Olympia Fields, Kemper Lakes land 2017, 2018 WPGA

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Writing from Chicago 

Olympia Fields and Kemper Lakes, two of the Chicago area’s most prominent country clubs, will host the WPGA Championship in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

It was known that Olympia Fields was negotiating to host the renamed and enhanced LPGA Championship, but it was expected to be the 2019 edition, to be announced after next week’s U.S. Amateur, the centerpiece of the south suburban club’s centennial celebration.

Instead, Olympia Fields will host the world’s leading female players on the North Course in two years. It will be the club’s first professional major championship since the 2003 U.S. Open, and the first women’s major since the 1933 Women’s Western Open, won by Olympia member June Beebe.

Kemper Lakes’ hosting of the WPGA will be its first foray into major championship golf since the 1989 PGA Championship. Kemper Lakes was a public course then, but was bought and turned private in 2007. The members have been seeking a tournament to get back into the public eye.

The move by the PGA of America and the LPGA triples the number of appearances the women’s tour will make in Chicagoland in the next few years. The International Crown, brainchild of Jerry Rich, will come to his Rich Harvest Farms next year. Add in the WPGAs at Olympia and Kemper, and you’ve got three women’s majors or international team competitions in as many years, and the Crown could return to Rich Harvest in 2020.

Olympia Fields president Jon Dye announced the deal to his membership by saying, “”In the competitive world of tournament golf, we believe we must strive to show the world the wonderful facilities that are located on our grounds. The board is committed to pursuing the club’s stated mission of hosting championship golf while doing so without further asking you to subsidize these endeavors. We believe that this tournament will be a breakeven proposition with a great likelihood of being a profitable event for your club.”

Olympia’s last connection with the PGA of America was the 1961 PGA Championship, won by Jerry Barber in a playoff. Dye noted in his letter he hopes hosting the WPGA would be “igniting our relationship with the PGA for future considerations.”

That would be a possible PGA Championship or Ryder Cup.

Inbee Park won this year’s WPGA at Westchester Country Club. Next year’s edition will be at Sahalee Country Cub near Seattle.

– Tim Cronin

Armstrong wins Western Amateur on 20th hole

Writing from Sugar Grove, Illinois

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Dawson Armstrong has this penchant for the dramatic.

He’ll hole a long putt, or sink a long chip shot, and like that, the match he’s playing will turn around.

He did so several times in the 113th Western Amateur on Saturday at Rich Harvest Farms.

The first time, it brought Armstrong the momentum in his semifinal match against Robby Shelton.

The last time, it won Armstrong the championship. The 19-year-old from Brentwood, Tenn., a sophomore at Lipscomb University, holed out a 50-foot bunker shot on the second extra hole for an eagle 3 and victory over 19-year-old Aaron Wise of Lake Elsinore, Calif.

“My actual first thought when it went in? The pain in my stomach went away.” Armstrong said. “My stomach started cramping up on me as soon as we finished the first hole. I did not feel good.”

Armstrong won the first sudden-death championship since Ryan Moore’s 19-hole triumph over James Nitties in 2004. But nobody within memory has won any WGA title as dramatically as Armstrong, whose sand wedge from the deep bunker in front of the second green hopped twice and, with a gallery of about 100 watching at 5:15 p.m., dove into the cup.

“I ran up about two feet, and it hit the pin and dropped in,” Armstrong said. “When we got up there, my dad told me, ‘You’ve had a lot of great shots, but nothing’s gone in.’ I was, ‘All right, let’s try to knock this in.’ I knew he was going to birdie it.

“I was trying to land it just over the ridge and trickle it down. It was going to have to be a lucky shot, and it was extremely lucky.”

Fittingly, the second hole at Rich Harvest Farms is called “Chance.”

“That was an incredible shot,” Wise said. “Not much I could do about that.”

Wise, who had reached the green of the 552-yard par-5 in two, still had a 25-foot downhill putt to force a third extra hole. He ran it by, and Armstrong was the champion.

