For Sale: Balmoral Woods

The Morning Nine for Monday, January 20, 2014

                              Writing from Chicago

    News and views for the third Monday in January, and buddy, can you spare $1.5 million?    

    1. If you want to buy a golf course – and a good one – get in touch with the Mortell family. Balmoral Woods, the challenging, fun course in Crete the family has owned and cared for from the beginning, is for sale.
    The price: $1.5 million, down from the original $1.9 million. Crete’s off the beaten path unless you’re in the south suburbs. That’s helped keep the green fee down over the years, making Balmoral one of the most affordable top-grade courses, but it also means the sale price may not be as high as the quality of the course would warrant.
    Here’s what you’d get: Eighteen holes winding across hill and dale on 124 acres (110 owned, the rest on a long-term lease) designed in two stages, first by Arthur Davis and Ron Kirby in 1975, then expanded in 1977 by George Fazio and owner Don Mortell, that were converted from bluegrass to bentgrass about a decade ago. A 10,000 square-foot clubhouse with a banquet room for 160 sitting high on a hill in the northeast corner of the property. A range that’s not as close to the clubhouse as you’d like – probably the only logistical drawback considering the course was originally nine holes and the clubhouse was actually a hotel – now a senior citizen center – that sits between the current sixth green and seventh tee.
    You’d also get a steady clientele that isn’t as large as it once was – the problem for virtually every public course. More than one owner will tell you the dip that followed the attack on Sept. 11, 2001, never fully rebounded. In the sales listing on the Links Capital Advisors web site, this is noted: “Club needs new owner with aggressive marketing campaign to increase rounds and revenue.”
    One thing the Mortells haven’t done over the years is engage in the coupon chase that many other courses in the south suburbs and across the border in Lake County, Ind., go for. There are discount rates, but they’re not crazy. The belief is that the golf course should pay for itself, not be subsidized by bar and restaurant business.
    The next notation: “Club has positive cash flow.”
    But for how long? That’s the $1.5 million question.

    2. Balmoral is the site of the annual start to amateur tournament play each year, in the form of the Will County Amateur. Any new owner would be expected to continue that, including the traditional awarding of the Brown Jacket, one of Don Mortell’s old sport coats. A tradition unlike any other ... hey, is that phrase taken?

    3. Balmoral on the block follows the sale of private Bull Valley in Woodstock and public Chalet Hills in Cary to different parties in the last few months. Chalet Hills, a similar facility to Balmoral Woods, was offered for $2,150,000, which shows the old adage in real estate still applies: location, location, location. Bull Valley, well down in membership the last few years, was said to go for $1.55 million.

    4. Patrick Reed first came to our attention – almost everybody’s attention outside of his family – with a good showing in the John Deere Classic last year. A big start and diminutive wive Justine carrying his bag made for easy columns and fun feature stories. He followed that up with a win later in the year, and Sunday proved he wasn’t a one-hit wonder by hanging on to win the old Bob Hope Desert Classic – these days with an insurance company as the title sponsor and former president Bill Clinton schmoozing – in La Quinta and Palm Springs, Calif.
    And with his brother-in-law on the bag. Justine is pregnant, but once the girl they’re expecting is born, Justine returns to work.

    5. Memo to Phil Mickelson: Just because you can try a right-handed shot to get out from under a bush in the final round in the middle of the desert doesn’t mean you have to. Taking a penalty drop would have been less penalizing than the double-hit-creating triple-bogey 7 you fashioned en route to missing the title in Abu Dhabi. But hey, better there than Pinehurst, no?

    6. Memo to Rory McIlroy: When taking relief, take complete relief. No more standing on the hazard line while hitting a shot after dropping out of the hazard. That two-stroke penalty on Saturday put you in the same second-place boat with the aforementioned Lefty in Abu Dhabi, and gave the win to the one and only Pablo Larrazabal on Sunday.

    7. In case you were wondering, it’s official: The Illinois Open is back at The Glen Club this summer. Mark down July 21-23 on your calendar. Meanwhile, the WGA has strung together an intriguing list of local courses to host the Western Junior the next few years. It’s at Flossmoor Country Club this year (June 16-20), venerable Riverside Golf Club in 2015, Rich Harvest Farms in 2017, and Evanston Golf Club in 2018. The 2016 Junior is TBA. And this year’s soiree at Flossmoor is the 100th anniversary of the inaugural, held at Chicago Golf Club.

