Remembering Rory Spears

Writing from Chicago

Thursday, April 4, 2025

Rory Spears was enthusiastic about golf and life.

Thursday morning, Arlington Heights police found the veteran reporter dead in his condominium. He had battled a health issue last year but had rebounded from it to get back to work and back on the course, and seemed perfectly fit and eager for the golf season to begin the last time this reporter saw him, at a recent Blackhawks game. He had spoken with a close friend as recently as Tuesday night. The cause of death is unknown. He was in his mid-60s.

Rory Spears in the WNDZ studio, as posted on his Facebook site.

Spears had covered all Chicago sports for radio outlets. for four decades, including a five-year stint at WSCR in its early years, when it was a daytime-only station at 820 AM. From there, he branched out to freelancing for various radio networks, including NBC Sports Radio most recently.

But first in his portfolio was golf.

He hosted and produced the longest-running golf-oriented radio show in Chicago, airing weekend in season for more than 20 years, most recently on WNDZ-AM (750). He expanded that into a golf website, the Gog Blog, a play on the name of his show, “Golfers on Golf.”

For most of its run, Spears was regularly joined by DuPage County Park District supervisor Ed Stevenson, a PGA professional, Mike Munro, whose White Pine Golf Dome was a winter destination for more than a decade, and PGA tourist Bill Berger, who died last year. Led by Spears’ line of questioning and patter, they made an hour fly by, whether you were a listener or a guest.

Once upon a time, we brought him aboard a telecast of the Illiana Amateur as the analyst, and he was great.

He loved to cover golf – he was a fixture at the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run, the BMW and Western Open wen it was in Chicago, made sure he made amateur and local tournaments, and never seemed to miss the Radix Cup at Oak Park Country Club unless he was scheduled elsewhere. Aside from the play, he was lured to Oak Park by its distinctive mix of peanut butter and jelly for crackers at the halfway houses.

He could recount the history of courses and area pros for hours, debate the quality of layouts and tour players to the nth degree, and tinkered with his equipment endlessly. Just in the past fortnight, he was excited about getting fitted for a new driver.

He also loved to play golf, whether at area courses or elsewhere. He was lucky enough to make connections to play Pine Valley, Merion, Chicago Golf, and several other classic courses. Annually, he made a visit to Pinehurst to play and report about the famed resort’s improvements. He had and regularly updated a personal top 100 of the courses he played, but always had Rob Roy, the course he grew up playing and first worked at, on the list at No. 100.

He is survived by his parents, his brother Reid, and countless relatives. There will be a memorial to Spears on Sunday from noon-4 p.m. at Ahlgrim Family Funeral Home, 201 N. Northwest Highway, Palatine.

– Tim Cronin