Ferrell, Gattone share first round lead in Illinois Women's Open

Writing from Romeoville, Illinois

Monday, July 18, 2016

One day into the 22nd Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open, and it’s shaping up as an Illinois vs. Wisconsin showdown.

Two Fighting Illini team members and a Wisconsin player fought for the lead in Monday’s first round at Mistwood Golf Club. Wisconsin senior Brooke Ferrell and Illinois junior Dana Gattone share the lead with 4-under-par 68s, while Illinois senior Stephanie Miller is a stroke behind after a 3-under 69.

Eight of the 63 players in the field broke par and another three matched it on a warm day with little wind.

Gattone, of Addison, speckled her career-best 68 with five birdies, with only one bogey staining it. The highlight was the final birdie, a 3-foot downhill putt on the par-3 17th, for it set her up to par the last and finally score less than 69.

“I feel really confident out here,” Gattone said. “It sets up good for me, and for my course management.”

Gattone has a secret weapon for the latter, a pro-style yardage book a friend made for her a few years ago with more distances and details than in the regular yardage book the course sells.

Miller’s 69, which featured four birdies on the back nine, was achieved by “staying patient,” she said. “I just hit some good shots. The key here is putting the ball in good position. I missed three fairways, but when I missed a fairway, I missed in the right spot.”

Miller, who lives in Elgin, came off a family vacation to Alaska on Saturday and only hit a few balls practicing on Sunday.

Ferrell, of Edgerton, Wis., tied for second last year, while Gattone finished fifth and Miller tied for 22nd. Madasyn Pettersen of Rockford, last year’s winner, is in an AJGA tournament this week.

Lindsay Dodovich of Chicago authored the shot of the day, a hole-in-one on the 17th hole, which was a 160-yard test. A 6-iron was the weapon.

“I didn’t see it go in,” Dodovich said, noting how the green falls off to the back left, the pin position for the first round. “I hit it right at my aim point, to the right of the flag. My dad saw it go in.”

– Tim Cronin

Leaders

a-Brooke Ferrell, Edgerton, Wis. 68

a-Dana Gattone, Addison 68

a-Stephanie Miller, Elgin 69

a-Kelly Grassel, Chesterton, Ind. 71

a-Lexi Harkins, Crystal Lake 71

Ember Schuldt, Sterling 71

Frederique Bruell, Shaker Heights, Ohio 71

Jenna Pearson, Wheaton 71

a-Siyun Liu, Shanghai, China 72

a-Taylor Thompson, Galesburg 72

a-Grace Kil, Arlington Heights 72

Remembering Leon McNair

Leon McNair, inducted into the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame last year, died Sunday, July 3, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's Disease. He was 75.

The longtime professional at Fox Bend Golf Course in Oswego, for which he was part of the construction crew, fought the disease for which there is as yet no cure valiantly.

A standout at Glenbard West High School and graduate of Southern Illinois, where he was a member of their 1964 NCAA Division II championship golf team, Leon was lured into staying at Fox Bend by architect and construction guru Brent Wadsworth. McNair was at Fox Bend from 1967 until his retirement in 2005.

McNair put Fox Bend on the map with an amateur tournament to show the layout off to the better area players, as well as superior service to build a regular clientele.

He remained active as a member of the board overseeing the First Tee of Aurora and Fox River Valley, and president of Wadsworth Golf Charities. He was Illinois PGA Section president in 1991-92, and the IPGA's Professional of the Year in 1992.

Most recently, he was spearheading Wadsworth's Links Across America initative to boost youth participation in the game.

“The reason we launched Links Across America is, other than a few rare cases, affordable golf for youth does not exist in this country,” McNair said in his Hall of Fame acceptance talk. “The mission was to develop feeder short courses, three-, six- or nine-hole across the country to provide affordable golf, especially for youth, families, adult beginners and individuals with injuries or disabilities."

By last fall, 29 courses had been built in 16 states.

McNair was also honored last fall by the state, which named the portion of Route 34 that runs in front of Fox Bend the Leon McNair Highway.

