Colorado's Mason rallies to win Women's Western Junior in sudden-death

Writing from Frankfort, Illinois

Friday, June 24, 2022

Jessica Mason didn’t think she made the putt. The putt that won the title in the 95th Women’s Western Junior in 19 holes and thus the right to hold the L.B. Icely Trophy, emblematic of victory in the world’s oldest women’s junior championship.

Small wonder the Coloradan’s knees buckled briefly. Her 25-footer on the first green at Prestwick Country Club was a swinging right to left excursion. Lisa Copeland of Naperville had already rolled her 33-footer close enough for a conceded par.

This one, with about five feet of borrow, had to be close as well to force a second extra hole.

How about in? How about over?

The gallery of about two dozen members cheered it even before Mason could begin walking to the cup. In it was, her third birdie of the championship match capturing for her a crown that counts Nancy Lopez – three times, including at Prestwick 50 years ago – Grace Park and Christie Kerr among the owners.

“My caddie Michael (from Prestwick) told me there was a little spot on the green that was a little darker, and I should hit it there,” Mason said. “I did and it broke right in. As it was heading there I was like, ‘Oh my god, this has a chance.’ If I hit it hard enough, it’s in.

“This is insane. I really didn’t think I was going to make that putt.”

Speaking of insane, her longest made putt of the week was the one that won the championship on a steamy, windless afternoon. And Michael, now the toast of the caddie barn, was only her caddie because her older brother Jacob begged off on making the trip to Chicago. Big brother may be fired by now.

“I did not know I was going to get this far,” Mason said, calling herself speechless. “Last summer was the last time I won something big, the Colorado Junior PGA.”

Copeland, who was in this spring’s Drive, Chip and Putt championship at Augusta National and was low amateur in the U.S. Women’s Open qualifier at Stonebridge Country Club, still managed to smile after the match.

“I never really expected to make it to the final,” said Copeland, who starts high school in the fall but already dreams of Stanford. “I wanted to give myself a chance to win, but I wasn’t too worried about the result. My lag putting wasn’t going so well, but I kept focusing on the next shot."

Mason, an 18-year-old from Westminster, Colo., headed for Pomona College in California in the fall, will be majoring in molecular biology. Based on how well that last putt and others tracked, she could minor in topography as well. A bigger hitter than Copeland, who turned 14 earlier in the month, she took advantage of more lofted irons in to have shorter putts most of the round.

That, though, only gave her a slight edge on Copeland, whose determination and accuracy off the tee – she hit all 15 fairways across 19 holes compared to Mason’s nine – allowed her to keep the ball in play. Copeland was 1-up through seven holes, but Mason won three of the next four holes to go 2-up through 11. When Mason strung together four straight 5s, Copeland made four straight pars, including a two-putt par from 35 feet on the par-4 16th, and was again 1 up.

They traded pars on the 154-yard par-3 17th, Copeland just missing a putt to win the title, and it was off to the 18th tee. Copeland hit the left side of the fairway but was blocked by trees on the 58-year-old Larry Packard design, while Mason was in the middle of the fairway on the 398-yard uphill hole.

“Eighteen’s a long hole for me anyway,” Copeland said. “I can’t really reach it in two unless I hit two good shots, so I wasn’t too worried with the drive. I just had to punch out and get an up-and-down.”

Copeland laid up, then wedged to 14 feet. Mason bounced her approach into the light rough behind the green, chipping to a foot to make par. Copeland had a 14-footer for a par save to win but again just missed, and it was off to the first tee and unscheduled golf.

“I won three matches (on the 18th),” Mason said. “I knew this could be my hole. Obviously it was.”

Then came the best of the birdies, and it was over with a fist pump from Mason and a consolation hug for Copeland. 

In the morning semifinals, Mason beat medalist Addison Klonowski of Naples, Fla., 1 up, while Copeland knocked off Audrey Rischer of Columbia., Mo., 2 and 1. Mason also won her Sweet Sixteen match on the 18th green.

She is a worthy winner in a list that goes back over a century, a list where the kid from Roswell, N.M., with the hitch in her swing who triumphed at Prestwick stands out.

“I knew who Nancy Lopez was, obviously a great player on the tour and stuff,” Mason said. “It’s kind of cool that I can share this with her, have my name on the same trophy with her.”

