Armstrong braces for Blackwolf's bite

    Writing from Chicago
    Monday, July 2, 2012

    Ashley Armstrong knows what she’s in for.
    “Blackwolf Run is insanely hard but awesome,” Armstrong said Monday from Kohler, Wis., where she’s preparing for the 67th United States Women’s Open at the posh course attached to the even more posh American Club.
    “Like my caddie says, this course has the highest winning score for all the U.S. Women’s Opens.”
    To get technical, the 6-over-par 290 scored by Se Ri Pak and Jenny Chuasiriporn in 1998 to force a playoff – Pak won it on the 20th hole of a playoff the following day, scoring 2-over 73 for the regulation 18 – matched the highest winning score in a Women’s Open since 1977. In other words, since about 16 years before Armstrong was born.
    Armstrong, whose talent on the course manifested itself when she was in grade school, has blossomed in the last 12 months. Winning in her final appearance on the AJGA circuit, and then capturing the Women’s Western Junior at Flossmoor Country Club, her home course, was the ideal grand finale to her junior career. Since then, she’s picked up the individual Big East Conference title, plus a first-team conference berth, plus rookie – freshman, that is – of the year in her first go-round for Notre Dame.
    Thursday at 2:31 p.m., she’ll stand on the opening tee of the biggest women’s golf tournament in the world, the most major of the women’s major championship, hear her name announced, and, ideally, take a deep breath.
    “That’s when it’s finally going to kick in,” Armstrong said. “There will be some spectators today, but there will be a lot of them on Thursday. Garrett (Chaussard, a Cog Hill teaching pro who will caddie for her) says the biggest adjustment this week will be from Wednesday to Thursday. He said, ‘Everybody will be looking at you.’ ”
    Armstrong has dealt with eyes on her in competition before, notably at three straight Class AA tournaments, when she and next-door neighbor Michelle Mayer, now at Illinois, were leading Homewood-Flossmoor to a team title and a pair of runner-up berths. And she felt their gaze in the Women’s Western Junior last year, when, 2 down with three holes to play, she forged a tie at the last and scored the victory on the second extra hole with a passel of Flossmoor members rooting her on.
    Pressure? Armstrong’s been there, done that. Even waiting to find out if she moved up from alternate status to a berth in the field – she found out Sunday on the putting green when a USGA official gave her the word – was dealt with matter-of-factly.
    “I didn’t want to get too excited about it, because I didn’t want to be too dejected if I didn’t make it,” Armstrong said.
    What she hasn’t dealt with is a course this long. The United States Golf Association can set Blackwolf Run up as long as 6,954 yards. Four par-4s are over 400 yards. The seventh hole is a 590-yard par 5, while the 16th is 602 yards, a mammoth distance for the women. Armstrong, a mighty mite but not the world’s longest hitter, played from every back tee in Monday’s practice round to see what the grind would be like.
    “There are some par 4s I’ll play as par 5s and try to make ‘birdie,’ ” Armstrong said. “My strategy is to not make big mistakes. There are gonna be bogeys out there. It’s pretty crazy long. I’ll take it one shot at a time and see what happens.”
    The unstated goal is to make the cut, to advance to the final 36 holes. Only the low 60 players and ties from the field of 156 advance to the weekend. In 1998, the cut was 8-over-par 150, but Blackwolf Run’s Championship Course – the original 18 crafted by Pete Dye – played close to 500 yards shorter. This time? Who knows?
    Armstrong believes her first year of college play has steeled her for what’s to come.
    “The biggest thing college golf has done for me is help my confidence,” Armstrong said. “I realized I was not exactly the biggest hitter on the range. So I’ll be hitting hybrids and woods into the greens. And there are some mean pins out there.”
    The best part of her game is her approach game, and putting. Growing up at Flossmoor may give her an advantage, for superintendent Tom Lively can really speed Flossmoor's greens up.
    “Flossmoor is very, very fast,” Armstrong said.
    Parents Dean and Carolyn are busting their buttons with pride, of course.
    “By now, they’re more excited than I am,” Armstrong said.
    But this cool customer is also just a bit wide-eyed about the whole thing.
    “Today we picked up my Lexus, the courtesy car for the week,” Armstrong said. “Today I signed autographs for little kids. It’s all so cool.”
    Things heat up at the previously-noted time of 2:31 p.m. Thursday, the penultimate tee time of the day. Armstrong, the only Illinoisian in the field, will be playing with Cydney Clanton of Concord, N.C. and fellow amateur Shannon Aubert of Champions Gate, Fla.
    – Tim Cronin

Remembering Don Johnson

It came as a shock to all when the news broke that former Western Golf Association executive director/president Don Johnson had died on May 24. He was 77 but seemed so young, and was always young at heart.

