Ambitious Stonebridge hosts Illinois Open

Writing from Aurora, Illinois

Sunday, August 1, 2021

It’s been a curious couple of years for Bryce Emory, and by extension, many of his peers among professionals who seek the fortune, if not fame, of a place on the PGA Tour.

Emory won the Illinois Open last year at White Eagle Golf Club. Normally, a young pro will apportion some of his winnings – which totaled $19,928 in Emory’s case – to the hefty entry fee charged by the PGA Tour for its qualifying tournament, where the successful get membership on the Korn Ferry Tour.

Last year, thanks to COVID-19, there was no qualifying tournament. There barely was the usual collection of unaffiliated pro tournaments financed by small sponsors and large entry fees. Outlets including the Dakota Tour and the Waterloo Open, those fly-under-the-radar tournaments that offer purses allowing the most successful of semi-starving pros to move up from ramen noodles to beef stew.

Emory, an Aurora native, played in what he could, but without a chance at the KFT circuit, he was grounded like a teen with mad parents.

“Last year was very tough,” Emory said. “I didn’t leave the state to play until November, when I went to the Nevada Open. This year’s been a little better, and I hope it continues that way.”

Emory starts his Illinois Open title defense Monday, when the 72nd Illinois Open gets underway at Stonebridge Country Club. It’s a few miles from White Eagle, so Emory has something of a home game again, and will tee it up on a course recently lengthened by several hundred yards, the pride of a club getting back into the tournament scene.

In the early 1990s, Stonebridge, then new and with more fledgling trees than homes on the campus, hosted the Ameritech Senior Open for four years, the highlight of which was a pro-am round featuring Arnold Palmer and Michael Jordan playing before countless thousands of admirers. A decade later, the LPGA played through for three years with the Kellogg-Keebler Classic. Annika Sorenstam, whose victory in today’s U.S. Senior Women’s One proved she still has game, won two of the three and co-set the course record – for men or women – when she carded a 62, as did Rosie Jones.

The Illinois Open will be the biggest test at the club since then. Key members hope it’s the start of a return to the spotlight.

“We’re super happy to have this tournament at the club,” head pro Andrew Godfrey said. “We like the course firm and fast and I expect it to play that way.”

Among the holes that have been extended is the 18th, which now, thanks to a postage-stamp-sized tee, can play just over 600 yards. That tee isn’t even on the scorecard, but it’ll be in use this week.

“It should be a pure test,” Godfrey said.

Tom Fazio was the original designer, and gave his assent to bringing in Mike Benkusky, a Lake In The Hills-based architect, to add the length. The green complexes, however, are the originals, and will, if the speeds are accelerated, give the players fits.

Most of the usual Illinois notables are in the field, but it might be worth keeping an eye on 2008 Illinois Open winner Joe Emerich. He won as an amateur, played briefly as a pro, regained his amateur status, and today both runs his own business and is a Stonebridge member who happens to chair the greens committee. In a practice round last week, he birdied his first three holes and one-putted green after green.

– Tim Cronin