Western Junior: Thursday’s double-round finale in the 104th Western Junior at Naperville Country Club wasn’t enough for Eduardo Derbez Torres and Camden Smith. They went to sudden-death after tying at 8-under 280, and Smith, who waited some 90 minutes for Torres to finish, fell to the the 16-year-old from Monterrey, Mexico.

Smith was four behind Derbez Torres at one point, but Derbez Torres squandered shots down the stretch and had to make an 8-foot par putt to force sudden death. He did, then made birdie from the front green side bunker on the first extra hole, the par-4 18th, to capture the title.

“I just tried to breathe two or three times and tried to relax,” Derbez Torres said of his ordeal on the final few holes. “Really nervous.”

Derbez Torres, 16, opened with a course-record-tying 6-under-par 66 in Tuesday’s first round and finished with a 74, while Smith, from Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. and headed for Mississippi State, closed with a 66 of his own, then hung around to see with Derbez Torres would do.

He did just enough to get into the playoff, and more than enough to win.

– Tim Cronin

The Grill Room: LIV and let live?

Writing from Chicago

Thursday, June 9, 2022

This morning at 8:15 Central time, the bell rings on a new concept in world professional golf: Competition for the players who compete.

It has never been the case before. The American PGA Tour and the European circuit, these days called the DP World Tour after a sponsor, has always cooperated in allowing their charges to play on the opposite side of the pond. Releases were granted after a player made a certain number of starts on his home tour.

At 2:15 p.m. London time, all that changes. Dustin Johnson, Scott Vincent and Phil Mickelson, a pair of most familiar names sandwiching a 30-year-old from the co-sponsoring Asian Tour, will go off the first tee in the LIV Tour Invitational London tournament, the first in the long-held dream of Greg Norman to create a world tour.

Three decades ago, he came up with the idea, got fellow Australian native Rupert Murdoch to back him with Fox television money, but never saw his ship leave port. It was scuttled by the threats of then-PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem of lifetime bans for those who dared essay a shot in the new venture.

Nobody left the Tour island.

This time, threatened with lifetime bans by current commissioner Jay Monahan, but lured by guaranteed millions from the Saudi Arabian exchequer, Johnson, Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Kevin Na and a host of European Tour regulars, including Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter, have made the move. Of the American tourists, all but Mickelson have resigned their PGA Tour membership, itself a move with more legal than symbolic meaning.

They’ll be allowed to play in the upcoming U.S. Open if already eligible, but what if the LIV Tour doesn’t get accepted into the cozy family of tours awarded world ranking points? A family controlled by the tours players are leaving, by the way. It would be interesting to see Johnson or Mickelson trying to qualify.

For the moment, more players are to come. Monday, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed, a pair who have become known as much as malcontents as major championship winners, declared they’ll be in Portland, Ore., in a few weeks rather than at the John Deere Classic in sylvan Silvis. DeChambeau, it may be recalled, won the Deere in 2018, and previously had been the beneficiary of a sponsor’s exemption, and Reed had a good showing there before he was discovered to be a mope.

Even more name players may follow. The Rickie Fowler rumor has not been refuted by the fan favorite and former Players winner. After that, who knows?

Once upon a time, the Chicago-born lawyer-agent Mark McCormack dreamed of accomplishing what Norman and his oil-rich backers are pulling off. On Labor Day weekend of 1963, he found a company willing to put up a $50,000 purse, a course willing to open its doors – Glen Flora Country Club in Waukegan – and so assembled Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player on the first tee for a 36-hole Holiday Classic. This, against the regular Tour’s Denver Open.

It may have been a holiday, but it wasn’t a classic. From 4,000 to 6,000 fans turned out across the two days. Player scored 4-under 136, Nicklaus 138 and Palmer 141. No records were broken, and while Player collected the $20,000 first prize – compared to $5,300 for first-time winner Chi Chi Rodriguez in Denver – the idea didn’t set the world on fire. The Holiday Classic turned out to be the first and only that McCormack would stage. (Longer-lasting was the World Series of Golf, which began in 1962 and was eventually subsumed by the Tour.)

McCormack had visions of his trio teeing it up here, there and everywhere, watched by adoring multitudes. Maybe it was the $7 ticket – pricey in 1963 – that turned out the crowds. Maybe it was everything else on a holiday weekend, but the idea of a challenger to the circuit died at the Glen Flora box office.