“I’d missed a couple of putts low coming in, so I played a little more break on that one, and unfortunately it stayed out,” Wise said.

Armstrong led only twice in the match earlier, and for only a hole in each case. He was 1 up after seven and nine holes, but Wise squared the match on the next hole each time, a brace of birdies moving up 1 up after 13 holes. Armstrong squared the match with a birdie on the 14th,  and made a remarkable save from the junk to the left of the par-3 16th.

“It was the perfect shot for that moment,”Armstrong said.

Wise’s par save on the par-4 17th gave him the lead going to the last when Armstrong made one of his few mistakes, a putt through the fringe that never got anywhere. But his 90-foot up-and-down birdie on the par-5 18th, coupled with Wise three-putting from the back fringe after a bold approach, forced extra holes.

“As I was walking up, I felt I had a chance, because my lag putting was real good this week,” Armstrong said. “I’d had a putt earlier on No. 6 that almost went in from 20 feet off the green.”

This cross-country putt stopped four feet below the hole. Wise, faced with a putt that would go uphill, then fall toward the hole, left the first putt 10 feet short, then tapped his next one, which would have won the match by halving the hole, two feet by.

“It was a touchy putt for a time like that,” Armstrong said of Wise’s putt from the fringe.

Armstrong’s penchant from great shots every other hole started on the 14th, when his approach stopped five feet from the cup, setting up a birdie to square the match.

Armstrong’s father Dale was on his bag for the four match-play rounds. He hadn’t caddied for him since he was a 14-year-old, before he was playing in AJGA competition. And there are no caddies in college tournaments.

“I’m hoping he’ll never forget that moment, because I won’t,” Armstrong said.

“My attitude was, he’s the boss,” Dale Armstrong said. “I’m going to do what every caddie does: ‘Show up, keep up and shut up.’

“I hated that (Wise) lost it on the 18th. He gave Dawson a chance. We were thankful for the opportunity. Dawson’s attitude the whole week was, ‘Let’s have fun and then we’ll play good golf.’ He stayed with it.

“He’s got a great short game; always has,” the proud father continued. “He’s got great hands. To get the ball up-and-down on 16 out of the hazard, and then to have that putt (on 18) and then to hole it? Three out of five holes, he hit great short game shots. But it doesn’t surprise me. It happens to him all the time.

“I don’t know where it comes from, but it shows up.”

Armstrong, who called Rich Harvest “perfect, a dream of a golf course,” beat Shelton 2 and 1 in the morning semifinal, an outcome keyed by his chip-in birdie 2 on the par-3 13th. It was the middle of three straight holes he won to break open the all-square match.

Wise advanced to the championship match by rolling over fellow Californian Jake Knapp 4 and 2. Wise, entering his sophomore year at Oregon, built a 5-up lead after eight holes thanks to five birdies, and coasted from there.

“Right now, it’s hard to say, but I’m sure, reflecting back in the next couple of days, I’ll learn a lot,” said Wise, who, unlike Armstrong, is in the U.S. Amateur, which starts a week from Monday at Olympia Fields Country Club.

“I really hadn’t played any match play at the top amateur level,” Wise said. “My goal was to make the match play this week, and I exceeded the goal; I almost got it done.”

Armstrong is a bit of a student of history. He knew that Sweet Sixteen participants had accounted for more than 70 major championships. He knew that Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods had preceded him as Western Amateur champions. But he didn’t know that in the century-plus history of the championship, nobody had finished a title match like that.

Dawson Armstrong stands alone.

– Tim Cronin

Saturday results

Semifinals

Dawson Armstrong d. Robby Shelton, 2 & 1

Aaron Wise d. Jake Knapp, 4 & 2

Championship

Armstrong d. Wise, 20 holes

Armstrong, Shelton to meet in Western Am semis

Writing from Sugar Grove

Friday, August 7, 2015

His first name is Dawson, not David, but on Friday, same difference, for Dawson Armstrong was a giant-killer in the first two match play rounds of the 113th Western Amateur.

