Small, Malm in a familiar place

    Writing from Olympia Fields, Illinois
    Monday, August 26, 2013

    Mike Small’s been atop the leaderboard more, but not lately. Winner of three PGA national club pro titles and 14 Illinois majors, including nine Illinois PGA championships, he hasn’t been able to hold a trophy in his hands since 2010.
    That may be about to change. Small fired a 2-under-par 69 on a balmy Monday on the South Course at Olympia Fields Country Club, where Illinois PGA title No. 9 – and the eighth in succession – was accomplished three years ago.
    It wasn’t a perfect round by any means – his 63 in the second round three years ago fit that definition – but it was what any player whose game has been, by their standards, erratic, would accept.
    “It is coming together?” the coach of Illinois’ powerhouse men’s team repeated. “You always think it is.”
    Small might not be all together yet. He rued hitting one tee shot 50 yards to the left and seeing it splash, which led to a bogey on the par-4 14th, and hitting another 50 yards to the right, that on the par-5 18th, which led to a finishing 6.
    But he birdied three of the first four holes and was 4-under after the 10th, which leads to the deduction that he played more like the Small of old than an old Small.
    “I’m trying to find a Band-Aid,” Small said. “I’m one day away from playing great. Only thing is, I don’t know what day that is.”
    The result of the adventure, which in the end Small credited to putting better, is a share of the lead one-third of the way through the 54-hole competition. Two others also scored 69, with Curtis Malm of St. Charles Country Club and Chicago Golf Club assistant Ryan Sharp doing so by going low on the back nine. Malm’s breakdown was 37-32, Sharp’s 36-33. And unlike Small, who has played here and coaches his Fighting Illini squad here annually, it was the first time either player had set foot on the plush grounds of the big south suburban club.
    “I did what I wanted to do on Day 1,” Malm said. “See the golf course, put myself in position.”
    From here, he could go to town. He blistered Elgin Country Club with a 63 last week, and while Small did that at Olympia when he last copped the James Kemper Cup, Malm doesn’t see a crazy low score, based on his first impression.
    “The golf course is good enough that par should be a good score,” Malm said.
    Sharp, new to the front rank in a state major, made 10 straight pars, then kicked into second gear with a pair of birdies. After a bogey at the 13th, which tied for the fourth-toughest hole in the opening lap, he parred around until a birdie on the penultimate hole. And it could have been better.
    “I left a couple birdie putts out there,” Sharp said. “Tee to green, it’s an awesome golf course. Other than my 5-iron, I hit every club in my bag.”
    Sharp knows a first-rank course when he sees one. Aside from his assistant work at Chicago Golf, he plays a big role with the junior program at Augusta National Golf Club in the winter.
    The tri-leaders are being shadowed by a large contingent of players. Kishwaukee Country Club head pro David Pagelow is alone in fourth after his 1-under 70, while Bryn Mawr’s Scott Baines is the lone player at even-par 71. Eight players are at 1-over 72, including defending champion Steve Orrick of Decatur, south side favorite Marty Schiene of Odyssey Country Club, and veteran Mike Harrigan, whose closest brush with winning this title came in 1979, when he led through 53 holes the first time the Illinois PGA was played at Kemper Lakes in Hawthorn Woods, only to drown his title hopes with a 9 at the par-4 18th.
    The cut comes Tuesday, with the title decided on Wednesday.
    – Tim Cronin