Johnson, who took control of the financially shaky WGA in 1988 and built a $45 million endowment by the time of his 2009 retirement, died in his Lake Bluff home.

In his 21 years, he turned the WGA from a group that lived from hand to mouth and often needed to borrow money to meet the scholarship obilgations for the Evans Scholars program to one that, as he said, "could survive a complete rainout" of a Western Open (now titled the BMW Championship) and not need to reduce the number of scholars.

That, as much or more than the memories of the golf championships the WGA conducted in his tenure – and it's hard to get the vision of Tiger Woods coming down the 18th fairway of Cog Hill's Dubsdread course, followed by hundreds of his fans, out of one's mind – will be Don Johnson's legacy.

“Don’s leadership skills were vital to our organization’s success for more than two decades,” successor John Kaczkowski said. “His leadership resulted in the presentation of world-class championships that were admired and respected throughout the golf world."

A caddie in his youth and a lawyer by trade, Johnson active first in the Wisconsin State Golf Association, and was a WGA director for five years before replacing the retiring Marshall Dann.

He exuded cool when cool wasn't necessarily part of the equation for an executive in the often stuffy world of golf. Maybe it was the full head of white hair. Maybe it was the plus-fours he habitually wore at tournament sites. It was probably both, but Johnson was also a fine leader. He said more than once, "I've got the finest staff in golf," but he built it, hiring almost everyone in the office in Golf – only educational director Jim Moore preceded him among the key personnel – in his tenure.

He is survived by his wife, Jane; a son, Benjamin, at home; two daughters, Mindy Carter, Madison, Wis., and Tally Nathan, Paradise Valley, Ariz.; four grandchildren, Nikki Nametz, Brittany Klutsky, Max Nathan and Brenner Nathan; and one sister, Lisa Hillyer, Colorado Springs, Colo. He was preceded in death by his parents and one sister, Pamela Helfrich.

Memorials in the name of Don Johnson may be made to the Evans Scholars Foundation, 1 Briar Rd., Golf, IL 60029, or online at www.wgaesf.org.

– Tim Cronin

Irwin lurks, but Chapman won't go away

Reporting from Benton Harbor, Mich.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Never mind the Joel Edwards and the Roger Chapmans of the senior golf world. They're fine fellows, and Chapman has been playing like his life depends on it, but the guy who should win the 73rd Senior PGA Championship is the guy who shot his age in Friday's third round at Harbor Shores.

Guy named Hale Irwin. You've probably heard of him.

The guy who did a victory lap on the 18th green at Medinah after sinking a 45-footer to tie Mike Donald and force a playoff in the U.S. Open – and then beat Donald on the 19th hole the next day to claim his third Open title.

The guy who won the toughest Open in modern times, the one Dick Schapp named the "massacre at Winged Foot."

The guy whose other Open title came at Inverness in 1979, where the USGA planted a tree during the tournament to close off an escape route.

That guy.

A winner at Butler National, Pebble Beach, Riviera, Harbour Town, and other difficult picture postcard tests. The one going for a fifth Senior PGA title here.

Harbor Shores, despite being less than 7,000 yards, fits the profile of the above courses. The greens, heaving and swaying like wind-whipped waves on nearby Lake Michigan, make the golf course a real chore. As Fred Couples said Saturday, "Augusta (National) green roll at like 15. If these rolled at 15, we would still be on Thursday's round."

Irwin's 5-under-par 66 on Friday was a masterpiece of precision, with all the numbers that might be expected of a champion. His game, even at age 66, is capable of resembling that of the Hale Irwin who was once 36. Eleven fairways hit out of 13. Sixteen greens in regulation. Twenty-nine putts. Nary a bunker wandered into. And up-and-down pars on the two greens he missed.

Standard stuff for Irwin, of course. The only amazing thing about Friday's dramatics is that Irwin had to admit he's 66. He still has the mentality of the all-Big Eight defensive back that he was at Colorado in the 1960s.

"I think genetically I'm put together pretty well," Irwin said. "It's just my competitive nature. You might, you might not beat me, but you're not going to out-try me, out-heart me, whatever that means."

What it means is that while much of the field has been howling about Jack Nicklaus' wild-and-crazy greens, Irwin has gone about his business in this senior major. Not that Irwin was perfect in the second round. His last hole was the par-5 ninth. He bogeyed it by three-putting.