    8. Yes, that was a U.S. Open promo last night on Fox’ NFC Championship telecast. Fox’s USGA package starts in 2015, which means it will be televising the U.S. Amateur from Olympia Fields Country Club on Fox and cable network FS1. No word on commentators. How about Joe Buck and Greg Norman in the tower behind 18?

    9. Finally, the big circuit drops in – undoubtedly via hang-glider – to Torrey Pines this week. That means one E.T. Woods will be on the premises for his first start of 2014, and the official 2013-14 season. So will a certain P.A. Mickelson. How timely, what with no football and the return to network television, that being CBS. The public is invited to tune in.

    – Tim Cronin

Mining for golf gold in Sand Valley

The Morning Nine for Monday, January 13, 2014

    Writing from Chicago
    Monday, January 13, 2014

    A trip around the world of golf on a reasonable Monday morning, one that doesn’t bring visions of polar bears on Michigan Avenue. We start, however, by looking to the northwest.

    1. Sand Valley may not be the most evocative name at first blush, but what Chicagoan Mike Keiser is planning to accomplish in west central Wisconsin will make the complex a household word among golfers who seek out the best. As he did at Bandon Dunes in Oregon and Cabot Links in Nova Scotia – and did first at the Dunes Club in New Buffalo, for those fortunate few who can play it – Keiser wants to create an unparalleled destination for golf.
    At Sand Valley, currently a Christmas tree farm on 1,500 acres of rolling land 18 miles south of Wisconsin Rapids, Keiser will have two of his three prerequisites for great golf: sandy soil and a lot of room for a golf architect to find the best holes. He will not have No. 3: an ocean, the wind the flows from it, and the views that inspire. Neither does Sand Hills in western Nebraska, and that non-Keiser club’s single course, while remote, is one of the best in the world.
    Sand Hills was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who have worked for Keiser at Bandon Dunes and Cabot Links, and have gotten the nod for the first course at Sand Valley.
    Coore and Crenshaw think alike, but are specialists. Coore leads the search for the proper routing, with Crenshaw’s say on green sites and the shape of green complexes taking precedent as a project moves along. They’re a perfect combination, whether it’s a new course or a touch-up of an old favorite, as the world will discover this June, when their restoration of Donald Ross’ Course No. 2 at Pinehurst hosts the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open in back-to-back weeks.

    2. So where is Sand Valley, exactly? A little more than halfway to the Twin Cities, and so far off the beaten path you need to leave bread crumbs. It’s the inland version of Bandon, Ore., in that regard. But closer than Keiser’s installation in Tasmania. really. Chicago is 247 miles away – roughly the distance to Ann Arbor, Mich. – while the Twin Cities is 193 miles out. Sand Valley is 54 miles north of Wisconsin Dells and 167 miles from Milwaukee.
    What’s it near? Well, there’s the town of Nekoosa, 2,600 strong, about a mile to the west. Nobody’s heard of it except those who live there and those who stumble into – and out of – the Lure Bar and Grill, hard on the bank of Petenwell Lake, a wide spot on the Wisconsin River. There’s a bridge to Saratoga, a marina and ... the potential for growth, once Keiser’s latest oasis is up and running. He’d like to start with two courses and a clubhouse with hotel, and go from there. But as he told Rory Spears, the market for a short-season course is different from a place like Bandon, which is open year-round. Much will depend on the acceptance of the first course, which is why the selection of Coore and Crenshaw is key. They’re likely to hit a home run.

    3. Keiser has an ace in the hole with Sand Valley that doesn’t exist with his other sites. It will be just close enough to Erin Hills and Kohler’s four courses Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits for well-heeled golf junkies to consider making a week of it and playing all of them. Fly into Milwaukee (or Wausau, 67 miles away). and go from there. Maybe he should invest in a helipad.