Memorials may be directed to either The Leon McNair Memorial Fund in care of the Community Foundation of the Fox Valley, 111 W. Downer Place, Aurora, Ill. 60506, or ALS Association of Greater Chicago, 220 W. Huron, Suite 4003, Chicago, Ill. 60654.

Remembering Gary Planos

Writing from Chicago

Monday, March 28, 2016

Gary Planos almost always ended a conversation with a question.

“Do you need anything?”

Now, his legion of friends are asking why he died at 62, so many years too young.

Planos was found motionless Sat., March 26,  at his home in Kapalua, Hawaii, by landscapers who came over to work on his lawn. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.

That’s an additional shock, for Gary Planos had the biggest heart in golf. As the senior vice president of the Kapalua resort facility and the tournament director of the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions, Planos knew everyone in golf, a tight family where egos are large and grudges are kept.

Nobody ever had a bad word to say about Gary Planos. As word of his death spread on Sunday, kind words and memories of him came from all corners of the game.

“There was not a finer person in the game of golf,” Golf Channel producer Brandt Packer wrote on Twitter Sunday.

“He was always looking to help any way he could,” Rickie Fowler added, using Planos’ well-earned nickname of “Mr. Kapalua.”

“One of the all-time good guys,” ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski said. “Kapalua was Kapalua because of Gary Planos. Never met a nicer guy.”

Said Morgan Pressel, winner of the LPGA’s tournament at Kapalua in 2008, “My trips to Kapalua will never be the same.”

A caddie at Westmoreland who earned an Evans Scholarship to Illinois, Planos arrived in Hawaii in the mid-1970s with $7,000 in travelers checks and no job. Hired by Chicago native Mark Rolfing, he found one at Kapalua in the bag room. He made $3 an hour and could play the course. Hard work and imaginative thinking moved him up the ladder quickly.

“Westmoreland was my E ticket to Kapalua,” Planos said when the club celebrated its centennial.

Planos stayed close to the Evans program. He was a WGA director, and was usually on hand during the Western Open / BMW Championship, working either the practice range or visiting players in the locker room, reminding them of the beauty of the paradise he worked and lived in.

Baseball great Joe Torre, who has a house on the Kapalua property, would hang out with Planos during the tournament. On the turn of the millennium, he needed 15 rooms at the Ritz-Carlton for Yankees pitcher Andy Pettite for New Year’s Eve. It couldn’t be done, execpt Planos did it.

Planos could always do it. Arranging rides on a whale-watching boat or something similarly exotic were all part of his anything-is-possible mantra. Even after Kapalua outsourced resort and tournament operations in 2011, Planos was the go-to guy for many.

“Gary is Kapalua,” Steve Stricker said then.

“He had the wonderful ability to make everyone feel so special,” current TofC tournament director Nancy Cross told The Maui News. “I was greatly honored to be a part of his team.

“Everybody loved Gary. Pros, agents, media – everybody.”

Services were undetermined at press time.

– Tim Cronin

It's show time in Rosemont

    Writing from Chicago
    Thursday, February 25, 2016    

    More a sign of spring than the sighting of the first robin, the Chicago Golf Show sets up shop for a three-day run in Rosemont beginning at noon on Friday.
    There are nearly 200 exhibitors, most of them golf-related, ready to sing the praises of their course, their clubs, or whatever else they’re selling, in the big hall at the Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont. And some are literally selling their wares. As with the Tinley Park Golf Expo, there will be clubs and all the accessories needed to tee it up for sale.
    The on-stage attraction this year is Peter Longo, the “king of clubs.” Longo’s given thousands of trick-shot shows over the years, but never at the Chicago Golf Show. He’ll make one appearance a day, times to be announced. The show itself is open from noon-7 p.m. Friday, 9:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, and 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $5 on Friday, $10 on the weekend, with kids from 12 to 15 $4, and under 12 free.
    For the nostalgia-oriented, three members of the 1985 Chicago Bears – Super Bowl winners 30 years ago – will be on hand. Emery Moorhead (Friday), Mike Richardson (Saturday)and Jim Morrissey (Sunday) will be taking lessons from Illinois PGA pros. Those same pros will be available to give mini-lessons to you in the Illinois PGA Village, which includes a pair of golf simulators and more hands-on goodies to play with.
    About 17,000 attended last year.

