQ’s, the dome and restaurant owned by Mistwood mogul Jim McWethy. The dome isn’t quite as long as White Pines’ facility, but hot food plus an off-track betting wing operated by Hawthorne Race Course are real pluses.
3. Look for the Western Amateur to go back to Point O Woods Country Club, the Robert Trent Jones classic in Millburg, Mich., near Benton Harbor, in 2018 or 2019. The Western Am left the Point following the 2008 tournament, the club wanting a six-figure site fee to make up for declining attendance. But there’s been complete turnover on the club’s board, and the new crowd wants to show off a refurbished Point, which includes a new clubhouse overlooking the 18th green. The recent job posting for a new general manager notes the club’s interest. According to a highly-placed WGA official, talks between WGA and Point officials have been productive, but no deal’s been signed yet.
Ideally, the club Chick Evans once called “the peerless Point” will take up a regular position in the Western Am rota. It’s at Beverly Country Club this year, Rich Harvest Links in Aurora in 2015, Knollwood Club in 2016, and Skokie Country Club in 2017. By the way, there’s no chance the Western Am would drop by Harbor Shores, the Kemper Sports-operated course in the heart of Benton Harbor that over Memorial Day weekend welcomes the Senior PGA Championship for the second time in three years.
4. The WGA is also waiting on a multi-year renewal by BMW for the Western Open, so to speak. Everything was expected to be ready by the end of the year, but the final details are still being worked out. And while Conway Farms Golf Club is not yet a lock for 2015, that’s the leader in the clubhouse for the Chicago-area location. An additional fan entrance is expected to unclog the bottleneck spectators were stuck with in 2013.
5. As noted in our year-end review, Woodbine Golf Course in Homer Glen will close at the end of the year, to be transformed into Homer Glen’s first park, the clubhouse to become the village hall until a new hall in built.
That’s too bad for golfers, because Woodbine was the type of course the late Phil Kosin, impresario of the fondly-remembered Chicagoland Golf, always liked to see: the $25 golf course. It went beyond that price in recent years, but Woodbine, from the day it opened in 1988, has been a place where beginners could learn to play and not lose a dozen balls along the way. Unless you hit it into a pond, it was hard to lose a ball at all. And everyone was friendly.
6. Illinois-born D.A. Points and Illinois-connected Bill Haas may be toward the bottom of the standings in the Tournament of Champions (29th and T21 entering the final round respectively), but they have two things going for them. They’re playing golf in Hawaii, and they’re warm. And the paycheck is a bonus.
7. NBC / Golf Channel does a great job on golf, but really, enough with the matching Hawaiian shirts and the leis. That’s as much a cliche as tuxedos on boxing announcers, the notion being the sport needs to look classy. Just wear a jacket and tie, peacock on the breast pocket optional.
8. Until Tournament of Champions co-leader Justin Spieth won the John Deere Classic last July, the best story of the week was the husband-wife player-caddie combination of Patrick and Justine Reed. That’s on hiatus for the nonce and for a great reason. Justine Reed is carrying a child instead of a bag. Justine is due to deliver a little girl on Memorial Day. But trouper that she is, she may be back on the bag in August, in advance of the PGA Championship.
Meanwhile, her brother, Kessler Karain, who had a solid junior golf career, is doing the heavy lifting for Patrick Reed. So far, so good. Reed’s four strokes back entering the final round at Kapalua.
9. It will get warmer. Here’s proof. There are only 95 days to The Masters. You can almost smell the flowers.
– Tim Cronin