Three-way tie in Chicago Open

    Writing from Chicago
    Monday, October 7, 2013

    Eric Sipple is from Waverly, Iowa. A recent graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, he is one of the many players in the world of golf looking for a place to play.
    Monday, he found it, at least for a day. He scored 2-under-par 70 on Cantigny Golf’s Woodside-Lakeside combination nines to join Tim Streng of Arlington Heights and Milo French of Sugar Grove at the top of the field after the first round of the Chicago Open.
    Streng’s like Sipple, a would-be touring rabbit. Way back, he generated local headlines by winning the Mike Sipula Invitational at Pine Hills in Ottawa. He was 21 then, going into his senior year at Western Illinois. These days, he’s an assistant at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in Hawthorn Woods.
    French, a Sugar Grove resident, took nearly two years off from competitive golf before coming back to it this summer. He tied for ninth in the Illinois Open, and look where he is going into the second of three rounds at Cantigny. He’s connected with the PGA Tour – as a supervisor at the PGA Tour Superstore in Schaumburg, but isn’t seriously dreaming beyond that.
    “If it comes, it comes,” he told the Aurora Beacon-News of mere mini-tour status at the Illinois Open.
    This week, the chase is for the Ken Venturi Trophy. And this trio is ahead, but not alone.
    A quartet including Elgin’s Carlos Sainz Jr. and Godfrey’s Shane Smith is at 1-under-par 71 on the Wheaton layout. Big-hitting Travis Johns is among a sixsome at even-par 72. And Cantigny assistant Rich Dukelow is lurking at 2-over 74.
    Other notables were back in the field. Illinois coach Mike Small, winner of 15 state majors, scored 4-over 76, as did recent Illinois grad Thomas Pieters. Steve Orrick was at 77, and amateur Brenten Blakeman returned an untidy 83.
    Tuesday’s cut is to the low 50 and ties.
    – Tim Cronin