Swartout beats Jeray in Illinois Women's Open playoff

    Writing from Romeoville, Illinois
    Friday, August 2, 2013

    Elise Swartout had a game plan.
    Nicole Jeray had newfound confidence.
    Each played to their strengths Friday in the final round of the 19th Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open at Mistwood Golf Club.
    Jeray’s strength got her into a sudden-death playoff with Swartout.
    Swartout’s strength brought her the victory.
    A four-foot birdie putt on Mistwood’s second hole made the difference, earning Swartout the title, the right to hoist the Kosin Cup, and the $5,000 first place check from the purse of $25,000, useful for a young pro who has only conditional status on the Symetra Tour this season.
    “My caddie and I thought we needed 70 today,” Swartout said.
    They were a stroke off, but Swartout’s 3-under-par 69, the best round of the tournament even with a 1-over reading on the last seven holes, placed her at 3-under-par 213 and the clubhouse leader with three twosomes remaining.
    Jeray was in the last twosome, and even par for the day through 15 holes. A three-hour short-game session after the second round with Dr. Jim Suttie, who last week moved his base of operations from Cog Hill’s barn to Mistwood’s Performance Center, was about to pay off.
    Jeray drained a birdie putt on the par-4 16th, came close on the par-3 17th, then dropped an 18-footer for a birdie 4 at the last to climb into the playoff.
    “That was cool,” Jeray said. “It was neat for me, win or lose, to get into the playoff. I started using my feel a little bit more while putting. When you’re nervous, that helps.”
    A generation apart and both looking for better days in their professional careers, they went to the first tee as rain began to fall. Routine par 4s on the first hole sent them to the second, where Swartout’s 82-yard 58-degree wedge shot to four feet essentially won the tournament.
    Before that, she had birdied the first, fifth, 10th and 11th holes, a string of pearls offset only by a bogey on the par-3 14th.
    “I knew I had it going,” Swartout said. “The playoff birdie, it was a typical, standard putt, what I do on the practice green every day.”
    This time, it was for real, and she didn’t flinch, scoring her first victory as a professional in her third year since graduating from Western Michigan. With only conditional Symetra status, Swartout has been playing in state opens and the like – next stop, Ohio. She said she’d been in the top 20 in recent weeks, and now has made it all the way to the top, the fifth IWO winner from Michigan in the last six years.
    “Everything was coming together except winning,” Swartout said.
    Part of her game plan was to pay no mind to what others were doing.
    “I had to keep my head down from the leader board because I like to stay focused,” Swartout said.
    So she didn’t know she was two strokes behind leader Samantha Postillion at the turn, nor that Postillion, the amateur from Burr Ridge, would tumble back to even par with a 40 on the back nine.
    Instead, Swartout looked straight ahead and sank a big-breaking 5-footer for birdie on the par-4 19th and rolled in an uphill 18-footer for a 3 on the par-4 11th to move to 4-under. Soon came word of Postillion’s troubles, a bogey on the par-4 12th and double-bogey on the par-4 13th. Other players made bids – Caroline Powers was briefly 3-under before bogeys on the 13th and 15th, and finished tied for third at 2-under 214 with Chelsea Harris, who played the final 36 holes without a bogey – but it came down to Swartout and Jeray, who was trying to become the first player to win the IWO in three different decades.
    Jeray collected $3,000 for second, and goes back to the tour grind – Semetra in Richmond, Va., first, followed by the LPGA’s Canadian Open and a tournament in Portland – reasomably pleased.
    “These young kids are fearless,” Jeray said of Swartout in particular and her competition, all of which was younger than her, in general.
    Postillion’s 2-over 74 placed her at even-par 216 and earned her low amateur honors. She was hoping to join her mother, three-time winner Kerry Postillion, as an IWO champion.
    “My nerves got me,” Postillion said. “I’m not really used to leading.”
    – Tim Cronin