First, he knocked off Harrison Endycott, an Australian whose resume included wins down under in each of the last two years, 5 and 4. In the afternoon quarterfinals, the 19-year-old from Brentwood, Tenn., took down 2013 Western Am champion Jordan Niebrugge, who is even better known for being the low amateur in the British Open two weeks ago.

That 3 and 1 margin was built on a quick start. Armstrong was 2 up after six holes and never trailed thereafter, even though Niebrugge routinely hammered tee shots past him by 15 to 20 yards.

“It felt like the David vs. Goliath scene,” Armstrong said. “I parred eight holes in a row, just fairway and green every time, and kept telling myself that hitting it in the middle of the green would put pressure on him.”

Yet, the match turned on Niebrugge’s tee shot into the hay on the par-3 16th after he’d won the previous hole to pull within a hole. Niebrugge went from the hay to a back bunker, and left his next shot there. That made Armstrong dormie with two holes to play.

And when Niebrugge, after smashing his driving iron some 40 yards past Armstrong, hit a hacker’s approach 15 yards short of the green into the middle of a pond in front of the 17th green, it was all over.

For the day, at least. In Saturday’s first semifinal, Armstrong will face Robby Shelton, whose victories over Jack Maguire (3 and 2) and Ryan Ruffels (4 and 3) on Friday featured blazing starts. He dropped a 35-footer for a birdie against Maguire on the first hole and was 2-up after four holes. Maguire squared the match on the seventh green, but Shelton was 2-up again after a birdie on the 10th hole. Ruffels, a 17-year-old Australian, felt a similar breeze by Shelton passing him by in the quarters, since the 19-year-old junior-to-be at Alabama birdied the first and third holes, then the sixth, seventh and eighth.

Shelton is now 6-0 in match play at Rich Harvest, including his 4-0 mark in the Palmer Cup earlier in the summer. The Alabama stalwart figures it was “because I hit fairways,” he said. “Now that I’ve gotten a feel for the place, I’ve made some putts. And I love match play.”

Aaron Wise will face Jake Knapp in the second semifinal. Wise, from Lake Elsinore, Calif.,  knocked off Florida-based Sam Horsfield of Manchester, England, 3 and 2 in his quarterfinal. Knapp needed 24 holes to oust Gavin Hall, doing so with a birdie. It was the longest match since matches went to 18 holes in 1961.

Knapp was the fly in ointment for Illinois senior Charlie Danielson of Osceola, Wis., in the round of 16. Danielson played 2-under for the 16 holes of the match and never made a bogey, but Knapp was a steamroller, going out in 7-under 29, including an ace on the third hole to go 1-up. Danielson never had a chance.

Jerry Rich remembers Louise Suggs

Louise Suggs, one of the LPGA’s founders, died Friday at 91. Rich Harvest owner Jerry Rich knew her well from his membership at Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach, Fla.

“When I was putting the Solheim Cup (bid) together in 2003 (for 2009), Ty Votaw, who was the LPGA commissioner, was avoiding me. I called Louise and said, ‘Could you put in a call to Ty to see if we could have breakfast together.

“In 10 minutes, Ty called.”

By then, Rich and Suggs had known each other for 20 years.

“ My first foursome as a new member (at Pine Tree) in 1983 was Sam Snead, JoAnne Carner and Louise Suggs,” Rich said. “How good is that?

“Halfway through the round, Louise said, ‘You could be a pretty good player. When we get in, I’m going to give you a little hint.’ We’re having a Coke, and she said, ‘Mr. Rich, you have one major flaw in your swing. When you get to the top of your backswing, you release your top right hand grip. You’ve got to work them together.’