    4. Congrats to Ismael Perez, winner of Cog Hill’s Eskimo Open low net division with a 43 on January 5. Likewise, a tip o’ the toque to low net winner Randy Iatesia, who carded a 33. Actually, congratulations to all 35 who played nine holes for just surviving it in blizzard conditions, with snow coming in sideways and the big cold snap descending upon the area.

    5. Back to Bandon for a moment, or, to be accurate, a half-hour south of Bandon, which is to say, farther off the beaten path. There one will find the Knapp Ranch, perched on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, as does Bandon Dunes.
    And there, presuming the financing is firm, by 2016, one will find on a portion of that sand-dune strewn ranch Pacific Gales, fronted by Jim Haley of Highland, Ind., and designed by Chicago-area architect David Esler. His design calls for a double green for the ninth and 18th holes on a cliff overlooking the ocean. (Haley knew the area from working as a shaper on the first course at Bandon Dunes.)
    Esler’s best-known design around here is the 27 holes of Black Sheep Golf Club, an all-male enclave in the western boondocks. Anyone will be able to play Pacific Gales.

    6. Matt Fitzpatrick left Northwestern before some people knew he was there. The Englishman won the U.S. Amateur last year, before classes started in Evanston, and as of Thursday, he’s out the door, going back to merry old England to play amateur golf and ... that’s it. No school, apparently, just amateur tournaments and appearances in the three majors he gained exemptions to by winning the U.S. Am: The Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open.
    That makes us believe he’ll be like Johnny Manziel and be turning pro as soon as his final putt drops in the British – unless he waits to defend his title in the U.S. Am. Going pro, he’ll be able to ring up some healthy endorsements, and if he does well as a pro, he’ll be able to buy a school. The University of Phoenix, say.

    7. Want to learn how to play? Put down that copy of Golf Digest and hie yourself out to the White Pines Golf Dome on Thursday, where Illinois PGA pros will be giving free lessons from 5 to 9 p.m. These guys and gals know of what they speak.

    8. Condolences to the family and friends of Lee Milligan, the longtime pro at Barrington Hills Country Club. Milligan, 81, died last Monday in San Antonio, Texas, of complications from a spinal injury. A protege of Bill Erfurth at Lincolnshire Country Club in Crete, Milligan ran the shop at Barrington Hills through 2000. But his biggest claim to fame came when he was in Madison, Wis., and worked with a young lad at Nakoma Golf Club.
    Andy North grew up, stuck with Milligan, and won two U.S. Opens.
    “I’ve taken his advice to heart since I was 12 years old ... for 50 years,” North told the San Antonio Express-News. “He was one of the special people in my life.”

    9. Finally, it’s too bad Buddy Hackett’s not around any more. Golf Channel could station him at the 16th at Waialae Country Club, site of those four palm trees tilted just right, giving him a chance to say, “It’s the Big W!” every time. You’ve got to love a golf club where the members – especially the guy who was a fan of “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” have a sense of humor.

    – Tim Cronin

Fitzpatrick leaves Northwestern

U.S. Amateur champion going back to England

    Writing from Chicago
    Thursday, January 9, 2014

    Just like that, the Matt Fitzpatrick era at Northwestern is over.
    The U.S. Amateur champion, coach Pat Goss’ most notable recruit since Luke Donald, is going back to England, effective the end of the fall semester.
    The news, first reported by Northwestern, came out of nowhere, Goss told Golfersongolf.com’s http://spears.golfersongolf.com/ Rory Spears:
    “I was surprised by the decision. All the feedback we got from Matt was he had a wonderful first quarter here. He loved the school, the city of Chicago, his teammates, the golf courses, practice. It was so overwhelmingly positive, when he called me to tell me he was going back, it caught me completely off guard.”
    “Matt just decided he has some real important golf opportunities as the U.S. Amateur champion and decided to focus on those opportunities.”
    Goss tried to put a good face on losing his top recruit, saying, “He’s a great kid and a great player. Even though he was here only one quarter, our players and our program benefitted from him being here.”
    Northwestern quoted Fitzpatrick: “I very much enjoyed my experience at Northwestern. The people, the school and the great city of Chicago all exceeded my expectations. Based on the opportunities I have right now from a golf perspective, I feel it is important to dedicate 100 percent of my time to the game and have decided to withdraw from university in the U.S.”
    The Englishman was expected to emulate countryman Donald, who fell in love with Chicago and still maintains his summer home here. Instead, it’s an NBA-style one semester and out.
    This would seem to indicate an early turn to professional as well. One can see Fitzpatrick playing in The Masters, U.S. Open and British Open as an amateur, piling up other amateur results, then turning pro in time for a go at the European Tour.
    During Northwestern’s fall season, Fitzpatrick tied for first at the Rod Myers Intercollegiate, hosted by Duke, in October, and grabbed two other top-20 placings.
    – Tim Cronin