Leader Postillion aims to match mom in Illinois Women's Open

    Writing from Romeoville, Illinois
    Thursday, August 1, 2013

    Samantha Postillion has a big fan back in Arizona.
    Her mom, Kerry Postillion, a three-time winner of the Illinois Women’s Open.
    So when Samantha called after Wednesday’s round to let her mom know she’d scored 1-under-par 71 in the first round of this year’s IWO, she got congratulations.
    “She was proud of me for that,” Samantha said.
    She also got an earful. The call was placed three hours after she’d finished at Mistwood Golf Club. Mom was watching the online scoring and eager to hear the details.
    Thursday’s call was likely placed more promptly. Postillion the younger scored another 71, and her 36-hole aggregate of 2-under-par 142 moved her to the top of the leader board, a stroke ahead of amateur Kris Yoo and pros Katie Dick, Caroline Powers and Nicole Jeray with one round remaining.
    “The key was to stay positive,” Postillion said. “I missed a few short putts, but I let my frustration go away and birdied two of the last three holes.”
    The birdies, on the short par-4 16th and the par-3 17th, helped made the difference in moving her ahead of the field. Dick and Jeray played the last three holes in even par, while Yoo, entering her senior year at Wisconsin, also birdied 16 and 17 to cap a 2-under 70, the best round of the day, but was making up ground in doing so.
    Kerry Postillion won the IWO in 1996, 1997 and 1999, when it was run by Chicagoland Golf publisher Phil Kosin. Mistwood, the longtime host, took over the tournament after Kosin died, and added his name to the title.
    Samantha, 21, was there, but doesn’t recall much of her mom’s big run.
    “She was playing her best golf when I was between 2 and 6,” Samantha said.
    Samantha Postillion was in position to win last year, but fell on the first hole of a three-player sudden-death playoff to Samantha Troyanovich of Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich. That, she does remember, and Friday, will have the opportunity to improve on her record.
    “I plan to practice a lot of six-foot putts,” Postillion said. “If I can make those, I can go low.”
    Her birdie on the 16th came after she pulled a wedge 30 feet left of the cup. She drained the putt to move to 1-under, then slammed an 8-iron to within two feet of the cup on the 139-yard 17th to take the lead.
    Powers followed her opening 70 with a 1-over 73, but remains in the chase.
    “I didn’t lose much ground,” Powers said. “I didn’t take advantage of opportunities.”
    Dick, an assistant at Bryn Mawr, cruised around in even par, while Jeray called her round of 1-over 73 “boring. I wasn’t pressing, but I was trying to figure out why I was hitting to the right. I tried to hit hard shots to correct it, and on 17, I finally hit a good shot.”
    Jeray three-putted the par-5 15th after thinning her wedge lay-up, collecting her only bogey in the last 13 holes.
    “It was deflating, because I’d laid up to my wedge distance,” Jeray said. “The pin positions are difficult, so it’s difficult to get wedges close.”
    With only Elise Swartout and Chelsea Harris at even par, a mere seven players are at par or better entering the final round.
    Troyanovich, the defender, added an untidy 78 to her opening 75, and stands at 9-over 153 through two rounds. She made the cut, which included 34 players, on the number. Among those missing the cut: two-time champion Jenna Pearson (12-over 156).