“I said, ‘Thank you very much.’ It took me at least eight to 10 years to feel comfortable with both hands put together. She was a great teacher. She said the most important thing in golf was the grip. She was a great lady.”

Friday

Round of 16

Robby Shelton d. Jack Maguire, 3 & 2

Ryan Ruffels d. Luke Toomey, 5 & 4

Jordan Niebrugge d. Adam Wood, 3 & 2

Dawson Armstrong d. Harrison Endycott, 5 & 4

Gavin Hall d. Jonathan Garrick, 1 up

Jake Knapp d. Charlie Danielson, 3 & 2

Aaron Wise d. Alex Franklin 3 & 2

Sam Horsfield d. John Coultas, 19 holes

Quarterfinals

Shelton d. Ruffels, 4 & 3

Armstrong d. Niebrugge, 3 & 1

Knapp d. Hall, 24 holes

Wise d. Horsfield, 3 & 2

-30-

Shelton the winner – now the Western Am really begins

Writing from Sugar Grove, Illinois

Thursday, August 6, 2015

A funny thing happened at Rich Harvest Farms on Thursday.

Robby Shelton won a 72-hole golf tournament. He posed for photos with a shiny trophy. He was given a big silver plate to take home.

But really, he hasn’t won a thing yet. The medalist in the Western Amateur is little noted nor long remembered – unless he goes on to win the whole thing.

Shelton, a 19-year-old from Wilmer, Ala., added rounds of 1-under 71 and 5-under 67, the latter featuring an eagle-birdie outburst early in the round and four more birds to start his back nine, to finish at 11-under-par 277, beating Gavin Hall by two strokes.

Jordan Niebrugge, Dawson Armstrong, Aaron Wise and Sam Horsfield tied for third at 7-under 281, while Charlie Danielson of Osceola, Wis., was in solo seventh at 6-under 282.

But all those scores are wiped off the board on Friday morning, when match play begins among the Sweet Sixteen qualifiers. The stroke play totals only seed the players, who start anew.

One of them will won four matches and collect the 113th Western Amateur title.

The last champion to also win the stroke-play competition was Chris Williams, three years ago. He was the 24th to do so, and the 12th in the Sweet Sixteen era.

Shelton played here in the Palmer Cup in June, going 4-0, with two wins in team play and two wins in singles. Along with four rounds in the Western Am, plus practice rounds, he believes he’s played Rich Harvest 10 times.

“I know it pretty well by now,” said Shelton, who will be a junior at Alabama. “If you hit the fairways, it’s really gettable.”

Between the Palmer Cup and the Western Am, Shelton tied for third in the PGA Tour’s Barbasol tournament, played the same week as the British Open.

“It gave me a lot of confidence to be up there third in a PGA Tour event,” Shelton said. “Pretty cool. I knew I had the game to come here and compete.”

Shelton advanced to the Sweet Sixteen two years ago and lost in the first round. He’s one of four repeat qualifiers, including 2013 champion Niebrugge, Danielson and Jonathan Garrick.

Shelton plays Jack Maguire of St. Petersburg, Fla., in the opening match of the Round og 16, at 8 a.m.

NCAA champion Bryson DeChambeau of Clovis, Calif., missed by a stroke. He was 5-under in his final round through 16 holes and within the top 16, but triple-bogeyed the par-4 17th hole, and could only manage par on the par-5 18th.