"A real killer," Irwin said. Speaking of which, the fourth hole Saturday was more than that. A par 3 with a stream to the left, it looks relatively harmless. Irwin splashed his tee shot and finished by three-putting. The triple-bogey 6 dropped him seven strokes off the lead an hour before NBC ventured onto the air.

Irwin fought back, birdies on the seventh and eighth holes, which hug Lake Michigan, allowing him to turn in 1-over 37, and then played the back nine in 3-under 32, to stand at 7-under 206 entering Sunday's final round. That's good for a tie for third with Steve Pate, seven strokes in arrears of Chapman, the Kenyan-born British subject who has won once in his professional career – that in Brazil – but refuses to go away. (John Cook is second, at 9-under 204, ater Saturday's 2-under 69.)

Chapman's course-record tying 64 on Saturday – for a total of 14-under 199 – included a back nine of 5-under 30.

"The best iron play I've ever played in my career," Chapman said. His five birdies on the back added up to only 29 feet of putts. Chapman's 2000 win in Brazil – in the Rio de Janeiro 500 Years Open – came on the second playoff hole over Padraig Harrington when Harrington plunked a shot into the water. Chapman had done so on the first hole but survived when Harrington three-putted.

"I sort of backed in, but it was still a good feeling," Chapman said.

Maybe he should be minded. At the very least, he has one hand on the Alfred Bourne Trophy. Irwin, the old defensive back, will have to throw a hard block to knock it out of his hands on Sunday.

–Tim Cronin 

Chapman leads Senior PGA at Harbor Shores; Sluman two back

Reporting from Benton Harbor, Mich.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

On a windy day at a course with undulating greens – some people say Jack Nicklaus littered Harbor Shores with elephant burial grounds – it helps to hit fairways and putting surfaces. The fewer the surprises, the better.

Roger Chapman did that in Thursday's first round of the 73rd Senior PGA Championship.  There are 13 fairways. Chapman hit them all in regulation. He also hit 16 greens. Those are excellent numbers, but the best of all was his score: 3-under-par 68, earning him a one-stroke lead on John Cook entering Friday's second round. Hinsdale's Jeff Sluman is among six players two strokes in arrears.

If you haven't heard of Chapman, you've got company. The 53-year-old British subject, a native of Kenya, was a lifer on the European Tour, winning in Brazil – the golfing heart of Europe – in 2000. That may qualify him as obscure, but he saw something in the course at Harbor Shores, the innovative development designed to kick-start the renewal of this aging shoreside community, that several American regulars on the 50-plus circuit did not. He saw a hint of the Old Course in the greens that Nicklaus whipped up.

"St. Andrews, they've got really big greens, and they have some humps and hollows in there," Chapman said. "You don't want them too quick, but otherwise it's sort of unplayable."

The greens at Harbor Shores were quick and the wind, which gusted to 31 mph in 87 degree temperatures, made them quicker. By mid-afternoon, they were beginning to bake out. With the exception of David Frost and Jim Carter, the six other under-par scores were posted by players in the morning wave.

"It's really difficult because of the wind, and the greens are quite firm, so it's very difficult to actually get the ball very close," Chapman said. "You might hit a good shot in and go 25, 30 feet past. Then with the slopes on the greens it makes the putting quite tricky as well."

Nicklaus admitted at the 2010 grand opening that the shortness of the course – it played 6,643 yards long on Thursday – forced him to create big slopes and contours in greens to protect par and create a challenge for players. That prompted players lining up behind Champan on Thursday to criticize Nicklaus' work in advance of the first round. They showed as much love for the Golden Bear's creation as some regular tourists showed for Rees Jones' renovation of Cog Hill's Dubsdread layout the last couple of years.

"I thought maybe we could reverse the order and play the greens as tees and the tees as greens and it would be easier to putt," Fred Funk cooed on Wednesday. "The greens, I think, as a little bit too busy, but they are what they are."

Some say the greens are similar to Augusta National's, in that a properly-struck shot to the left side of a green may feed to the right, or vice versa. That makes for exciting, strategic golf, but Funk wasn't so sure.

"We're not here long enough to know exactly where to hit it on a lot of these greens," Funk said. "I don't think anyone can be precise enough to hit it in the certain spots on these greens. You're just going to get a weird kick here and there and then it's very difficult around the greens."

Funk then had a good night's sleep and went out and three-putted three times en route to a 3-over 74.