    – Tim Cronin

Jeray among leaders after first round of IWO

    Writing from Romeoville, Illinois
    Wednesday, July 31, 2013

    The Illinois Women’s Open usually conjures up visions of visions. Mirages shimmering in the sky thanks to insane heat are the first thing that comes to mind.
    Not this year. In keeping with the Scottish look of Mistwood Golf Club, the weather for the first day of the 19th IWO featured overcast skies and temperatures in the 60s. The only thing missing, aside from a church steeple or two to aim at, was the wind. There was only the barest hint of a breeze all day, and the better players in the field took advantage of that.
    Two of the three leaders at 2-under-par 70 after the first of three rounds come from similar backgrounds.
    Erica Popson has just graduated from Tennessee, and is in her fourth tournament as a professional after her Volunteer career.
    Caroline Powers is a freshly minted graduate of Michigan State, in her sixth pro tournament, and like Popson, hoping to show well to build confidence for the LPGA qualifying tournament in the fall.
    Popson had four birdies and two bogeys, Powers three birdies and one bogey, each combination equaling 2 under on the Ray Hearn-designed (and redesigned) layout.
    Jeray’s jaunt around the course was more adventurous. The native of Berwyn, a two-time Illinois Women’s Open champion, scored five birdies against three bogeys en route to her 70, including a birdie on the par-4 16th.
    More than sharing the lead with a pair of players 20 years her junior, Jeray is where they want to be: On the LPGA Tour. Despite the currently-controlled battle with narcolepsy, she’s been on and off the circuit for about 20 years, and on the development tour when she hasn’t been on the big one.
    “I’m 111th on the money list this year, but that’s better than it looks,” Jeray said.
    She also has something that neither Popson nor Powers have developed yet: A golfer’s mental scar tissue. Witness her reaction to a downhill putt of moderate length on the par-4 10th hole. She had turned in 3-under 33 and was looking for another birdie.
    “It rolled 15 feet by the hole,” Jeray recalled. “But I putted it back next to the cup and tapped in for bogey. I lost all my confidence on the 10th.”
    But, cagey veteran that she is, Jeray played the rest of the back nine at even par, making up for a bogey on the par-3 14th, a devilish test with water on the left, with a birdie on the par-3 16th.
    After all that, she lauded the course from stem to stern.
    “If they just back up the tees here, this would be a great course for the LPGA,” Jeray said. “Especially for me, because I’m great at picking my line.”
    That trio was a stroke ahead of a quartet of players entering the second round. Pros Katie Dick, Katie Jean and Elise Swartout and amateur Samantha Postillion scored 1-under 71, with Jean rallying from 3-over after 10 holes with four birdies in a span of five holes.
    Another six are at even par, including Chicagoan Megan Godfrey, who made up for a double-bogey on the 10th with a hole-out from 122 yards for eagle on the 16th. A bogey at the last brought her to even for the day, but Godfrey, a publicist at KemperSports, probably plays less golf than anyone else in the field.
    “I’m definitely a part-time player,” Godfrey said.
    Defending champion Samantha Troyanovich is back in the pack after an opening 3-over 75. The cut comes after Thursday’s second round, and will encompass the low 34 and those tied for 34th.
    – Tim Cronin