Reports from London are similar, that discounts for tickets abound, that Westwood and Poulter couldn’t give them away from websites, that the Centurion Club might not need crowd control because there will be no crowd. We’ll see, though we’ll have to watch via the LIV website, Facebook or YouTube. (As of now, only one television station in North America, CHCH-TV in Hamilton, Ont., is picking up the coverage, and only Saturday’s final round, at that. Canadians can watch on cable, as CHCH is a superstation as WGN used to be in the U.S.)

While only Norman has been speaking, the Saudis, through their Public Investment Fund, seem to be in it for the long haul. McCormack had a sporting goods operation backing him. Norman has oil – and for all the understandable hand-wringing about the sordid Saudi resume, it’s worth noting that FedEx, sponsor of the PGA Tour’s annual pot of gold, last year announced a 10-year $400 million commitment to build out delivery operations in Saudi Arabia. Money makes the world go around, no matter who one must deal with.

The players who have made the move – accounting for 14 major championship titles in the London field, incidentally – had better hope this lasts. If the venture falters, the establish tours would undoubtedly welcome the refugees back or risk a legal tangle, but the locker room might be a bit chilly.

Speaking of legal tangles, the big surprise so far is that so far, the lawyers have been kept on the sidelines. That may not be the case by this afternoon.

If players continue to jump, Monahan’s hand will be forced. Sponsors will howl that their stars are disappearing, so why should they write the big check that helps fund the purse? CBS and NBC/Golf Channel, in the first year of new contracts, will be lighting up his phone. Nobody in charge will be happy.

In 1960, when the American Football League first took the field, some NFL owners laughed, though the old league tried to sabotage the new circuit by luring Max Winter over for a franchise in Minnesota and other tactics. The AFL countered by signing seniors literally under the goal posts at bowl games as they finished their college careers. In 1966, the NFL sued for peace, so to speak, and Pete Rozelle and Lamar Hunt figured out how to merge the leagues to first save money via a common draft and then mint it via the Super Bowl and ever-expanding television deals.

We can see a similar scenario in golf if the exodus of notables continues. The question is, when will Monahan decide it’s 1966? We know this: He cannot unring the bell.

– Tim Cronin

Chris Nieto makes dynamic first impression

Writing from Elgin, Illinois

Thursday, May 12, 2022

Until November 1, Chris Nieto was a member of the Mid-Atlantic PGA Section, so ensconced because he was working at Congressional Country Club.

On November 1, he became the head pro at Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park. When a pro moves, so does his section affiliation.

Thursday afternoon, he became the man to beat in the Illinois PGA. In his first Illinois major, Nieto swept through the field to win the Illinois PGA Match Play Championship at Elgin Country Club.

Nieto, 34, trailed in several of his five matches prior to the final, but not when the big trophy was on the line against Brian Carroll of The Hawk. Then, Nieto opened with a birdie to win the first hole, was 2 up after three, remained there at the turn, parred No. 10 for a 3 up advantage, and then withstood Carroll’s best golf of the afternoon to hang on for the 1 up victory.

“This week was a grind, and it didn’t come easy,” Nieto said. “It felt like in a lot of matches I was down a couple at the turn or all square. I knew once I got to the back nine I’d have more fun.”

Not in the final.

“It was uncharted territory,” Nieto said of holding the lead. “Then the wind picked up and golf got a little harder.”

Elgin is a 121-year old Tom Bendelow layout that has been expanded from nine to 18 holes over the years, but feels old-timey. It features rolling fairways, sidehill lies, greens shaped like potato chips, and swirling wind when it blows. Smart golf, rather than power golf, wins the day, and both Nieto and Carroll are smart golfers.

Carroll dropped his tee shot four feet from the cup on the 163-yard par-3 16th for a birdie to narrow Nieto’s lead to a hole, then nearly holed out from an impossible sidehill lie on the 17th for eagle. Instead, they matched birdies and walked to the tee of the 404-yard uphill 18th.

Carroll used a hybrid and drove to the edge of a dropoff, Nieto went down the hill and had a delicate 65-yard pitch, effectively to the roof of a small building. He dropped it about four feet away, and when Carroll missed his curling 18-footer, it was time to shake hands.

“It’s match play, so you never know what’s going to happen,” Nieto said. “He came in firing and I knew I had to make a couple birdies and hold him off at the end.”

For Carroll, it was the fourth runner-up placing in a state major, including the 2019 Match Play and last year’s Players Championship. Thus it was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.

“I certainly had better play in the first match today than the second, just did what I had to do in that one,” Carroll said of his defeat of David Krzepicki of Eagle Brook Country Club 6 and 4 in the morning. “Birdied the par-5s, which are reachable out here.”

