Remembering Gary Planos

Writing from Chicago

Monday, March 28, 2016

Gary Planos almost always ended a conversation with a question.

“Do you need anything?”

Now, his legion of friends are asking why he died at 62, so many years too young.

Planos was found motionless Sat., March 26,  at his home in Kapalua, Hawaii, by landscapers who came over to work on his lawn. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.

That’s an additional shock, for Gary Planos had the biggest heart in golf. As the senior vice president of the Kapalua resort facility and the tournament director of the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions, Planos knew everyone in golf, a tight family where egos are large and grudges are kept.

Nobody ever had a bad word to say about Gary Planos. As word of his death spread on Sunday, kind words and memories of him came from all corners of the game.

“There was not a finer person in the game of golf,” Golf Channel producer Brandt Packer wrote on Twitter Sunday.

“He was always looking to help any way he could,” Rickie Fowler added, using Planos’ well-earned nickname of “Mr. Kapalua.”

“One of the all-time good guys,” ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski said. “Kapalua was Kapalua because of Gary Planos. Never met a nicer guy.”

Said Morgan Pressel, winner of the LPGA’s tournament at Kapalua in 2008, “My trips to Kapalua will never be the same.”

A caddie at Westmoreland who earned an Evans Scholarship to Illinois, Planos arrived in Hawaii in the mid-1970s with $7,000 in travelers checks and no job. Hired by Chicago native Mark Rolfing, he found one at Kapalua in the bag room. He made $3 an hour and could play the course. Hard work and imaginative thinking moved him up the ladder quickly.

“Westmoreland was my E ticket to Kapalua,” Planos said when the club celebrated its centennial.

Planos stayed close to the Evans program. He was a WGA director, and was usually on hand during the Western Open / BMW Championship, working either the practice range or visiting players in the locker room, reminding them of the beauty of the paradise he worked and lived in.

Baseball great Joe Torre, who has a house on the Kapalua property, would hang out with Planos during the tournament. On the turn of the millennium, he needed 15 rooms at the Ritz-Carlton for Yankees pitcher Andy Pettite for New Year’s Eve. It couldn’t be done, execpt Planos did it.

Planos could always do it. Arranging rides on a whale-watching boat or something similarly exotic were all part of his anything-is-possible mantra. Even after Kapalua outsourced resort and tournament operations in 2011, Planos was the go-to guy for many.

“Gary is Kapalua,” Steve Stricker said then.

“He had the wonderful ability to make everyone feel so special,” current TofC tournament director Nancy Cross told The Maui News. “I was greatly honored to be a part of his team.

“Everybody loved Gary. Pros, agents, media – everybody.”

Services were undetermined at press time.

– Tim Cronin

It's show time in Rosemont

    Writing from Chicago
    Thursday, February 25, 2016    

    More a sign of spring than the sighting of the first robin, the Chicago Golf Show sets up shop for a three-day run in Rosemont beginning at noon on Friday.
    There are nearly 200 exhibitors, most of them golf-related, ready to sing the praises of their course, their clubs, or whatever else they’re selling, in the big hall at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. And some are literally selling their wares. As with the Tinley Park Golf Expo, there will be clubs and all the accessories needed to tee it up for sale.
    The on-stage attraction this year is Peter Longo, the “king of clubs.” Longo’s given thousands of trick-shot shows over the years, but never at the Chicago Golf Show. He’ll make one appearance a day, times to be announced. The show itself is open from noon-7 p.m. Friday, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, and 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $5 on Friday, $10 on the weekend, with kids from 12 to 15 $4, and under 12 free.
    For the nostalgia-oriented, three members of the 1985 Chicago Bears – Super Bowl winners 30 years ago – will be on hand. Emery Moorhead (Friday), Mike Richardson (Saturday)and Jim Morrissey (Sunday) will be taking lessons from Illinois PGA pros. Those same pros will be available to give mini-lessons to you in the Illinois PGA Village, which includes a pair of golf simulators and more hands-on goodies to play with.
    About 17,000 attended last year.