– Tim Cronin

Records fall at Rich Harvest

    Writing from Sugar Grove
    Wednesday, August 5, 2015

    Going into the first round of the Western Amateur, the men’s course record at Rich Harvest Farms was 5-under-par 67.
    Two players, Dawson Armstrong and Jose Mendez, matched that in Tuesday’s opening round of the 113th Western Amateur. Wednesday, it was obliterated. In the morning wave, David Cooke and Harrison Endycott, playing in the same group, fired 6-under-par 66s.
    They shared the course record for about 10 minutes, for Aaron Wise, in the next threesome, was so inspired he fired an 8-under-par 64 to grab the mark.
    It lasted the rest of the day, though Charlie Danielson gave it a scare in the afternoon with a 7-under 65 to roar into a tie for second place. Thursday, when the final two rounds of stroke play qualifying are played, there’s no guarantee it will stand.
    Cooke, the Illinois Open champion, won’t have a chance to better his 66. His opening-round 80 added up to 2-over-par 146, two strokes over the strict cut line. The Western Amateur takes only the low 44 and ties – 45 in this case, at even par or better – for the 36-hole shootout to determine the Sweet Sixteen for match play.
    Wise scored his 64 the old-fashioned way. He birdied everything in sight. Nine birdies, offset by a bogey, added up to equal nines of 32 and a score never before seen on Jerry Rich’s backyard playground. He’d scored 4-over 76 on Tuesday, and said the difference was positioning off the tee.
    “In the fairways you can attack the pins here,” said Wise, a 19-year-old from Lake Elsinore, Calif., who’ll be a sophomore at Oregon in the fall. “Yesterday, I was hacking out of the trees and bushes. That was the difference.”
    For his fine effort, Wise is still only in a tie for seventh entering the final 36. The leader is Dawson Armstrong, whose 66 on top of an opening 67 earned him a total of 11-under 133 and a two-stroke lead over Taylor Funk and Danielson.
    Armstrong, a 19-year-old from Brentwood, Tenn., whose greatest feat so far is capturing this year’s dogwood Invitational, fell hard for Rich Harvest when he arrived, and the affair is blossoming.
    “What I like best about this course is that it gets my mind off playing golf and gets me thinking about just how beautiful it is out here,” said Armstrong, who has 12 birdies and only one bogey across 36 holes. “At the beginning of the week, I told myself that I would have fun first and if I played well then that’s awesome.”
    So far, so awesome.
    Even Rich, the owner and designer – with Greg Martin – of the layout, thought so.
    “A 64 on Rich Harvest Farms is phenomenal,” Rich said. “Over 20 years of hosting amateur players, these are the best we’ve ever seen.”
    Danielson, from Osceola, Wis., and a senior on the Illinois golf team, birdied seven of his first 10 holes and closed with a brace of birdies, matching 20-footers on the eighth and ninth holes, for a 30-35 excursion.
    “I learned you’ve got to get the ball in the fairway, for sure, and then you can kind of be aggressive with the pins today,” Danielson said.
    At 135, he’s two strokes ahead of pal Jordan Niebrugge, from down the road in Mequon, whose low amateur placing in the British Open is still the talk of Wsiconsin.
    “I want to keep that going into here,” Niebrugge said. “I got off to a good start yesterday. I just hit a lot of really good shots.”
    Funk, the son of PGA Tour veteran Fred Funk, says he doesn’t have the same swing as his father, but he gets similar sparkling results. Wednesday, he opened birdie-eagle, then closed with four birdies on his last seven holes for his 67 and 36-hole aggregate of 9-under 135.
    “It could have easily been 8- or 9- or even 10-(under),” Funk said. “I gave a few away on the back nine, which was my front nine.”
    Funk failed to qualify for the U.S. Amateur, but bounced back with a victory at the Southern Amateur (at Old Waverly).
    Daniel Stringfellow was the only Illinoisan to make the cut. He’s at 1-under 143 entering the final 36 of stroke play.
    Among those missing the cut: defending champion Beau Hossler, two strokes too high at 2-over 146.
    “I drove it badly, chipped bad and putted bad,” Hossler said. “That usually leads to missed cuts.”
    A host of local notables, including Illinois Amateur champion Tim “Tee-K” Kelly, also hit the road after 36 holes. So did 2014 U.S. Amateur winner Gunn Yang, who at least gets to defend at Olympia Fields in a fortnight.
    Match play begins with the round of 16 on Friday morning, with the championship match slated for Saturday afternoon. Admission is free.
    – Tim Cronin