Carroll was 3-under across 14 holes. But in Nieto, who didn’t have time to play at all in 2021 thanks to his workload as associate head pro at Congressional, he met a solid campaigner.

“Too many poor shots,” Carroll said. “I got myself in tree trouble where I couldn’t attack on shorter holes; had to play defensive instead of giving myself birdie looks.”

Nieto had scored 2-over 74 on the hilly 6,450-yard layout to tie for sixth and thus set his seeding. After that, he chugged along, knocking off Jami Brighty 5 and 4 in the Round of 32, beating the unrelated Jamie Nieto of The Preserve at Oak Meadows 3 and 2 in the Round of 16 – and opening with an eagle to establish who was boss – taking out Hinsdale’s Matt Slowinski in the quarterfinals, and beating Tim Streng of the Wildcat Golf Academy 2 and 1 in Thursday morning’s semifinal.

The match of the week was the quarterfinal between Streng and Mistwood’s Andy Mickelson. The duo combined for 14 birdies and an eagle in 17 holes, Streng winning 2 and 1 with an aggregate 8-under 60 in 17 holes, including the usual concessions, to Mickelson’s 62. Streng’s eagle 2 on the 270-yard par-4 11th gave him a 3 up lead that Mickelson couldn’t erase completely.

– Tim Cronin

Copeland low am in U.S. Women's Open qualifying

Writing from Aurora, Illinois

Monday, May 9, 2022

Lisa Copeland came into the 36-hole U.S. Women’s Open qualifier at Stonebridge Country Club just hoping to break 80 twice.

That was before she knew the wind would blow a hoolie.

The southwest gale brought warmth – it hit 81 degrees – but with afternoon gusts to 41 mph and a steady zephyr of 28 mph.

Copeland, a 13-year-old who adds a year next month, nearly blew over on one putt, but played lights out to capture low amateur honors with a total of 3-over-par 147, five strokes off the medalist and sole qualifier for Pine Needles, Ingrid Guiterrez Nunez of Cuautla, Mexico, whose even-par 72 in the afternoon included four birdies in her last nine holes and brought her to 2-under 142 for the day.

Wind? What wind?

“That played a part,” Copeland admitted. “I’m a shorter ball-hitter, so I’m coming in with longer clubs and it’s penetrating into the wind.”

Before the wind went off the rails, Copeland was the leader, having birdied the second, third and fourth holes. She remained in or tied for the lead for over an hour.

“I was kind of surprised,” Copeland said. “My dad (Jeff, who caddied) was reminding me just to breathe. And I was putting great and taking it one shot at a time.”

She kept breathing and, while she didn’t know she was in the lead, knew she was playing well.

“I wanted to make sure I didn’t change anything in my routine, especially in putting, because I was putting so well. I didn’t want to go too fast or too slow.”

Copeland, who finished third in her division of the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship last month at Augusta National, scored six birdies across the day, but only two in the afternoon round, which was offset by a double-bogey. Count the wind a contributing party to that. She went up two clubs on the par-3 third, dead into the teeth of the gale, and still flew the green, landing in the gunch instead.

Gutierrez Nunez, on her fourth year on the Epson Tour, the LPGA’s developmental circuit, has seen her share of windy days. She opened with a birdie in the morning en route to an opening 2-under 70, the day’s best round, and closed with a 3-under 33 on Stonebridge’s front nine, including the aforementioned quartet of birds.

Finishing about an hour ahead of Jillian Hollis, that burst brought her the title and the ticket to Pine Needles. Hollis, a former Women’s Western Amateur champion from Rocky River, Ohio, scored 71-72–143 to Gutierrez Nunez’s 142 for first alternate status. Katherine Hamski of Durham, N.C., was third, and second alternate, at 73-71–144.

Then came Copeland, whose future is off the charts.

At Cantigny Golf, 2000 Illinois Open champion Bryce Emory of Aurora scored 1-under-par 71 to grab medalist honors and lead five players advancing to the 36-hole sectional test. Others advancing are Timothy Lim (72), Hoffman Estates; Kyle Kochevar (73), Glen Ellyn; Varun Chopra (73), Champaign, and Daniel Hudson (73), Chicago. Playing in the same wind that buffeted the ladies, Hudson survived a double-bogey and triple-bogey to advance thanks to five birdies. Chopra and Kochevar also had doubles and lived to tell about it.