    • The Illinois Open is returning to Royal Fox Country Club in St. Charles for the first time since 2001. The showcase of state golf, expanded to two courses last year, will be played there and at co-owned Royal Hawk Country Club, also in St. Charles, on July 25-27.
    The 258-player field will tackle first two rounds, one on each course, on the first two days. Survivors play the final round at Royal Fox, which will be hosting for the eighth time.
    The move to the royals Fox and Hawk is also a move away from KemperSports-controlled courses. The Illinois Open has been on a Kemper-affiliated course every year since 2002, when The Glen Club hosted for the first of nine times, more than any other course.
    Royal Fox was designed by Dick Nugent, who did a good job squeezing 18 holes into a landscape that crosses over a highway and includes housing. There are a couple of quirky holes – the original tee for the par-4 third hole looked through a space between trees no more than 15 yards wide, while the 18th features an island green – but the leaders had little trouble breaking par.
    Royal Hawk is the former Burr Hill Golf Course, sort of. It was being redesigned even before the Royal group bought it in 2004. By 2006, only four of the original holes remained. As a result, the course meanders in uncertain fashion through a housing development and across the landscape, some holes separated from the previous one by large distances.
    But, at least for 2016, it’s home to the Illinois Open.
    “The golf courses were uniquely designed and built to be true tests of championship golf,” said Royal Group CEO John Weiss in an Illinois PGA news release. “The participants will love the look, layout and feel of both Royal Fox and Royal Hawk, as well as enjoy their experience at the Royal Country Clubs. It’s also a great opportunity for the St. Charles area. The community has a great young fan base and the Illinois PGA's marquee championship will provide great exposure to our many young fans of golf.”

     – Tim Cronin

Love and golf collide at the Tinley Park Golf Expo

Writing from Chicago

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

    Valentine’s Day and golf. Is there a better combination?
    Perhaps there is, but for those who love the game, the final day of the Tinley Park Golf Expo – Sunday – coincides with the ultimate hearts-and-flowers-and-candy wooing day.
    Five years in, the Expo is now a fixture in Chicago’s winter golf calendar. This year’s edition runs from Friday through Sunday at the Tinley Park Convention Center, at Harlem Ave. and Interstate 80 in Tinley Park.
    “We cannot think of a better way for couples to bond than through the game of golf,” said Gregg Tengerstrom, the co-owner of the Expo and longtime head professional at Silver Lake Country Club in Orland Park.
    Tengerstrom and co-owner Joe Copeland expect about 10,000 golf fans to attend over three days. Those who make the trek can investigate the booths of about 120 exhibitors, ranging from equipment manufacturers to area courses to resorts signed up, as well as a sales area where clubs old and new will be available. Looking for a left-handed 1-iron? You may find it, along with all the more modern implements of the game, at the Expo.
    Admission is $5 Friday, $10 Saturday or Sunday. Children under 12 are free with a paying adult. The hours: Friday, noon-7 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
    Beyond the booths, here’s what you’ll find inside the Expo:
    • The Demo area will have new clubs and putters from a dozen manufacturers across three days. Adams, Callaway and Taylor Made will be on hand all three days. Cobra, Mizuno and Tour Edge will be there Friday and Saturday, while Wilson will be represented on Saturday and Sunday. Nike and Ping are Friday-only, while Cleveland, Fourteen Golf and RIFE Putters are Sunday-only participants.
    • An expanded lesson area will feature professionals from Billy Casper Golf’s many area courses, as well as Greg Kaumeyer of Golf Fitness 4 You. Additionally, the First Tee of Greater Chicago will host lessons and a skills challenge area for children, and the Freedom Golf Association will have complimentary lessons for the disabled.
    • A dollar enters you in the skills contests – long drive, long putt, and a closest to the pin contest via a golf simulator – with Callaway clubs and Odyssey putters to be won each day. There are also raffles other attractions in the aisles.

– Tim Cronin

The best Day in golf history

Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois

Sunday, September 20, 2015

At one point in Sunday’s final round of the BMW Championship at Conway Farms Golf Club, Jason Day’s lead was down to a mere four strokes.

He had been saturating his scorecard with pars, with the exception of a birdie at the eighth hole and a bogey at the ninth.

Daniel Berger was nipping at his heels, or at least trying to.

A rookie, chase down the guy who had won three of his previous five starts? Who had raced out to a six-stroke lead after 54 holes? Who was dominating the way guys like Hagen and Woods had done in Western Opens past?

Say it ain’t so.

It ain’t. Day sank a 15-footer from the fringe for birdie on the par-4 16th and a 3-footer for a birdie 4 at the last to win going away and grab the No. 1 world ranking away from Rory McIlroy, who finished tied for fourth.

