Three titles on offer at three courses this week

Writing from Chicago

Monday, July 15, 2019

The buffet that is summer golf overflows this week in the Chicago area with a national championship and a pair of statewide titles on offer.

The big one is the 119th Women’s Western Amateur, which commences a five-day run at Royal Melbourne Country Club in Hawthorn Woods on Tuesday. Californian Emilee Hoffman is not defending her title, but there are favorites this venerable championship, which has been played without interruption since it was created in 1901.

One is an Illinoisan, Megan Furtney, who was part of the team that captured the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball earlier this summer. The South Elgin native will begin attending Duke in the fall.

Two days of stroke play qualifying will whittle the field to 32, and match play will take care of the rest, climaxing with a 36-hole final – as traditional as it comes – on Saturday.

The state championships also begin on Tuesday, at Mistwood Golf Club in Romeoville and Cantigny Golf in Wheaton.

Mistwood is the traditional home of the Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open, which celebrates its 25th playing with a new format featuring a 36-hole opening day and 18 holes to settle the issue on Wednesday. The Sunday pro-am was moved to Monday this year, but doesn’t count toward the aggregate.

Like the Women’s Western, the defending champion is missing. Hannah Kim of California has chosen not to defend her title, so the Kosin Cup and the $5,000 first prize is up for grabs among the 51-player field – with the money prize chased by only 13 professionals. The new format may be the reason the field is smaller than usual (74 players last year, 77 in 2017), as pros aren’t used to playing 36 holes in a day. The conflict with the Women’s Western, which Mistwood hosted last year, clearly forced some local players to choose between the two.

Cantigny is hosting the Illinois Amateur for the fifth time. The 132-player field in this 89th edition includes recent CDGA Amateur winner Jordan Less of Elmhurst and Bloomington’s Rob Wuethrich, runner-up in last year’s Illinois Am in Bloomington. Wuethrich was a key member of the Illinois Wesleyan team that won the NCAA Division III title earlier this year. Champion Jordan Hahn is not defending, instead playing in national tournaments to prepare to turn pro in the fall. He’s 203rd in the world amateur ranking at the moment, and recently finished 23rd in the Northeast Amateur.

The Illinois Am opens with 18 holes on Tuesday, 18 more on Wednesday, and then a cut to the low 35 and ties for a 36-hole finale on Thursday.

– Tim Cronin

Frittelli roars from behind to win Deere

Writing from Silvis, Illinois

Sunday, July 14, 2019 

Dylan Frittelli is not a scoreboard watcher, but on the PGA Tour, the big screens are everywhere.

Thus, while Frittelli knew he was playing well on Sunday at TPC Deere Run – six birdies in the first 11 holes and narely a bogey since Friday will give you that feeling – he didn’t know precisely where he stood.

Until, that is, he lined up his birdie putt on the par-5 17th, a putt that would move him to 21-under-par.

“I looked down the hill to read my putt, and there was a giant scoreboard behind the pit,” Frittelli said. “There was a giant scoreboard behind and I saw my name on top. I tried not to look at the rest.”

He didn’t have to. He ran down the 11-footer for his seventh birdie of the day and 22nd of the week for a two-stroke lead, and the 49th John Deere Classic was effectively over.

“It definitely calmed me over the 18th tee shot,” Frittelli said.

He drilled it, and not even a so-so approach that barely made the front of the green, 46 feet from the traditional Sunday back-left pin placement, could fluster him en route to a 7-under 64 for 21-under 263. Hey, a three-putt par after driving the green on the downhill 321-yard par-4 14th brought forth a smile. Dylan Frittelli, who had previously lost his head under pressure, was in his happy place on Bastille Day.

“I don’t think many pros can do that,” Frittelli said.

It’s the mental game that separates the best from the rest at the top level. Everybody can hit the ball, and if some swings are unorthodox – hello, Matthew Wolff – at impact, everyone is in the right place when everything is working. When it isn’t, that’s where doubts creep in.

Frittelli has had those doubts. Never mind that he, as a senior at Texas, sank the winning putt when the Longhorns won the NCAA title with Jordan Spieth and Cody Gribble, who have preceded him as PGA Tour winners, Spieth first doing so at the Deere, on the squad.

Never mind that he’s won twice on the European Tour, plus on various other circuits. The PGA Tour was the goal for this 29-year-old South African, and now, he’s locked in for the next two seasons plus.

The pressure points were there on Sunday, but he didn’t show it as he had in the past.