On a day fit for Eskimos ...

    Writing from Chicago
    Monday, January 6, 2014

    No matter where you are in Illinois – or most of the country, for that matter, Kapalua excepted – it’s stupid cold. So while this winter hurricane plays through, let’s go around the area, for the golf news never stops coming:
    1. Over 130 players were scheduled to play in Sunday’s Eskimo Open at Cog Hill. Here’s hoping they had morning tee times, before the wind picked up and the bottom fell out. No word on scores. Who can write in below-zero wind chill?
    2. Mike Munro was pleased with the brisk business he was doing at the White Pines Golf Dome in mid-December, compared to the last two more mild winters. He should be really smiling now with Chicago in the deep freeze. In the past, his operation has gone gangbusters when it was frigid and the roads were clear. The same is probably true in Bolingbrook, where McQ’s, the dome and restaurant owned by Mistwood mogul Jim McWethy. The dome isn’t quite as long as White Pines’ facility, but hot food plus an off-track betting wing operated by Hawthorne Race Course are real pluses.
    3. Look for the Western Amateur to go back to Point O Woods Country Club, the Robert Trent Jones classic in Millburg, Mich., near Benton Harbor, in 2018 or 2019. The Western Am left the Point following the 2008 tournament, the club wanting a six-figure site fee to make up for declining attendance. But there’s been complete turnover on the club’s board, and the new crowd wants to show off a refurbished Point, which includes a new clubhouse overlooking the 18th green. The recent job posting for a new general manager notes the club’s interest. According to a highly-placed WGA official, talks between WGA and Point officials have been productive, but no deal’s been signed yet.
    Ideally, the club Chick Evans once called “the peerless Point” will take up a regular position in the Western Am rota. It’s at Beverly Country Club this year, Rich Harvest Links in Aurora in 2015, Knollwood Club in 2016, and Skokie Country Club in 2017. By the way, there’s no chance the Western Am would drop by Harbor Shores, the Kemper Sports-operated course in the heart of Benton Harbor that over Memorial Day weekend welcomes the Senior PGA Championship for the second time in three years.
    4. The WGA is also waiting on a multi-year renewal by BMW for the Western Open, so to speak. Everything was expected to be ready by the end of the year, but the final details are still being worked out. And while Conway Farms Golf Club is not yet a lock for 2015, that’s the leader in the clubhouse for the Chicago-area location. An additional fan entrance is expected to unclog the bottleneck spectators were stuck with in 2013.
    5. As noted in our year-end review, Woodbine Golf Course in Homer Glen will close at the end of the year, to be transformed into Homer Glen’s first park, the clubhouse to become the village hall until a new hall in built.
    That’s too bad for golfers, because Woodbine was the type of course the late Phil Kosin, impresario of the fondly-remembered Chicagoland Golf, always liked to see: the $25 golf course. It went beyond that price in recent years, but Woodbine, from the day it opened in 1988, has been a place where beginners could learn to play and not lose a dozen balls along the way. Unless you hit it into a pond, it was hard to lose a ball at all. And everyone was friendly.
    6. Illinois-born D.A. Points and Illinois-connected Bill Haas may be toward the bottom of the standings in the Tournament of Champions (29th and T21 entering the final round respectively), but they have two things going for them. They’re playing golf in Hawaii, and they’re warm. And the paycheck is a bonus.
    7. NBC / Golf Channel does a great job on golf, but really, enough with the matching Hawaiian shirts and the leis. That’s as much a cliche as tuxedos on boxing announcers, the notion being the sport needs to look classy. Just wear a jacket and tie, peacock on the breast pocket optional.
    8. Until Tournament of Champions co-leader Justin Spieth won the John Deere Classic last July, the best story of the week was the husband-wife player-caddie combination of Patrick and Justine Reed. That’s on hiatus for the nonce and for a great reason. Justine Reed is carrying a child instead of a bag. Justine is due to deliver a little girl on Memorial Day. But trouper that she is, she may be back on the bag in August, in advance of the PGA Championship.
    Meanwhile, her brother, Kessler Karain, who had a solid junior golf career, is doing the heavy lifting for Patrick Reed. So far, so good. Reed’s four strokes back entering the final round at Kapalua.
    9. It will get warmer. Here’s proof. There are only 95 days to The Masters. You can almost smell the flowers.
    – Tim Cronin

