The Western Open returns home

Writing from Lemont, Ill.

Monday, September 7, 2009

The 106th Western Open – the third of at least six to be played under the title of the BMW Championship – today begins four days of preliminaries at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club leading up to the championship proper.

The opening gambit in this renewal of a championship that was born as a one-day, 36-hole affair in 1899 – and extended a day for Willie Smith to beat Laurie Auchterlonie in an 18-hole playoff at the Glen View Golf & Polo Club –  is a four-hole exhibition of Blackhawks wielding golf clubs rather than hockey sticks.

Given the proclivity of hockey players on golf courses, this is not extraordinary. Once upon a time, Hockey Hall of Famer Stan Mikita was a golf pro, and Original Six veteran Bill Ezinicki, to go farther back, played in the Western Open in 1958. He finished 53rd at Red Run Country Club, near Detroit, and collected $111.11. One only hopes that, should Patrick Kane be a surprise starter in the lineup, this time it won’t be a police lineup, and that, if he doesn’t tip his cabbie, he at least tips his caddie.

Whoever finishes 53rd in this year’s field of 70 will collect many times more from the purse, which will total $7.5 million if all eligible players start. This Western-cum-BMW may be the third of the four playoff tournaments proffered by the PGA Tour, but there were people missing in action the past two years.

In 2007, Padraig Harrington was the most notable of a quartet of absentees from Cog Hill. Last year, when the Western was played at Bellerive Country Club – BMW wishing to push car sales in greater St. Louis, and the timing allowing Cog Hill boss Frank Jemsek to proceed with the retooling of the always-demanding Dubsdread layout – the only man missing was the one man many casual golf fans tune in to see: Tiger Woods. He was himself retooling, recovering from the surgery to repair the broken leg he won the U.S. Open on.

The championship went on regardless, and the golf-starved fans of St. Louis turned out in the posh suburb of Town & Country to see course and championship records shattered. During one scintillating stretch on Saturday afternoon, Jim Furyk finished off a 62 on the par-70 course to break the Western’s 61-year-old scoring record, a round including a 7-under 28 on his inward nine. Minutes later, D.J. Trahan followed Furyk in with a 63. Soon after, K.J. Choi posted a 64. And Boo Weekley, not heard from much this year, was aiming at a similar low number before he cooled off.

Furyk did not, and many sane people understandably think he should have been the defending champion. His inward 28 to finish the second round, in playing catch-up to make up for a flooded out first day, was quickly followed by an outward 32 on the same nine holes of Bellerive to start the third round.

That’s 60 strokes for 18 holes, which isn’t golf unless it’s played at Haunted Trails.

But Furyk failed in a bid to collect a second Western Open title. Instead, Camilo Villegas made a bevy of birdies on Bellerive, led Furyk by a stroke entering the final round, and finished at 15-under-par 265 to score a two-stroke victory over Dudley Hart. Furyk and Anthony Kim finished tied for third, at 268.

All of this is mentioned to not only refresh recollections, but to note that it won’t happen this year. Not with the refurbished, toughened, devilish Dubsdread, as remade by Rees Jones in the style of Dick Wilson and Joe Lee, to contend with. Yes, Jones also remade Bellerive – he’s the man to call when a remodeling with an eye toward the United States Open is necessary – but Dubsdread’s green complexes are more demanding, both from the standpoint of approach shots and recovering from around the green. That should make safe the record of 22-under-par 262, established by Woods in the finale of the old Dubsdread.

Villegas went on to capture the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in his next start, but Vijay Singh, who had won in New York and Boston, needed only to keep breathing in Atlanta, having played well enough at Bellerive to effectively sew up the vaunted playoff title, and the FedEx Cup.

That premature delivery sent the great minds of the PGA Tour’s Algebra Department back to their slide rules to tweak, for a second time, the formula that so many neither understand nor care to contemplate.

This time, they believe they have it. The playoff points were not reset entering the playoffs, the first tournament – played on the Liberty National Minature Golf Course in Jersey City, N.Y. – offered only 125 slots rather than 144, and now, the top five in the standings can win the Cup if they win at East Lake, no matter what anyone else does.

Those who venture to Cog Hill this week – and advance ticket sales are up from 2007, though corporate hospitality sales are down, thanks to the so-so economy – will be in for a show, with Dubsdread sharing equal billing with the players. Here are the highlights of the schedule:

Today: Blackhawks Shootout, 9 a.m. Junior clinic featuring trick-shot specialist Dan Boever, noon at the practice center near the main entrance.

Tuesday: Practice rounds, beginning 7 a.m. Expect many pros to play only nine holes if they play at all, given today’s finish of the tournament near Boston. At 10 a.m., in a photo-op only a PR genius could love, Luke Donald will wave a checkered, rather than green, flag to send the 70-man grounds crew onto the course.

Wednesday: The 47th Chick Evans Memorial Pro-Am, 7 a.m. and noon starts from the first and 10th tees. Tiger Woods, who prefers to play without a crowd, will start at 7 a.m.

Thursday: First round, 10 a.m., threesomes off the first and 10th tees.

Friday: Second round, 11 a.m., threesomes off the first and 10th tees.

Saturday: Third round, 8 a.m., approximately, twosomes off the first tee.

Sunday: Final round, 8 a.m., approximately, twosomes off the first tee, followed by a sudden-death playoff, if necessary, and the presentation of the J.K. Wadley Trophy to the champion.

– Tim Cronin