    • The Illinois Open is returning to Royal Fox Country Club in St. Charles for the first time since 2001. The showcase of state golf, expanded to two courses last year, will be played there and at co-owned Royal Hawk Country Club, also in St. Charles, on July 25-27.
    The 258-player field will tackle first two rounds, one on each course, on the first two days. Survivors play the final round at Royal Fox, which will be hosting for the eighth time.
    The move to the royals Fox and Hawk is also a move away from KemperSports-controlled courses. The Illinois Open has been on a Kemper-affiliated course every year since 2002, when The Glen Club hosted for the first of nine times, more than any other course.
    Royal Fox was designed by Dick Nugent, who did a good job squeezing 18 holes into a landscape that crosses over a highway and includes housing. There are a couple of quirky holes – the original tee for the par-4 third hole looked through a space between trees no more than 15 yards wide, while the 18th features an island green – but the leaders had little trouble breaking par.
    Royal Hawk is the former Burr Hill Golf Course, sort of. It was being redesigned even before the Royal group bought it in 2004. By 2006, only four of the original holes remained. As a result, the course meanders in uncertain fashion through a housing development and across the landscape, some holes separated from the previous one by large distances.
    But, at least for 2016, it’s home to the Illinois Open.
    “The golf courses were uniquely designed and built to be true tests of championship golf,” said Royal Group CEO John Weiss in an Illinois PGA news release. “The participants will love the look, layout and feel of both Royal Fox and Royal Hawk, as well as enjoy their experience at the Royal Country Clubs. It’s also a great opportunity for the St. Charles area. The community has a great young fan base and the Illinois PGA's marquee championship will provide great exposure to our many young fans of golf.”

     – Tim Cronin

Love and golf collide at the Tinley Park Golf Expo

Writing from Chicago

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

    Valentine’s Day and golf. Is there a better combination?
    Perhaps there is, but for those who love the game, the final day of the Tinley Park Golf Expo – Sunday – coincides with the ultimate hearts-and-flowers-and-candy wooing day.
    Five years in, the Expo is now a fixture in Chicago’s winter golf calendar. This year’s edition runs from Friday through Sunday at the Tinley Park Convention Center, at Harlem Ave. and Interstate 80 in Tinley Park.
    “We cannot think of a better way for couples to bond than through the game of golf,” said Gregg Tengerstrom, the co-owner of the Expo and longtime head professional at Silver Lake Country Club in Orland Park.
    Tengerstrom and co-owner Joe Copeland expect about 10,000 golf fans to attend over three days. Those who make the trek can investigate the booths of about 120 exhibitors, ranging from equipment manufacturers to area courses to resorts signed up, as well as a sales area where clubs old and new will be available. Looking for a left-handed 1-iron? You may find it, along with all the more modern implements of the game, at the Expo.
    Admission is $5 Friday, $10 Saturday or Sunday. Children under 12 are free with a paying adult. The hours: Friday, noon-7 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
    Beyond the booths, here’s what you’ll find inside the Expo:
    • The Demo area will have new clubs and putters from a dozen manufacturers across three days. Adams, Callaway and Taylor Made will be on hand all three days. Cobra, Mizuno and Tour Edge will be there Friday and Saturday, while Wilson will be represented on Saturday and Sunday. Nike and Ping are Friday-only, while Cleveland, Fourteen Golf and RIFE Putters are Sunday-only participants.
    • An expanded lesson area will feature professionals from Billy Casper Golf’s many area courses, as well as Greg Kaumeyer of Golf Fitness 4 You. Additionally, the First Tee of Greater Chicago will host lessons and a skills challenge area for children, and the Freedom Golf Association will have complimentary lessons for the disabled.
    • A dollar enters you in the skills contests – long drive, long putt, and a closest to the pin contest via a golf simulator – with Callaway clubs and Odyssey putters to be won each day. There are also raffles other attractions in the aisles.

– Tim Cronin