Back to (new) normal for Illinois PGA

Group's schedule looks forward, not back

Writing from Chicago

Monday, February 1, 2021

A glance at the 2021 Illinois PGA schedule shows the usual highlights are there: the Illinois Open, the Illinois PGA Championship, the Radix Cup Match, and the other traditional battles players anticipate.

Dig a little deeper, and it becomes evident that the COVID-19 pandemic has had lingering effects.

The Illinois Open, returned to a one-course operation in 2020 after five years with two courses hosting the first two rounds, will stay planted at one facility at a time for the next few years. Some one-day stroke-play tournaments for Illinois PGA members – the pros at your course and hundreds of others throughout roughly the northern two-thirds of the state – don’t yet have courses to play on.

Those few holes will be filled in between now and late March, when their season begins with a fundraising pro-am in Las Vegas, Nev. Getting even to this point after last year, when the precisely-set slate of competition was overturned like dinner settings with the tablecloth pulled from the table, has been an adventure. For instance, increased play – a great thing for courses both public and private – means tee times are at a premium. According to Golf Datatech, play in Illinois was up 15.4 percent in 2020, including the six weeks when nobody could play.

“The spike in play has added a new wrinkle,” said Carrie Williams, the Illinois PGA’s executive director. “It’s a challenge that Brad and the tournament committee have accepted.”

Brad is Brad Slocum, the IPGA’s tournament director, the guy who was pulling his hair out last year. He’s largely responsible for the schedule, then runs tournaments through the season.

“We’re comfortable that we’ll be able to do things relatively normally,” Slocum said.

That includes everything from playing the course to player dining, especially at multi-day tournaments. Fortunately, pros at several elite clubs have stepped up and convinced their boards to host tournaments, most of which are played on Mondays, when the clubs are otherwise closed. Along with longstanding hosts Onwentsia (Senior Masters), Shoreacres (Senior Match Play) and Merit Club (Ryne Sandberg IPGA Foundation Pro-Am), the doors have opened at Ivanhoe (Illinois PGA Championship), Knollwood (Players Championship), Bull Valley (Match Play), and Beverly (Senior Players).

Bull Valley’s reappearance on the schedule is especially interesting, as the Woodstock club is hosting the match-play CDGA Championship in June. Differences in how the two groups set up and play the testing layout will be fun to see.

There’s also something new: The Illinois PGA is getting into the junior golf tournament sphere, not to compete with the Illinois Junior Golf Association but complement it.

“We’re impressed with the volume of junior golf the IJGA can provide, and felt we could supplement it with a small, compact schedule with access to elite facilities,” Williams said.

Williams knows the junior scene. She ran the IJGA before returning to the IPGA, and Slocum was the IJGA’s tournament director.

The Illinois PGA Junior Tour schedule includes courses that anyone would be eager to play: Ruth Lake, Merit Club, Westmoreland, Briarwood, and Flossmoor, with the championship at Onwentsia, with one more layout yet to be selected.

“For years, we’ve hosted the Senior Masters at Onwentsia,” said Illinois PGA president Nick Papadakes, the head pro at Onwentsia. “So we thought, why not the Junior Masters in the morning and the Senior Masters in the afternoon? It will be cool to have the junior players and the seniors together in one room for lunch, and maybe explain the history of the game and where we’ve come from.”

IJGA executive director Matt Wennmaker was apprised of the IPGA’s move months ago, but doesn’t see much impact on fields in most of the 120 tournaments his group will run this summer.

“It’ll draw some players, but I would consider it a different niche,” Wennmaker said. “We go to country clubs several times a year, but in our multi-day events, kids can earn points for AJGA events, and that’s what college-bound players look for. In the IPGA series, they won’t get that.”

The Illinois PGA also oversees area Drive, Chip and Putt competitions for children, with the winners advancing to the national competition at Augusta National the Sunday before the Masters. The 2019 winners will be at Augusta this spring, even if they’re older, following the cancellation of last year’s showcase. Even DCP scheduling has been affected by the rise in play.

“Even taking a portion of the range to conduct the long-drive competition can be difficult,” Williams said.

All of the above is subject to the continuing improvement in conditions regarding COVID-19. Last year at this time, such a statement wasn’t necessary. Then the virus hit hard, and every level of society was impacted. Golf was not immune.

“Last year we were faced with unforeseen challenge on top of unforeseen challenge,” Williams said. “Through great collaboration by the staff, our board, host sites and our tournament committee, we were able to provide our members a fantastic tournament schedule, and we’re looking forward to providing them an even better one in 2021, as we return to what is going to look a lot like normal.”