“I was thinking in those (past) moments I was really stressed and feeling the adrenaline and there’s no purpose for that,” Frittelli said. “Just calm yourself down to the point you can hit good tee shots and hit it on the green and hopefully hit a good putt here and there.

“If you can block out those distractors or those things that get your emotions going, it makes it so much easier.”

That’s not quite on a level with Kipling on triumph and disaster and treating those impostors quite the same, but he worked for him.

Frittelli came from only two strokes off the pace to win, but at the Deere, it always seems like a climb to the top for someone not in the final pairing – he was third from last – is next to impossible. On this Sunday, with Russell Henley, out 2 1/2 hours before overnight leaders Cameron Tringale and Andrew Landry, racing to the lead via a 10-under 61 for a one-stroke lead at 19-under 265, anything was possible. That kept the gallery of about 20,000 buzzing.

Frittelli chipped in from 17 feet for birdie on the par-5 10th to match Henley at 19-under, then sank a 20-footer on the par-4 11th to stand 20-under and gain a lead he’d never relinquish.

Little did he know. Bill Haas fired and fell back, stumbling to an even-par 71. Tringale fell to 2-over 73 and ended up in a tie for 16th. Landry’s 2-under 69 was acceptable but he needed a 66 to tie, and ended up in third at 18-under 266, with only Frittelli and Henley in front of him.

Meanwhile, Frittelli was hitting 11 of 14 fairways, 15 greens, needed but 27 putts, ranked first in strokes gained overall and second in putting and around the greens. “Drive for show, putt for dough” still applies – though his 344-yard drive on the par-4 17th showed who was boss in that department as well.

“It just proves the work I’ve been doing is the correct work,” Frittelli said. “Being 150th in the FedEx Cup throughout the season is so frustrating because you don’t see the results coming through. If you keep sticking to it – I made that change in my mental game and it thankfully came to fruition this week and helped me out.”

A few moments later, suddenly 48th in the playoff race, he was signing an Open Championship flag and getting ready to board Air Deere, the Boeing 767 that transported him and 13 other players to Northern Ireland and a short drive to Royal Portrush for the 148th Open.

The last scoreboard there is even bigger, high above the main grandstand and bright yellow.

Around Deere Run

Aside from Frittelli, the finisher most pleased with his outcome was rookie Collin Morikawa, whose tie for fourth on top of last week’s tie for second gave him enough points to score PGA Tour membership for the rest of the season. Now his goal is to finish in the top 125 by the regular-season finish, the Wyndham, to lock in a card for next year. ... Sam Saunders, Arnold Palmer’s grandson, tied for 10th via a closing 6-under 65. ... Landry’s 61 was the best Sunday score in Deere history by a stroke, and two better than any Sunday round since the 2001 move to Deere Run. ... The field tattooed Deere Run again on Sunday, even with the firmer and faster conditions than years past, with an average of 68.657 strokes. The weeklong average was 69.510, with the ninth hole ranking most difficult (4.194) and the par-5 second the pushover (4.464). ... Frittelli made only one bogey all week, on the par-4 first on Friday. He had one of only five bogey-free rounds on Sunday. There were 33 across the first three days.

– Tim Cronin

Tringale, Landry share Deere lead

Writing from Silvis, Illinois

Saturday, July 13, 2019

Cameron Tringale has been banging around the PGA Tour for 10 years without a victory.

Andrew Landry’s been in the circuit four years and has one title to his name, last year’s Texas Open.

They’re the co-leaders of the John Deere Classic entering the final round.

In other years, things are shaping up as they almost always do at TPC Deere Run, with the potential for an unknown to become a known.

The tournament boasts 22 first-time winners, everyone from Payne Stewart and Jordan Spieth, both of whom went on to capture multiple majors, to David Gossett and Sean O’Hair, who went on to oblivion.

Tringale, 317th in the world ranking, has been around long enough to win about $10 million without collecting any silverware. He’d like to find a use for a trophy case but doesn’t want to think about it.

“Even with a lot on the line, I default to my instincts and not trying too hard,” Tringale said after his-under-par 65 elevated him to 16-under 197 with a lap to go in the annual festival of birdies.

That’s worked well enough over the years to score three runner-up finishes. But only his family would be able to pick him out of a police lineup, even after a couple of recent top-fives, including in Detroit two weeks ago.