Kinney comes through in Illinois Open playoff

    Writing from Glenview, Illinois
    Wednesday, July 24, 2013

    An hour before Joe Kinney won the 64th Illinois Open in a three-man, three-hole playoff, Michael Davan had to lose it.
    And he did, comprehensively. But we’ll get to him later.
    First, the exploits of Kinney, whose game was flawless down the stretch of the third round at the Glen Club, and again in the playoff.
    This is how to win the tournament: Birdie the 10th hole, par the last eight in regulation, then birdie the par-5 first and par the last two while your competitors fold like road maps.
    That works. It worked for Kinney, a 26-year-old mini-tour player from Antioch who parred the last two holes of the playoff and scored an aggregate 1-under-par 12, to the 1-over 14 of amateur Dustin Korte and the 4-over 17 of Carlos Sainz Jr. And Wednesday’s winner was very happy to be the winner.
    “The Illinois Open means the world to me,” Kinney. “I mark it on my calendar as ‘Do not miss.’ This is a first class golf tournament and as good as it gets.”
    It was Kinney’s first win as a professional, and earned him $17,500. More than that, it earned him personal brownie points.
    “I had a lot of success in junior golf and amateur golf, but this – there are a lot of good golfers in this state.”
    He beat two of them head-to-head-to-head in the playoff. Kinney, who had opened with a 7-under-par 65 on Monday but sailed to a 76 on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he scored 2-under-par 70, with birdies on two of the first three holes, a bogey at the par-4 seventh, and then the bird on the 10th, followed by par after par to finish at 5-under-par 211. He was hoping for better.
    “I thought 7-under would be the number (to win),” Kinney said.
    It would have been until Davan imploded. But those two were among six players who led or shared the lead in the course of the wild closing round.
    “On the putting green (after finishing), I thought it was game, set, match,” Kinney said.
    Instead, he was in a playoff with Korte and Sainz, and quickly, he was ahead. Hitting third on the first hole proved to be an advantage when Korte found the fescue and Sainz’s shot stopped in the right rough. Kinney smoothed one to the middle of the fairway and was on his way to a two-putt birdie on the 566-yard par-5.
    “That first putt was 75 feet, and might have been my best shot of the playoff,” Kinney said.
    It stopped 2 1/2 feet from the cup for a kick-in birdie. Korte scrambled for par and Sainz bogeyed, which gave Kinney the honor on the 190-yard par-3 17th. He played a fade, aiming right, and the ball stopped six feet short of the cup for an easy par. Kortz three-putted from 35 feet while Sainz flew into the fescue to the left of the green for a double-bogey. That meant Kinney was 1-under with a hole to play, Korte 1-over, Sainz 3-over.
    Kinney caddie, Sunset Ridge Country Club caddiemaster Greg Kunkel, had one instruction for his player on the tee as he handed him driver: “Hit the fairway.”
    Kinney obayed. He found the fairway and played a smart second shot well left of the water on the par-5 18th. One smart wedge to the middle of the green later, it was all over but the trophy presentation.
    “I was playing as far away from the water as I could,” Kinney said.
    One would hope Davan was watching and learned from that.
    Kinney, Korte and Sainz ended the regulation 54 holes at 211, which wasn’t going to be a playoff-making score until Davan, the pride of Hoopeston, played the last two holes as if he was two strokes behind on the 17th tee.
    He wasn’t. He was two strokes ahead, sitting in the catbird seat at 7-under-par. He had birdied the 14th and 15th holes and had a two-stroke lead over Kinney and Korte, who were in the clubhouse at 5-under.
    Then he came to the 17th tee and decided to hook a shot into the wind on the downhill short hole, where a pond encroaches on the left side of the green.
    Aiming directly for the pin, he hit his hook. And it hooked dutifully, landing on the back left corner of the green and one-hopping into the hazard. Davan was fortunate to scramble for a bogey 4 and stood on the 18th tee, and then in the middle of the 18th fairway on the par-5, at 6-under, still a stroke ahead.
    But he didn’t know. And unlike Sainz, who was in the final threesome with Davan and asked what the low score was, Davan did not.
    “I figured I had to make eagle,” Davan said.
    He was wrong. Par, by playing the hole the way Kinney played it in the playoff, would have earned him the title. A 6-iron to the fairway left of the pond hugging the front of the green, a wedge on, and two putts equaled Davan holding the trophy.
    Instead, he pulled a 3-wood from his bag. Back by the green, Kinney saw that and later said, if he was in the same position, his caddie would have broken the club over his knee.
    Davan was 256 yards from the flag, against the wind, with a pond to clear first. The ball never got there, slicing wildly to the right.
    “I just slid on it a little bit and lost it,” Davan said. “But I can’t hang my head. You’ve got to lose some to win some sometimes, so it’s good experience for me here.”
    Korte, hanging around in case the impossible happened, couldn’t believe what he saw.
    “The kid was 7 (-under after 16). Bogey-par wins it,” Korte said. “I saw him pull a 3-wood in the fairway.”
    His tone was that of a man trying to describe a unicorn after it passed by.
    Kinney goes back on the NGA Tour now, hoping to make some money and use that to fund his next crack at PGA Tour qualifying.
    Davan goes back to the drawing board.

    Around the Glen Club

    Korte, who scored 1-under 71 in the final round, finished as the low amateur, and plans to turn pro before next year’s Illinois Open. “I’m kind of disappointed to play (the last two playoff holes each) 1-over,” Korte said. ... Sainz and amateur Andrew Godfrey of Homewood shared the round of the day, 3-under-par 69. ... Overnight leader Vince India double-bogeyed the first hole and faded to a tie for ninth with a 77 for 2-under 214. ... Defender Max Scodro finished at 3-over 219. ... The field averaged 74.50 in the third round, exactly 2.5 strokes over par. Each of the last three holes were about a quarter-stroke over par, but the 13th through 15th each played under par, making for a busy leaderboard.
    – Tim Cronin