Even while everything is anything but normal. Staffers are still working from home often, and improvisation is the order of the day compared to old routines.

“We’re cyclical,” Slocum said. “In the fall and winter, we put together a tournament schedule. In spring and summer, we run it. Before last year, I could never think of a scenario where we would have to do it (build a schedule) again.”

Golf in Illinois was stopped completely in mid-March – die-hards rushed to play in Wisconsin and Indiana, which largely stayed open – and didn’t resume here until May 1.

“We’re a fraternal organization, and it really brought the section closer together,” Papadakes said. “We’ve kind of flipped our direction towards really interacting with the membership and finding out what they want done. How can we get our members more involved? How do they want 2021 to look?

“We’re acting like a business, asking our customers what they want.”

The resumption of play was the result of negotiations between the governor’s office and the state health department, and the leading state golf associations, including the Illinois PGA and the CDGA.

“The hard part for us was trying to understand how you can get things done within the scope of the intentions of the governor’s office really are,” said Papadakes. “The shutdown made sense, because we really didn’t know what was going on.

“We were trying to understand their language and coach them about what we do and how we can do it safely. It was a matter of education and listening and trying not to be too pushy.

“As we slowly reopened (May 1), the first restrictions were pretty strict. As we understood the intent of each of the restrictions, it gave us a little bit more flexibility to operate. But we had to be careful in how. The toughest part for us was teachers and coaches. They were really hit hard early on. Like we turned driving range(s) into a par-3 course or a pitch-and-putt. You had to run it the same way as you ran the golf course.

“It was very difficult for our four indoor domes in Chicago. Those were the hardest hit. But the silver lining was, by mid-July, there weren’t enough hours in the day for them to work. The surge was so strong coming out of this I don’t think any one of us could keep up.”

Williams, Slocum and the rest of the staff worked the phones rigorously to make a new 2020 schedule happen.

“We still needed to offer services to our PGA members,” Slocum said. “We surveyed our members, and learned the desire and demand to play is really important to them.”

“We began the schedule on July 6, built around the Illinois Open and our section championship, and then the rest of the majors.”

The result was better than might have been expected. The Illinois Open, held at White Eagle Golf Club in Naperville, was a big success even before Bryce Emory lifted the old trophy.

“The Illinois Open might have been the highlight of the season,” Williams said. “Putting on an elite championship was a feather in the cap of our staff and board.”

Originally, Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora was to be the second course. Instead, the contraction back to 156 players meant it was at White Eagle only. Stonebridge was offered and eagerly accepted this year’s Illinois Open instead. Players will be greeted to a recently-renovated course some 400 yards longer than it was when the Ameritech Senior Open played through 20 years ago.

“We were reintroduced to the power of the one-site format,” Williams said. “There’s a greater concentration of strength of field, members of the host club can watch, and sponsors are able to engage with the full field. It took living through it to remember it.”

Having the entire staff and all volunteers at one place with strict limitations on movement also guarded against a COVID outbreak. All went well, even with plenty of members mingling with each other. It went so well, the Illinois Open will remain a one-site championship through at least 2023.

The Illinois Section will also conduct the two-site Monday qualifying tournament for the Evans Scholars Invitational, a Korn Ferry Tour dance on Memorial Weekend. Additionally, it’s an induction year for the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame, with the two-stage selection meetings expected to run in April and May as usual, with the induction celebration in September or October.

In all, it adds up to a busy year. And, as close as possible, a normal one.

– Tim Cronin

2021 Illinois PGA Schedule Highlights

May 10-13 Illinois PGA Match Play Championship (Bull Valley GC, Woodstock)

May 24 Evans Scholars Invitational Qualifying (Stonewall Orchard, Grayslake; White Deer Run, Vernon Hills)

June 3 31st Thompson Cup (Ridge CC, Chicago)

June 17 59th Radix Cup (Oak Park CC, River Grove)

June 28-29 Illinois Senior Open (Royal Fox CC, St. Charles)

July 26 Senior Masters (Onwentsia C, Lake Forest)

Aug. 2-4 72nd Illinois Open (Stonebridge CC, Aurora)

Aug. 23-25 Illinois PGA Championship (Ivanhoe C, Ivanhoe)

Sept. 27-28 Players Championship (Knollwood C, Lake Forest)

Oct. 4-6 Senior Match Play (Shoreacres, Lake Bluff)

Oct. 11-12 Senior Players Championship (Beverly CC, Chicago)

The full schedule is at the Illinois PGA’s website: www.ipga.com