Landry is in nearly the same situation. His title in Texas notwithstanding, the 5-foot-7 Arkansas graduate is known for being 5-foot-7. He’s 168th in the world ranking and 170th in the PGA Tour’s playoff standings. A pair of 65s gave him a tee time on Saturday’s final pairing, and while 36-hole leader Jhonattan Vegas imploded with a 5-over 76, Landry reversed the number with a 67 to move from second to joint first with Tringale.

Landry’s round was workmanlike, opening with three birdies in a four-hole stretch, then went south with a brace of bogeys before recovering with birdies on the 13th, 16th and 17th. He thought the key was a save from a bunker on the drivable par-4 14th.

“I left myself a 30-footer t try to at least save it, and they was kind of the key moment there that kept the round going,” Landry said. “I know I had a couple of birdie opportunities coming in.”

Given there wasn’t a lot of moving on Moving Day, 197 was good enough to pace the field for only the second time since 2010. The course playing firm and fast, the result of no recent rainfall after a soggy spring and superintendent Alex Stuedemann’s six-year plan to get Deere Run playing faster. Players had to consider where and at what angle they landed their drives on the sloping fairways.

The biggest movers on Saturday were Bill Haas, whose 7-under 64 allows him to share third place at 15-under 198 with Adam Schenk, and Nick Watney, whose 64 places him third at 14-under 199 with South Africa’s Dylan Frittelli and 2016 Deere winner Ryan Moore.

Haas has won but once since his 2011 Tour playoff championship, but remains hopeful.

“The game is not easy,” Haas said. “It’s been beating me most weeks. Just stay in the moment and be positive and you never know what will happen tomorrow.”

Moore had the fastest finish of all, something those who bet longshots and lurkers would do well to consider. He went birdie-eagle-birdie on the last three holes to climb from 10-under to 14-under.

“I bogeyed 15 and was a little down on myself, gave myself a little pep talk and said, ‘Let’s go try to birdie these last three holes,’ ” Moore said. “It was a great way to finish. I’ve just been a little up and down with the putter this week.”

Moore has a chance. Everyone within five strokes, which means 20 players, has a chance, including Sungjae Im, the South Korean who is one of 13 players in the field already qualified for the British Open. He’s 23rd in the playoff race, 62nd in the world rankings, and of the 18,000 or so spectators at Deere Run on Saturday, you probably could have counted on one hand those who knew that.

But if he lifts the handsome trophy designed by Malcolm DeMille on Sunday afternoon, he will become a known.

Around Deere Run

Former U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover ho-hummed his way to a 2-under 69 that included three bogeys, and is still tied for ninth at 13-under 200 entering the final round. ... First round leader Roberto Diaz matched 36-hole leader Vegas’ 5-over 76, and won’t play on Sunday. The PGA Tour’s second cut is to the low 70 and ties if more than 78 play on Saturday, and Diaz, despite his opening 62, was outside the trim. ... The run of rounds on the circuit with 62 ended at six straight. There wasn’t even a 63. ... The course averaged 69.237 strokes, and the three-round average is 69.663. ... Leaders Cameron Tringale and Andrew Landry tee off at 12:45 p.m. Local favorite Zach Johnson and Stewart Cink, a pair of British Open champions, start at 8:15 a.m. ... The Deere offers the last spot in the British Open for the top player not yet qualified in the tournament’s top five. ...

DirecTV, now owned by AT&T, and Nexstar, owner of Quad Cities CBS affiliate WHBF, are at loggerheads, so Channel 4 isn’t on the satellite provider’s lineup, blacking out those who haven’t hooked up antennas to pick up the free over-the-air signal. Curiously, WHBF kept running a crawl on the bottom of the screen reminding people with DirecTV they couldn’t watch on DirecTV, though a prime-time replay was available on Golf Channel. CBSSports.com is also carrying the live coverage online.

– Tim Cronin

Vegas odds add up to 62 at Deere

Writing from Silvis, Illinois

Friday, July 12, 2019

Golf’s magic number is 59.

Lately on the PGA Tour, the number is 62.

Six rounds in a row on the circuit, someone has posted a 62. It happened four days running at the 3M open. Roberto Diaz threw a 62 on the board on Thursday at TPC Deere Run. Friday’s second round of the John Deere Classic, Jhonattan Vegas had the honor.

“These guys are good,” goes the slogan the Tour used a few years ago. But a 62 every day? What goes on here?

In Vegas’ case, hard work on the range Thursday night after an opening 67.

