It's Luke Donald's kind of town

    Writing from Medinah, Illinois
    Wednesday, September 26, 2012

    It’s the most unusual home-course advantage in Ryder Cup history.
    Luke Donald lives about 20 miles from Medinah Country Club. A member at Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, he breezes in and plays Medinah No. 3 a couple of times a year.
    He tied for third in the 2006 PGA at Medinah. He knows enough of the course to know where not to hit it.
    This week, he’s the hometown player on the visiting team. Whether that will give him an advantage in the decibel wars expected beginning Friday remains to be seen.
    “The people of Chicago are very friendly,” Donald said. “They get raucous, they get loud, but they do it in a good spirit.”
    Donald clearly has never been to the United Center when the Detroit Red Wings are visiting the Blackhawks. Blood is more likely to flow than the milk of human kindness. Some Ryder Cups have gotten that way as well. This one? It’s too early to say, but Donald fancies that it will come down to what golf tournaments always come down to.
    “It’s about putting the ball in the right place,” Donald said. “The greens here are fast and slopey. I think that’s the key to this golf course if you want to make a lot of birdies.”
    U.S. captain Davis Love III has set the course up for birdies, with the shortest rough this side of Augusta National. Donald has slipped from No. 1 in the world rankings to third, behind teammate Rory McIlroy and potential foe Tiger Woods, chiefly because he hasn’t been able to close the deal in majors. Instead, and the most recent example was the Tour Championship, he starts slow and finishes strong. A final-round 67 brought him into a tie for third at East Lake.
    This week, however, plays into a Donald strength. He’s an excellent team player, with an 8-2-1 record in four Ryder Cups, with a 6-0 record in alternate shot, what the Europeans call foursomes play. He could pair with Ian Poulter, whom he took for a few quid in Tuesday’s practice round.
    “It’s always pleasing when you can take cash out of Poulter’s wallet,” Donald said. “A few moths fell out.”
    Donald’s Chicago connection came about via Northwestern, which in turn came about only because he couldn’t get into Stanford.
    “Wally Goodwin was the coach at Stanford, and the former coach at Northwestern, and when I was rejected by Stanford, Wally pointed me towards Northwestern,” Donald said. “I made a visit, and really liked what he saw.”
    Donald excelled as a Wildcats player, hired on coach Pat Goss as his coach as well – Goss, clad in purple, was unmistakeable walking with orange-shirted Donald in the first practice round – and married a Chicago girl.
    “I’ve been fortunate to travel around most of America, visit most of the big cities and some of the smaller ones, and I always get drawn back to Chicago,” Donald said. “The people are welcoming and friendly. I just love the culture of Chicago. It’s a sporting town, which appeals to me.
    “I think the city uses the lake in a great way. You feel like you’re almost on sea or an ocean. There are great restaurants, great museums. It just feels very comfortable and easy to live, a place I’ve come to really enjoy.”
    Donald said if his team wasn’t playing golf this week, he’d take them on a tour of Lincoln Park for a few beers, baseball at Wrigley Field, then downtown to see the sights: Michigan Avenue, Buckingham Fountain, the Bean in Millennium Park. But he also said he considers himself 100 percent British.
    “Through and through,” Donald said. “I’ve reaped the benefits of the college system. It’s helped my golf. But I have a close relationship with my country.”
    Come Sunday, the European team will be wearing blue to honor Seve Ballesteros, the dashing Spaniard who helped bring the Ryder Cup to a fever pitch. The Americans – at least fans have been asked to – are expected to wear red. That’s perfect for Donald, the old Wildcat. In regular tournaments, he’ll always wear purple at least once to honor the alma mater. Maybe the Donald fans in the house of 40,000 should do the same.
    – Tim Cronin