Bernhard Langer, paired with Funk on Thursday and Friday, was of a similar mind.

"You could hit a perfect shot landing on a downhill lie on one of these humps and go over the green," Langer said. "And you could land on the uphill and back it up. And when the wind's blowing, it makes it that much harder to get your irons close to the win and hit those small pockets of greens you want to hit. (Then you're) short-siding yourself or chipping and pitching from places where you normally wouldn't want to be.

"I think it's a phenomenal golf course from tee to green. One of the world's best, I would say, but could be the most severe or worst green complexes I've ever seen in my life."

Ouch! Langer scored 2-over 73.

"The greens are what they are," John Cook said after his 2-under 69. "Tee to green it's phenomenal. (But) even the short holes, where you think you might get something back, if you don't hit your spot exactly where you're supposed to hit it, you're going to have a two or three-section putt.

"And that's the way it is."

The adventures on the greens should provide for a changing leader board for the final three rounds. There's no reason to expect Chapman, whose lone European Tour victory came in his 472nd start – a dozen years ago – to run away and hide, not with a crowd of barracudas chasing him including notables Hale Irwin, who escaped with an even-par 71, and Jeff Sluman, whose 1-under 70 featured a birdie on the vexing par-5 10th.

"I got the ball up and down when I needed to," Sluman said. "I hit a few squirrely shots and happened to survive."

Hey, someone had to.

Around Harbor Shores

The gallery was estimated by Illinois Golfer at 8,000, a decent crowd considering the small community, and bigger than most, if not all, the galleries when the Western Amateur was played at Point O'Woods Country Club in nearby Millburg. ... Speaking of the Western Am, Andrew Magee, who stayed with the family of Point member Bob Gerbel when he played in the 1982 Western Am, is staying with the family of Gerbel's daughter Nancy this week. They live in the new development near Harbor Shores' first tee. ... Aside from Sluman and Jay Haas, who matched Sluman's 1-under 70 (and was a stroke off the lead until bogeying the last), the Illinois contingent did not fare well. Tom Wargo was 3-over thanks to a 74, D.A. Weibring posted 5-over 75, Chip Beck and Mike Harrigan skied to 10-over 81, Gary Hallberg to 11-over 82, and Billy Rosinia 12-over 83, an ordeal that took about six hours to play. That pace is associated with another major championship: the U.S. Women's Open. ... Mike McCullough's 12 on the par-3 fourth hole included four penalty strokes after hitting into unplayable high rough. He parred the next two holes, then withdrew with three holes left in his round. It was the high single hole of the day, though J.C. Snead gave him a run with a 10 on the par 4 seventh.

Kearfott captures Will County Amateur; beats Natale in sudden-death playoff

    Reporting from Crete
    Sunday, April 22, 2012

    Tom Kearfott might not have been affected as much by Sunday’s consistently strong north wind at Balmoral Woods at the next guy.
    Says he, “The good thing about being 310 pounds is the wind doesn’t move you quite as much as it does these flatbellies. I’ve got a little advantage on them.”
    Kearfott, from downstate El Paso, was steady all the way around Balmoral on an equally windy Saturday, posting a 1-under-par 71, and his 5-over 77 on Sunday aggregated to 4-over 148, advancing him to a sudden-death playoff with defending champion Michael Natale of Chicago. Kearfott parred the par-5 first hole and Natale, wayward with his first two shots, bogeyed it – disbelieving that his par-saving putt didn’t break the way it had at the start of the round – allowing Kearfott, in his first attempt, to take the title and don the Brown Jacket.
    “I played steady today, just kept going,” Kearfott said. “I didn’t make any real bad mistakes.”
    Fellow downstaters Todd Mitchell (a multiple Illinois Amateur champion), Jeff Niepagen and Mike Cushing, all of whom work in the same Bloomington insurance office as Kearfott, convinced him to make the trip to Balmoral for the traditional kickoff to the amateur season in Illinois.
    “They’ve been after me for five years,” Kearfott said. “My kids are old enough now that I don’t have to stay home, so I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll play.’ “
    Their persuasion earned Kearfott office bragging rights. Mitchell tied for 14th, while Niepagen and Cushing settled for 21st.
    Ralph Houck, a superb low-ball hitter, tied Chris Thayer of Chicago for third, at 5-over 149. Houck was 1-over on his last six holes on Sunday, when the wind was at its most fierce, and his even-par 72 was the best round of the day.
    Look for a full report in the May issue of Illinois Golfer.
    – Tim Cronin