Furyk's 59 tops the feats of 2013

    Writing from Chicago
    Wednesday, January 1, 2014

    The image is indelible. Jim Furyk, in the mottled shadows of the ninth green at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest late on a Friday afternoon, pumping his right fist, the crowd going wild, after his final stroke of the day.
    His 59th stroke.
    Golf’s magic number, on the scorecard and in the record books as the lowest round – by three strokes – in the long and lusty history of the Western Open / BMW Championship.
    And with a bogey, no less.
    Furyk’s 12-under-par round, amazingly, did not vault him to victory at Conway Farms. That prize went to Zach Johnson, while leader Henrik Stenson faded to 33rd and blew up a locker but rebounded to capture the FedEx Cup point playoff and the Road to Dubai playoff as well, making him the first player to double up as the postseason champion of both the PGA and European tours.
    But if Conway Farms’ members hunt around for a reason to put a plaque up commemorating the 2013 edition, it’ll be for Furyk’s fanciful feat.
    Scoring 12-under-par 59 in the caldron of the playoffs was simply the best round of golf in the history of golf in Chicago. Thus, it stands unquestionably as the highlight of the 122nd year of golf in Illinois – using Charles Blair Macdonald’s creation of the seven-hole course on the backyard of the Farwell estate and the edge of a city park in Lake Forest in 1892 as the beginning of the game here.
    What old C.B. might have thought of such an insane number penciled onto a scorecard can only be guessed at, but Furyk’s wonder round has relegated to a fight for second place such breathtaking feats as Ben Hogan’s 62 in the third round of the Hale America at Ridgemoor Country Club in 1942, Tiger Woods’ then record-tying 62 in the 2009 Western at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club, and the back-to-back 62s of Annika Sorenstam and Rosie Jones to open the 2002 Kellogg-Keebler Classic at Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora.
    Opening on Conway’s back nine, Furyk had birdied his first three holes, made another birdie on the 14th, then eagled the par-4 15th by dunking a 9-iron from 115 yards. He was 6-under after six holes. Birdies on 17 and 18 equaled 7-under-par 28 on Conway’s inward half.
    Then, he took stock of the situation.
    “I’ve never shot 28 before to start with,” Furyk said. “It kind of dawned on me at the turn that it would only – only is a tough way to say it – it only takes 4-under on the (par 35) front to break the barrier of 60.
    “The way I played it out in my head was, the back nine was over. I was just going to play the front nine and shoot as low as I could. I was trying to take the nerves out of it. Heck, I’ve shot 4-under on nine holes probably 100 times in my career. Probably even more.”
    After a par on the first hole, it got crazy. A 13-footer for birdie on the par-3 second, in the shadow of the clubhouse. A 26-foot bird on the third, and a 5-foot bird on the fourth hole. He was 11-under for the first 13 holes, 10-under for the championship. Somehow, Brandt Snedeker, whose 63 on Thursday seemed a formidable score, was still in front.
    So Furyk stood in the fairway on the fifth hole, on the eastern edge of the course by the railroad tracks, where galleries were small, hit the back of the green with his approach, and three-putted from 29 feet. The birdie try slid by the hole and the comebacker lipped out on the low side.
    He was 10-under through 14 holes. Parring in would equal 61. He wanted better than that.
    Furyk parred the sixth, birdied the par-4 seventh via a gap wedge to 11 feet, worked for his par on the par-5 eighth after ending up in the grass face of a bunker when hunting the pin on his second, and came to the par-4 ninth needing three strokes for 59.
    The drive was long and perfect, 281 yards, middle-right.
    “I knew the pin was in a benign spot,” Furyk said.
    And 103 yards out. For Jim Furyk, on a windless day, that means a “smooth” gap wedge. It was pure. The gallery was cheering when the ball was at the apex of its flight, louder still when it hit the middle of the green, louder than that when it stopped three feet away.
    “I noticed how many people came out to watch,” Furyk said.
    He smiled when someone from the South Side – the accent was unmistakable – shouted, “Jimmy, I’ll give it to you!” while Furyk was marking his ball.
    There was no need. The putt was perfect. Fifty-nine!
    What else happened in state golf this year? Plenty. Herewith, the highlights:

Person of the Year
    Ed Magaletta, who was playing in a foursome at Annbrier Golf Course in downstate Waterlook on March 8 when he heard a shout from behind him on the par-5 14th hole. One of his pals, Mark Mihal, had disappeared into a sinkhole. He took a step, it opened up, and whoomph! Mihal was in the bottom of a hole with a dislocated shoulder.
    Playing partner Mike Peters got there first, with Hank Martinez, the fourth in the group. And when course general manager Russ Nobbe arrived with a ladder and rope, Magaletta, using his medical training and common sense, and amazingly having a flashlight with him – what well-prepared golfer doesn’t have one? – decided not to wait for paramedics. He went down the ladder, slid the rest of the way down to Mihal, and put a rope around his pal’s waist.
    Within 20 minutes, Mihal was back above ground, and Magaletta was a hero. He ought not have to buy a drink or round of golf playing with Mihal for the rest of his life.

Player of the Year
    Carlos Sainz Jr. nearly won the Illinois Open, falling to Joe Kinney in a three-man playoff at the Glen Club. But Sainz, who came into the state championship after winning the Players Cup in Canada the day before, rebounded nicely two months later, capturing the revived Chicago Open at Cantigny Golf. Coupled with his success north of the border, the P2 and 1 finish in the two big non-Tour tournaments in the state earned Sainz, a 26-year-old from Elgin, Illinois Golfer Player of the Year honors.

Shot of the Year
    Jordan Spieth came to the 18th hole at Deere Run on Sunday needing a birdie to keep alive the hope of falling into a playoff in the John Deere Classic. He’d birdied the previous two holes, but plopped his approach into the right greenside bunker at the last. The green runs away from you and toward the water from there.
    So Spieth, a mere 19 years old, merely holed the bunker shot for a birdie. That meant a spot in a three-way playoff with David Hearn and defending champion Zach Johnson when Johnson bogeyed the last. And Spieth, after the others had gilt-edged opportunities to win – hats were already off for the handshakes – won the playoff with a par on that same 18th, the fifth sudden-death hole, to jump-start his career.
    Suddenly, he had a spot in the British Open, a passel of playoff points, a PGA Tour card through 2015, and $828,000 burning a hole in his pocket. But it doesn’t happen unless the impossible happens.
    “I dodged a lot of bullets,” Spieth said. “Whatever it was, the Golf Gods up there, I just caught the breaks. They were hitting great shots, and I was just making the six-footer to go to the next one. Just somehow found an opening.”
    No teen has won on the PGA Tour since Ralph Guldahl, like Spieth a Texas, won the Santa Monica Open at Riviera Country Club in 1931. Eighty-two years later, here was Spieth posting 265 and surviving five more holes to equal the old legend.
    “I don’t know what I did to deserve those breaks,” Spieth said.
    Sometimes, there doesn’t have to be a reason.

Executives of the Year
    Carrie Williams, executive director of the Illinois Junior Golf Association, and IJGA president Marty Schiene, for spearheading the successful rebirth of the Chicago Open, an old title with a grand history. The 2013 edition featured a purse of close to $50,000, and many amenities, from player dining to live scoring, that bought it a cut above the usual fare for mini-tour players.
    The location – Cantigny Golf in Wheaton, site of several USGA and CDGA tournaments over the years – was also a plus. It was conducted impeccably, and next year, with dates earlier than October, should attract a larger field than the 114 who were exempted or qualified in 2013.