Let the orgy begin

    Writing from Medinah, Illinois
    Tuesday, September 25, 2012

    The gallery thronged Medinah Country Club on Tuesday, confirming the notion that even Ryder Cup practice is a big deal.
    It must be. Otherwise, 400 people, much less 40,000, wouldn’t get out of bed at an early hour to watch Peter Hanson play golf.
    But there he was on the first tee at mid-morning, and battalions of fans followed him and his cohorts, including Luke Donald – Chicago’s very own European Ryder Cupper – and Ian Poulter. He was difficult to tell from the others, since the team was decked out in orange shirts to the last man.
    Tuesday was the first of three days of practice for the Seinfeld of sports events, a three-day bacchanalia that decides absolutely nothing beyond which group of 12 guys were better this week.
    That, however, is enough to sell out all the tickets, plus 77 corporate tents, plus several others that defy mere numbering – NBC Sports Group has a palace on a hill overlooking the 13th tee – or are located in permanent structures, including the clubhouse and the pro shop, for the equivalent of 97 super suites in all.
    All for a 15-inch trophy topped by the likeness of Samuel Ryder’s personal pro, Abe Mitchell.
    And the golf world, which revolves around Medinah this week, has Jack William Nicklaus to thank for turning the Ryder Cup from a sleepy exhibition into the biggest thing this side of a certain April week in Augusta.
    Nicklaus, invariably the smartest man in the room, told Lord Darby in the late 1970s that the only way to make the Ryder Cup competitive was to add players from continental Europe to those from the British Isles who were clobbered every two years.
    Darby, then the president of the British PGA, convinced his side Nicklaus’ idea had merit, and within a few years, thanks to the emergence of Seve Ballesteros, then Bernhard Langer, the Americans had their hands full. What was a biannual walkover became a competition.
    That was hammered home to Nicklaus and the rest of the American side at what was then called PGA National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., in 1983. Two years earlier, the strongest American team in history – how would you like Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Hale Irwin, Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Ray Floyd, Larry Nelson, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Kite as your first nine to pick from, with Jerry Pate, Bill Rogers and Bruce Lietzke just hanging around? –  crushed Europe, 18.5-9.5, with a 7-1 second day the key. Stunningly, Ballesteros wasn’t picked for the European squad, since he’d played most of the year on the PGA Tour.
    Ballesteros was back in 1983, collecting a miracle half-point against Fuzzy Zoeller, even as Lanny Wadkins, with the greatest 60-yard sand wedge in history, was doing the same against Jose Maria Canizares – it has to be the best one struck with lightning flashing in the distance, with U.S. captain Nicklaus kissing the divot, and then nicknaming Wadkins “wheelbarrow,” for the, er, gumption he needed to hit that shot at that moment. Wadkins’ master stroke to secure the halve gave the U.S. a 14.5-13.5 victory, and the game was afoot.
    If there is a Ryder Cup rout these days, it is the Europeans authoring it. This week’s visitors have won six of the last eight in this turkey shoot, including at Oak Hill in 1995 and Oakland Hills in 2004. The last American win in Europe came at The Belfry in 1993. Things have been batty since.
    They could well stay that way. The eight Americans with Ryder Cup experience are 41-59-16 in their matches. The 11 returning Europeans are 60-32-18.
    The three most experienced Americans are Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk. Mickelson is 11-17-6, with a 4-4 mark in singles. Woods is 13-14-2, but 4-1-1 in singles. Furyk is 8-15-4, and 4-2-1 in singles.
    Woods, never thought of as the ultimate team player, called the European domination during his time – his only Ryder Cup team victory came in 1999 at The Country Club – his fault on Tuesday.
    “I am responsible for that,” Woods said. “I didn’t earn the points I was put out there for. I was out there for five sessions each time, and I didn’t go 5-0 on our side. I’m part of that, and that’s part of being a team. I needed to go get my points, and I didn’t do that. Hopefully I can do it this week, and the other guys can do the same, and we can get the ball rolling.”
    For Woods, that was a remarkable admission, the first big surprise of the week. Perhaps there will be others.
    – Tim Cronin

U.S. keeps Junior Ryder Cup

    Tuesday, September 25, 2012

    The big-boy Ryder Cup has generally been the province of Europe of late, but not the Junior Ryder Cup. The co-ed teenage version went to the U.S. for the third straight time on Tuesday, the Americans dominating the dozen singles matches to score a 14.5-9.5 victory over their new friends from Europe at Olympia Fields Country Club.
    The singles margin was 7.5-4.5, and it was the ladies who carried the day for the American side, winning five of their six matches. Casie Cathrea, Karen Chung, Casey Danielson, Alison Lee, and Esther Lee emerged victorious. The six U.S. boys only picked up 2.5 of a possible six points. Among those defeated: Beau Hossler, the 17-year-old Californian who led the U.S. Open for a time this June. He dropped a 3 and 1 decision to Dominic Foos of Germany. Cameron Champ halved his match with Toby Tree of England, whole Robby Shelton and Gavin Hall won their matches.
    The match from Monday halted by darkness was resumed at 8 a.m., when Europe’s Matthias Schwab and Quirine Eljkenbloom rallied from 1-down to score a half-point by squaring the match with Americans Gavin Hall and Alison Lee. That made the score U.S. 7, Europe 5 entering the singles matches.
    Wednesday at Medinah, the players will have a nine-hole “friendship match,” Americans and Europeans paired together.