“I feel I’ve been struggling with my ball-striking all year for some reason and just decided to reset my posture,” Vegas said. “It was magic.”

Yes, that’s the start of the Deere’s slogan: Magic Happens Here. But magic is achieved only through hard work. Vegas started on No. 10, birdied the par 5, and two holes later decided to start aiming for the cup on every approach.

“I hit a real good 6-iron that I left about 10 to 15 feet,” Vegas recalled. “From there I got loose.”

Birdies on Nos. 13, 14, 16 and 17 followed for an outward 31. A trio of birdies beginning on No. 2 and another on the par-4 eighth brought him in in 31, and another 62 went into the ledger. But on a Friday, all that means is a later tee time on Saturday.

“Every day brings something different,” Vegas said.

If that sounds philosophical, there’s good reason. He’d missed seven cuts in 19 starts this season, including at the U.S. Open, his previous start. But Thursday was good and Friday was better.

Vegas’ aggregate of 129, a spiffy 13-under, earned him the lead in the 49th Deere at the halfway mark. He’s a stroke ahead of Andrew Landry, who equaled his opening 65, two ahead on Cameron Tringale and Lucas Glover, whose 255-yard approach from the middle right of the fairway on the par-5 10th bounced four times, took a hard right and ducked into the hole for an albatross, and three ahead of the threesome of Harold Varner III, Russell Henley and Daniel Berger.

Glover’s double-eagle, achieved with a 3-iron, was the seventh on the PGA Tour this year and the second in John Deere Classic history. Frank Lickliter smacked a fairway wood 257 yards from fairway to cup on the second hole in the first round of the 2000 Deere, the first year it was played at Deere Run. The course usually has a plaque on the spot of the strike, but it’s taken out during tournament week.

“I don’t expect anything,” Glover joked after signing for a 7-under 64. “Frank’s was probably where he was aiming. I was trying to hit it over short left, chip up the green and I pushed it five-eight yards.”

The cut fell at 3-under 138, and brought 80 of 156 players into the weekend’s festivities. One of those – on the number – was Zach Johnson, who became so enthralled with the Deere, he’s been a member of the tournament board for years. But his play hasn’t been up to his usual standard. He bounced back from his opening 1-over 72, which ended a run of 41 straight rounds at Deere Run under or at par, with a 4-under 67 to advance.

“There were more solid shots, but not enough,” Johnson said. “A couple of decent saves, two-putt saves, that sort of thing.”

Johnson won the British Open at St. Andrews in 2015, so would like to be in good form going across the pond.

“There are some things that feel better,” Johnson said. “Some things that I can capitalize with and move up the board. I’m hitting my line with my putter. That would be a distince positive, but I’m struggling to find others.”

Johnson starts Saturday’s play 10 strokes behind Vegas. Odds are that on Sunday night when he boards the tournament charter for Northern Ireland, he’ll still be behind Vegas.

Around Deere Run

Michael Wolff might have been an interesting interview after his even-par 71, which placed him at 4-under 138, but his agent denied reporters the opportunity to question last week’s surprise winner. ... Peter Uihlein scored 1-under 70 and was going to miss the cut at 2-under 140, but was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. ... Illinois favorite Dylan Meyer missed the cut after a second-round 76 and kicked himself for doing so. ... The field averaged 69.948 strokes in the second round and is at 69.774 strokes halfway through the week.

– Tim Cronin

Diaz hungry for more than victory

Writing from Silvis, Illinois

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Roberto Diaz turned professional in 2009. For the decade between then and now, he’s been searching for a victory that comes with both a big trophy and a big check.

Thursday was his 282nd round on the PGA Tour. He used it to carve up the John Deere Classic field, firing a 9-under-par 62 – his career low on the circuit by three strokes – to take a two-stroke lead over Adam Long and Russell Henley into Friday’s second round.

Diaz, who toured each side of TPC Deere Run in 31 strokes, was in the last group to finish. He’d rather do that on Sunday.

For the nonce, he just wants to keep playing as he did under the warm sun and negligible winds of the late afternoon and early evening, with power and touch, a combination that can take a player far.

Diaz hit 14 greens, but his best play of the day, one even better than his 99-yard pitching wedge hole-out for eagle on the par-5 10th, came on the par-5 17th, where he used local knowledge gained in the morning to baby a difficult 40-yard chip shot with considerable borrow from the front left of the green to within 18 inches of the cup.