Hail and Farewell
    Notable deaths in 2013 included this quartet, all of whom made an impact in golf in Illinois and beyond:
    Dick Hart, 77, member of Illinois Golf Hall of Fame, retired pro at Hinsdale Golf Club who won eight state majors (three Illinois Opens, two Illinois PGAs, three Illinois PGA Match-Plays) and excelled in occasional forays on PGA Tour, notably beating Phil Rodgers in an eight-hole sudden-death playoff for the 1985 Azalea Open; also led the 1963 PGA Championship after 36 holes, April 10.
    Bill Heald, 85, member of Illinois Golf Hall of Fame, tireless chair of the hall’s selection committee, multi-national PGA award winner, rules guru, and retired pro at Riverside Golf Club, Dec. 6.
    Carl Hopphan, 80, member of Illinois Golf Hall of Fame, most recently oversaw the Sunshine Course at Midwest Golf House and raised funds for the Sunshine Through Golf Foundation; previously pioneering superintendent at Aurora and Evanston golf clubs, a total of 43 years at the helm, May 26.
    Ken Venturi, 82, twice winner of the Gleneagles-Chicago Open at the Lemont course and a television commentator on CBS’s decades of Western Open coverage from Butler National and Cog Hill, one month and a day after the death of broadcasting partner Pat Summerall (who also had a Chicago connection: he played for the Cardinals for two seasons), May 17.

The Champions of 2013
    BMW Championship / Western Open – Zach Johnson
    John Deere Classic – Jordan Spieth
    Encompass Championship – Craig Stadler
    Western Amateur – Jordan Niebrugge
    Western Junior – Collin Morikawa
    Women’s Western Amateur – Ashlan Ramesy
    Women’s Western Junior – Heather Ciskowski
    Chicago Open – Carlos Sainz Jr.
    Illinois Open – Joe Kinney
    Illinois Women’s Open – Elise Swartout
    Illinois PGA – Mike Small
    Illinois PGA Match Play – Curtis Malm
    Illinois Players – Eric Ilic
    Illinois PGA Senior – Doug Bauman
    Illinois Amateur – Tim Kelly
    Illinois Women’s Amateur – Bing Singhsumalee
    Illinois Junior Amateur – Brendan O’Reilly
    Illinois Junior Women’s Amateur – Renee Solberg
    Illinois Mid-Amateur – Todd Mitchell
    Illinois Senior Amateur – Dave Ryan
    Illinois Senior Women’s Amateur – Leslie Page
    Illinois Public Links – Mike Henry
    CDGA Championship – Bryce Emory
    CWDGA Championship – Rosanna Lederhausen
    IJGA-CDGA Junior Amateur – Robert Renner
    CDGA Mid-Amateur – Matther Minder
    CDGA Senior Amateur – Tom Miler
    CDGA Public Links – Ken Molnar
    Chick Evans Junior Boys – Orion Yamat
    Chick Evans Junior Girls – Jessica Yuen
    Symetra Tour Players Championship – Sue Kim
    Radix Cup – Illinois PGA Professionals

Thanks for playing
    Ken-Loch Golf Links was slated to close for good at the end of the 2013 season, but DuPage County has yet to rezone the 31-acre property in Lombard to allow apartment buildings, the only way co-owners Richard Kensinger and Linda Lies, whose father built the course in 1963, believe they can get a proper price for the land. Will Ken-Loch, a fun nine-holer, open for a 52nd season? Stay with us.
    Meanwhile, Tuesday brought the news that 2014 will be the 27th and final season for Woodbine Golf Club in Homer Glen. The village is buying the course for $3.3 million, with the clubhouse to become the village hall and the property to become a park, which the village does not have.

Finally...
    Congratulations to 2012 Western Open / BMW Championship winner Rory McIlroy on his New Year’s Eve engagement to tennis star Caroline Wozniacki. That’s the way to turn a bad year into an absolute winner!
    And birdies and eagles to all of you in 2014!
    – Tim Cronin