Day’s winning score of 22-under-par 262, capped by Sunday’s 2-under 69, beat runner-up Berger by six strokes, third-place Scott Piercy – who birdied four of the last five holes – by seven and McIlroy, Rickie Fowler and John “J.B.” Holmes by eight.

Day’s total tied the Western Open mark set by Tiger Woods at Cog Hill in 2007. It was the biggest rout in a Western / BMW since Woods won by eight at Cog Hill in 2009.

It seemed inevitable entering the day, and proved to be so, but that deterred neither the galleries from pouring in nor the players was pouring in birdies. Bubba Watson went out in 29 and was chasing 59 before a bogey bit him. He settled for 65. There were two 64s, and more red numbers on the board than a supermarket sale.

All that was fun. What Day accomplished was remarkable.

At the British Open, Day missed the playoff by a stroke. He returned to North America and won the Canadian Open the next week, then outdueled Jordan Spieth to capture the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, then won the Barclays, the first tournament in the PGA Tour’s playoff series. The BMW is the third of the four playoff dances.

By winning it, he’s won four times in his last six starts, and is making the strongest possible argument that he, rather than Masters and U.S. Open winner Spieth, should be considered the player of the year.

Perhaps that will come down to a battle at next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake, where the $10 million bonus proffered by FedEx will also be on the line.

Regardless, Day was the man to catch on Sunday, and uncatchable.

“This week was a whirlwind,” Day said. “How I started the week, and the last two days were very emotional for me. Very hard to sleep at night, knowing I had the chance to get to No. 1.”

That was his goal, announced to the world at 18, but in his heart since he took up golf as a release from a difficult homelife in Australia at 13. He’d been on the verge of greatness, and was in the chase for the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay when a spell of vertigo dropped him to the turf late in his second round. Like a fighter, he rallied and was able to tie for the lead after 54 holes. He finished tied for ninth, five strokes behind Spieth, but the spark was there, burned brightly at St. Andrews, and has been blinding since.

“I always had a vision of standing on top of the earth when I was a kid,” Day said. “It feels really good right now.”

How good?

“I’m still a regular guy who’s really good at hitting a golf ball,” Day said. “I feel like I did yesterday.”

Only with a better view.

The race to East Lake

Two years ago at Conway Farms, Harris English missed advancing to the Tour Championship by a stroke.

Last year at Cherry Hills, English missed again, and again by a stroke.

Sunday, after a scare, he made it. By a stroke.

“It’s awesome,” English said. “It’s kind of a goal starting the year. You get in all the majors. It kind of makes your schedule easier.”

Easy it wasn’t, either in how he did it – making a 3 1/2 foot birdie putt at the last to finish with an inward 37 for 2-under 69 and 10-under 274 to tie for 10th – or in the waiting. When he finished, NBC reported he was in. Then other birdie putts were rolling in across the course, and neither NBC nor he was sure. But finally, in English was, 30th in the standings to grab the last spot.

“I need to win about five or six times next year and come in here No. 1 on the FedEx Cup list and make it a little easier,” English said.

English and Kevin Na, who also finished 10th, climbed into the top 30. Daniel Summerhays and Justin Thomas fell out. They finished tied for 41st and tied for 19th, respectively. Somewhere over the course of the season, the week, the back nine, a saved stroke might have gotten them to East Lake in Atlanta as well. 

Around Conway Farms

Zach Johnson and David Hearn each posted 7-under par 64, the best score of the day. Johnson did so with a five-birdie binge to finish, while Hearn’s bogey-free round featured seven birdies. ... The course’s scoring average of 69.754 was 1.246 strokes under par. Only 16 players were over par, with Bryce Molder’s 78 the high for the day. He finished tied for last with Ben Martin. ... The gallery appeared to be the largest of the week, which would be 27,000 if the WGA held to its stated maximum for any day.

– Tim Cronin

Day 'stumbles' to 69, leads BMW by 6

Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois

Saturday, September 19, 2015 

Here’s how to get Jason Day to lose the BMW Championship on Sunday:

• Set off the fire alarm every hour on the hour.

• Blockade his hotel room door overnight.

• Hire a guy to drive him to Rockford in the morning.

• Replace his clubs with left-handed ladies clubs.