    – Tim Cronin

Spirit of game evident in Junior Ryder Cup, Youth Skills Challenge

    Writing from Olympia Fields, Illinois
    Tuesday, September 24, 2012

    How nervous does a player get when the introduction on the first tee is followed by the phrase, “United States of America?”
    “I wasn’t too nervous,” Cameron Champ of Sacramento, Calif., said Monday after he and Casie Cathrea teamed for a 1-up victory in their afternoon best-ball match of the Junior Ryder Cup at Olympia Fields Country Club. “I was only nervous about letting my teammate down.”
    There was no change of that, for he played the final two holes on the South Course in cold-blooded fashion, first scrambling for a halving par by sinking a downhill 20-footer on the 17th, then escaped from the edge of disaster 15 yards to the left of the 18th fairway, hitting the green with a 244-yard 4-iron and a 45-foot two-putt for par.
    Don’t all 17-year-olds hit their 4-iron 244 yards from the rough? Uphill? And with a 10-yard draw to boot?
    No wonder Champ wasn’t nervous. He’s 17 going on 30. Either that or he doesn’t know what he’s playing in yet.
    It’s likely the former. The Junior Ryder Cup, in which the American side holds a 6 1/2-4 1/2 advantage, with one match left to complete, entering Tuesday’s dozen singles matches, isn’t Champ’s first golf rodeo. That helped, both in the morning, when he teamed with fellow Californian Beau Hossler – you might remember him leading this year’s U.S. Open – to grab a half-point in their morning match.
    “I ended up calming down and hit two good tee shots in the morning and afternoon,” Champ said.
    Champ and Cathrea, from Livermore, Calif., both members of the First Tee of Sacramento, found themselves in the best afternoon match. They birdied five of the first seven holes and were only 1-up on Toby Tree of Southwater, England and Bronte Law of Woodford, England. And the Brits pushed it to the last, where Champ’s remarkable second – Cathrea was also on the green in two, leaving her first putt short – helped secure the point.
    “This means a lot,” Cathrea said of the victory.
    Champ’s 20-footer on the 17th kept the American duo 1-up, ensuring at least a halve if they lost the 18th. The split there gave the hosts a full point, and allowed both of them to take a deep breath.
    Hossler, the most accomplished player in the field, scored only a half-point. In the afternoon mixed best-ball match, Hossler and Samantha Wagner lost 2 and 1 to Gavin Moynihan of Dublin, Ireland, and big-hitting Emily Pedersen of Copenhagen, Denmark, largely because Moynihan made everything he looked at in the first few holes. The Europeans were 3-up after five holes, never lost the lead, and rarely lost control of the tee.
    Play was delayed 90 minutes by morning frost. The lone match that didn’t finish before darkness has Americans Gavin Hall and Alison Lee 1-up on Matthias Schwab and Quirine Eljkenboom after 16 holes.
    Unlike the Ryder Cup proper, where emotion often boils over, the Junior Ryder Cup is more low-key. There’s live scoring, but a corporate tent is not to be seen, and the spirit of the game is evident. Spectators, largely parents and Olympia Fields members, applaud a good shot no who hits it. The best shot of the day, Hossler’s long approach to the ninth hole in the afternoon, stopped 18 inches from the cup, and brought forth the largest hand of the day.
    The Junior Ryder Cup is the second youth-oriented affair surrounding the big show. The first was Saturday’s Youth Skills Challenge at Medinah, the climax of a summer-long competition conducted by the Illinois PGA.
    Several thousand children from 6 to 17 started at courses through the state, with 496 juniors advancing to the quartet of regional finals. Eight players advanced to the finals at Medinah, where the 32, covering four age groups, drove, chipped and putted on No. 3, the first play of any kind on the pampered layout in three weeks.
    Illinois PGA executive director Michael Miller called the Challenge a great success.
    “The program demonstrates the important role that PGA professionals play in growing the game of golf among young people, and also highlights the incredible enthusiasm we’ve seen regarding the Ryder Cup being played in Illinois for the first time.”
    The eight winners, each of whom received cool Ryder Cup-style trophies:
    Boys 6-8: Joshua Pehl, Sugar Grove
    Boys 9-11: Jack Mahoney, Algonquin
    Boys 12-14: Ricky Costello, Homer Glen
    Boys 15-17: Michael Rosinia, Countryside
    Girls 6-8: Zell Wilson, Chicago
    Girls 9-11: Lauren Boudreau, Lemont
    Girls 12-14: Megan Furtney, South Elgin
    Girls 15-17: Ciara Rattana, Western Springs
    – Tim Cronin

Mr. Smith goes to Augusta (again)

    Thursday, September 13, 2012
    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois

    Nathan Smith thought he was playing golf on Thursday at Conway Farms Golf Club.
    Turns out he was getting into the ring with amateur golf’s equivalent of Joe Frazier.
    Garrett Rank, who has already survived testicular cancer and on Friday night will be on the ice in Kitchner for his first Ontario Hockey League refereeing assignment of the season, just kept coming in the championship match of the 32nd U.S. Mid-Amateur.
    It didn’t matter to Rank that he was 1-down to Smith after the morning round. Or that he was 3-down after six holes in the afternoon, with Smith on his game. Rank kept coming, driving the green on the 300-yard sixth hole. He made birdie and forced Smith to sink a 25-footer to match. Rank birdied the eighth hole as well, dropping a 15-foot putt, and forced Smith to make a 12-footer to match.
    Finally, Rank made a dent at the ninth with his third straight birdie, but Smith won the 10th – the 28th of the match – to go 3-up again.
    And still, Smith wasn’t comfortable.
    “He just kept coming,” Smith said. “It was like guarding (Michael) Jordan. You hold him to four in the first quarter, but he goes off on you for 28 in the second.”
    This went on all day, until one miscue by Rank, an ever-so-slightly overcooked chip shot on the par-3 17th, gave Smith the lead for good. Smith would capture a 1-up victory, his record fourth U.S. Mid-Amateur title, in a scrap that went the distance under windblown dishwater gray skies, and nearly went beyond it.
    “He was awesome,” Smith said. “He was just so good.”
    Smith wasn’t bad himself, especially in the afternoon, when his only miscue was in making three straight 5s beginning at the 13th, allowing Rank to come from 3 down and square the match.
    Smith proved just a bit better, and proved it on the 17th, playing safely to the left of a sucker pin on the par-3 after Rank ended up in the left fringe with a dicey downhill chip. He clipped it well, but it skidded past the cup, then down the slope and ended up 40 feet away.
    “It was almost like a moral victory just getting to the 36th hole with him,” Smith said. “I was lucky to come out on top.”
    Luck had far less to do with it than sheer skill. Smith’s smart play on the 17th, the capstone on a week of excellent golf against difficult foes, earned him the margin he needed to get his hands on the Robert T. Jones Jr. Memorial Trophy for a fourth time. He also won the title in 2003, 2009 and 2010, and now has captured the crown in half the Mid-Ams he’s played in.
    “It’s pretty surreal,” Smith said. “Any time you can say you’ve done something that nobody else has, no matter what it is, sports or life, it’s pretty surreal. I played some great opponents this week in my bracket.”
    Smith, a 34-year-old financial representative, was in the Mid-Am’s equivalent of the East Regional. He had to knock off pal and fellow Pittsburgh native Sean Knapp, a Mid-Am stalwart, in the third round, and faced two-time Mid-Am winner Tim Jackson in the semifinals, escaping with a 3 & 1 victory. Then came Rank, just turned 25 and thus just eligible for the Mid-Am. He’ll be one to reckon with for a while.
    “I was just fortunate to get through,” Smith said. “This one was the toughest (of the four victories) to win by far. The competition gets better, and the breaks don’t go your way and you have to make them. I guess that’s why nobody has won four.”
    Until now. Until Smith, who becomes the 16th player to win at least four of the same USGA title.
    “He is a great player, and I have nothing but respect for him,” Rank said. “I’d like to say I played the best I could. A week or even two days down the road, I’ll kick myself for a shot or two, but finishing second isn’t half-bad either.”
    It earned Rank a three-year exemption into the Mid-Am (Smith gets a 10-year pass from qualifying), and a few other baubles, but the one prize besides the title and the trophy that only the winner gets is an invitation to next year’s Masters Tournament. The past three visits to Augusta National, Smith has failed to make the cut, though the first was memorable beyond all expectation, in that he was paired with fellow Pennsylvanian Arnold Palmer, who invented golf in 1956 or so and was playing in his last Masters. But a fourth visit was on his mind overnight.
    “It’s one of those where you go to bed so early, get a couple hours of sleep, then you wake up and look at the clock and start thinking what might be,” Smith admitted. “I’ll think about it a lot.”
    Now he can dream of it as well.

    Around Conway Farms

    Smith’s match-play record in the U.S. Mid-Amateur is an astounding 32-4, an .889 batting average, and 22-1 in his last 23 matches. That’s even more amazing than his four titles in eight appearances. But Jerry Courville Jr. has the record for match wins with 36. ... Smith had been tied with another Pennsylvanian, Jay Sigel (1983, 1985, 1987) with three Mid-Am wins. ... Attendance was about 150 for the final match, most of the gallery Conway Farms members. ... Next up for Conway Farms is the BMW Championship, a.k.a. Western Open, at this time next year. The rough will be lower, the fairways may be wider, and large areas of fescue, and more than a few trees, will be removed to make way for the skybox suites and other accouterments that go with big-time professional golf.
    – Tim Cronin