– Tim Cronin

Rich Harvest lands Saudi-backed LIV Tour – with a thud

The Grill Room – by Tim Cronin

Writing from Chicago

Wednesday, March 16, 2022

updated Thursday, March 17, 2022

Here’s everything you need to know about Rich Harvest Farms hosting the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Invitation Tour in mid-September:

1. Today's word of landing the tournament came complete with a one-page “Memo” with six reasons why, noting that groups ranging from the ultra-private club’s caddies to Ukrainian refugees would benefit from the proceeds – i.e., the rent of the facility – to be had.

2. Rich Harvest Farms founder-owner Jerry Rich was not quoted. Nor does he want to speak on the topic, we were informed, but Thursday morning on his personal e-mail list, he forwarded the LIV tour release and added the following: "Hope to see a big turn out from all you golf fans! This will be huge for Illinois and the Chicagoland area."

Before that, it was pay no attention to the man who is not only behind the curtain, but owns it.

The money for bringing in the upstart tour must be good, because it’s not like Rich doesn’t have it. He built his fortune on coming up with the consolidated quote machine for Wall Street, the fortune big enough for him to buy thousands of acres outside of Sugar Grove – several times the size of Monaco, though no sea view – and plant his own mostly self-designed golf course on it.

Rich doesn’t need the dough, but he does love the attention. That’s why he’s spent lavishly over the years to have not just 18 holes, but a pair of world-class practice facilities, a  series of buildings that serve as clubhouses, pro shops, residence halls and an indoor practice center, the latter as much for Northern Illinois University’s golf team – he’s a proud alum – as for himself.

That’s why he’s hosted the Solheim Cup, the Western Amateur, the NCAA Championship, the Western Junior, and sundry other amateur championships since the course, which started as a few reversible practice holes, was expanded to a full 18.

Like anyone, Rich would prefer receiving bouquets than brickbats. He’s a decent guy. A few years ago, he donated the land and the funding for a new Catholic parish adjacent to his property after his wife died. He has a pet project to grow the game, the Kids Golf Foundation of Illinois, that since 1998 has seen 250,000 children learn the fundamentals of the game for free. The foundation is the first item on the list that will benefit from the LIV weekend.

The memo, of course, was issued because Saudi Arabia, which through crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and his government-owned investment operation is backing Greg Norman’s long-held dream of a world golf tour, is one of the world’s more repressive regimes. The gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi only reinforced that. Just the other day, the Saudi government killed 81 people for various crimes, supposedly ranging from murder to terrorism. It was the first mass execution by Saudi Arabia in six years.

Much like Al Capone’s gang once ran soup kitchens in Chicago in an effort to cleanse his reputation, such “sportswashing” generally backfires, drawing more attention to the tawdry exploits of countries involved in suppressing freedom.

This is not new. Witness the Olympics in Moscow, Beijing and Sarajevo, to name three garden spots, plus the granddaddy of them all, in Nazi-controlled Berlin in 1936. The Formula One racing circuit has several stops in non-democratic countries, including Saudi Arabia at the end of the year, like-minded neighbor Bahrain for its opener this week, plus China and, until the recent invasion of Ukraine made it untenable, Russia, at a course around the Winter Olympic sites in Sochi.

Golf has been no different. The PGA Tour would prefer you pay no mind to its stalled tournament series in China. South Africa was a popular destination for name pros in a million-dollar tournament during apartheid. Now come the Saudis, not only hosting but bankrolling a tour and offering bonuses – so far shunned – for name players to come along for the ride.

The Rich Harvest tournament will be the sixth of eight 54-hole weekends and the fourth of four in the United States. The purse of $25 million – $20 million for up to 48 individuals, $5 million for a team concept nobody will pay the slightest attention to – is standard for the LIV circuit, which will award $255 million in Saudi oil money across those eight weekends.

Who the 48 players will be – and if the series will get to that number – is as yet unknown. Many offers have been name, none accepted, partly because the PGA Tour threatens to ban those who sign with the Saudis – the lawyers will love that – and partly because Phil Mickelson managed to blurt out the truth about using the new group for leverage in pressing different demands with the PGA Tour, and ripped the Saudis for killing Khashoggi at the same time.

Where the tournaments will be televised is also undecided. It won’t be with any of the Tour-affiliated outlets, which leaves Fox or a streaming service unless C-SPAN jumps in.

But the courses are there and the money is there. Where there is money, golfers eventually follow. Even when one of the hosts doesn’t want to say a word about the group coming in to dirty his towels.