Otherwise, to quote the late, great Bob Rosburg, you’ve got no shot.

Even with a ho-hum 2-under-par 69 on Saturday at Conway Farms Golf Club, Day has a six-stroke advantage on Scott Piercy and rookie Daniel Berger, with the rest of the field wagging their tails behind him.

Said Rory McIlroy, solo fourth at 13-under-par 200 after a 4-under 67, “The tournament is in Jason’s hands right now, and it’s up to us that are behind him to try and get off to fast starts. And he needs to come back to the field a little bit.”

As in make bogeys not offset by birdies. Day scattered four bogeys on his card on Saturday, but each was preceded or followed, or both, by a birdie. Two more birds, including a 20-footer at the last, coaxed forth the 69 and a breathtaking 54-hole total of 20-under-par 193, on a day when the wind played hob with his club selection and his mind. No matter. Both totals are three-round records across 112 playings of the Western Open, which was renamed the BMW in 2007.

“I’m hoping the veteran in me doesn’t get frustrated,” Day said. “I felt my mind was clouded. I never like that (north-northwest) wind.

“All the easy holes were tough. I was out of sorts trying to get that down. That could have gone from a 69 to a 74 or more. The experience I have helped.”

In other words, even with hitting a ball out-of-bounds – and recovering for bogey on the par-4 13th – Day did what he needed to do to maintain a big margin and narrow the field of contenders for the final round.

There’s Piercy and Berger, then McIlroy seven back, then Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson and Kevin Na eight back at 12-under 201, and everyone else is dreaming, including Jordan Spieth, in a tie for 10th at 10-under 203, 10 strokes in arrears.

Day wants the world No. 1 ranking McIlroy has. He’ll get it, leapfrogging No. 2 Spieth, with a victory.

“A lifelong dream,” Day called it.

Day led by eight strokes for a few seconds, and by as many as seven on several occasions. He reached 20-under after a 7-foot birdie putt on the eighth hole, his 44th of the tournament. The old record for reaching 20-under was 62 holes, established by Tiger Woods on Cog Hill’s testing Dubsdread layout in 2003. Day beat that by 18 holes, a full round.

His six-stroke margin is the largest of the season on the PGA Tour, surpassing the five-stroke edge of J.B. Holmes with a round remaining at Doral. Holmes yielded to Dustin Johnson in that scrap. Johnson lurks once again, but Day’s game is more complete than Holmes’.

Only once has a six-stroke lead after 54 holes not led to victory in the Western. Alex Robertson stumbled and lost to Macdonald Smith at Idlewild in 1912.

The slight breeze from the north-northwest and the first set-up of over 7,000 yards – 7,045, to be exact – in seven championship rounds stiffened Conway’s test to a degree, but with lift, clean and place still in effect on the fairways, the course still played under par. The 69-player field toured the par-71 course in 70.653 strokes. Which means Day still beat the field by 1.6 strokes.

McIlroy, for one, had hoped to be closer, but was disappointed with his round even with six birdies offset by one bogey.

“Another case of hit it really good and gave myself loads of chances and didn’t really convent many,” McIlroy said. “At least I’m getting better each and every day. I’m not quite close enough to maybe catch Jason tomorrow, but I’ll go out and play the best I can.

“If I can convert a few more chances, that 67 today could turn into 63 or 62 tomorrow, and you never know.”

Piercy birdied five of his last 12 holes for 67 and 14-under 199, then raced to the range to sort out his driver, which hit only eight fairways. Berger, chasing a top-30 spot in the standings for a berth in next week’s Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, was 1-over on the day until three straight birdies set up a 70 for 199. He entered the week 46th.

“Honestly, through three rounds I haven’t really thought about it,” Berger said. “If it happens, it happens, and if not, I’ll be all right with that.”

Around Conway Farms

Day would become the 17th player to win the PGA Championship and Western Open in a career, and the 10th to do so in the same year. McIlroy did so in 2012, capturing the BMW / Western at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Ind. ... Day and Piercy are the last pairing, at 12:50 p.m. They’re 10 minutes after Berger and McIlroy, with Fowler and Dustin Johnson at 12:30 p.m. ... Ben Martin, with an 80 on Saturday, goes off as a single at 7:25 p.m. ... The 5-under 66s of Fowler and Daniel Summerhays were the low rounds of the day.

– Tim Cronin