A hole-out involves a bit of luck. A touch shot is pure skill and talent.

“This morning, I watched a couple of guys on the PGA Tour Live app play that,” Diaz said. “I told my caddie I just wanted to get it on the hill and let it trickle down. I hoped to get it to 10 feet.”

That jumped him to 9-under and two strokes up on Long and Henley, who were at dinner when Diaz was coming up the 18th fairway.

“Right now I’m really hungry,” said the 32-year-old native of Mexico. “Dinner will be fajitas.”

They will rarely have tasted better. Diaz has played better in recent weeks – he finished in a tie for eighth at the Travelers – but finishing has proved problematic. Not Thursday, where an adjustment in his putting methodology resulted in a 23-putt day.

“If your speed matches your line, you have a better chance,” said Daiz, echoing too many teachers to count. “I’d been hitting putts too hard. My caddie said to me, ‘Try to die them in.’ Today, I think I hit one putt too far. Otherwise, they were all to two to three feet. That makes your round more relaxed.”

Nine one-putt greens and two no-putt greens – he ran in a 19-footer from the fringe for a birdie on the fifth hole, which technically doesn’t count as a putt – made his score drop like a bad stock.

Everything went right for Diaz in his bogey-free round, and not too badly for Long and Henley, either. Long’s eight-birdie, one-bogey assault was the best of the morning on the course, after which Henley matched it and Diaz surpassed it.

Long isn’t a rookie like Matthew Wolff (tied for 20th with an opening 67), Collin Morikawa (tied for 78th with an opening 70) or some of the other new kids on the golf block. He’s from Diaz’s generation, 31 and a veteran of several years on what’s now the Korn Ferry Tour. But Long scored a victory in the Bob Hope Desert Classic in January, in only his seventh PGA Tour start, which instilled in him a sense of belonging.

Confidence? That’s another thing. Long admits to having doubts at times. Never mind that he has a trophy.

“It’s the most humbling game in the world,” Long said. “As soon as you hit the best shot you’ve every hit, you hit the worst shot you ever hit. As soon as you make an eagle, you make a double. We’ve all done it. It’s just how hard the game is that you can’t keep it for long.”

Long was 7-under on the 14 holes where he hit the green in regulation or less, and even, with a birdie and his long bogey of the day, on the four where his approach was wayward. But when you can one-putt eight greens and take only 26 putts, you’ll gain on the field.

“Kind of been my downfall the last week or two,” Long said. “I worked with my coach Josh Gregory the last couple days. The same stuff I always kind of battle with. Just keeping the putter face from turning over too much, keeping it a little more steady.”

Henley is seeking his first victory since the 2017 Houston Open. He hasn’t finished better than a tie for 15th this season, that at the Phoenix Open, but the 64 he stitched together on Deere Run’s leafy acreage is, even with a bogey at his last hole, his best score of the season. It came after he’d missed the cut in five of his last six appearances.

“It really just wasn’t a very stressful round,” Henley said. “I didn’t feel like I had to work too hard to make par.”

Six players, including Ryan Palmer, are tied for fourth at 6-under 65.

Around Deere Run

There are two players with the last name of Kim in the field: Whee Kim, who scored 3-under 68, and defending champion Michael Kim, who might as well be known as Woe Kim. Uninvited for a pre-tournament interview, Kim opened with a 2-over 73. He’ll likely need 67 or better on Friday to make the cut, which would be his first success of the season. Kim would be the fourth straight defending champion to miss the weekend. Brian Harman won in 2014 and made the cut in 2015. Since then, Jordan Spieth didn’t defend in 2016 and Bryson DeChambeau withdrew last year. ... Zach Johnson’s 1-over 71 ended a string of 41 under- or even-par rounds at Deere Run. His last over-par jaunt was a 4-over 75 in the third round of the 2008 JDC. ... Former Fighting Illini favorite Dylan Meyer, one of the four-spot qualifiers on Monday, birdied the last to finish at 1-over 72. ... Stephan Jaeger cited an injured thumb for withdrawing after 11 holes, his last the par-5 second, where he took a triple-bogey 8. ... The field averaged 69.600 strokes, the third lowest first round since the tournament shifted to Deere Run in 2000. Thirteen of the 18 holes played under par. There were four eagles on the par-4 14th, a downhill bomber’s paradise that was a drivable 321-yard test. ... Andres Romero had the drive of the day, a 396-yard poke on the par-5 second.

– Tim Cronin