Thompson's 67 moves him to the front

    Writing from Wheaton, Illinois
    Tuesday, October 8, 2013

    Matt Thompson has been on the verge for a while. The 24-year-old native of Battle Creek, Mich., was the runner-up in the 2009 Michigan Amateur, and fell a stroke short in the 2011 Michigan Open despite birdies on two of the last three holes.
    He’s on the verge again. After a 5-under-par 67 on Cantigny Golf’s lush Woodside-Lakeside layout, Thompson has a one-stroke lead entering the final round of the Chicago Open. Thompson’s 36-hole aggregate of 4-under 140 is one swipe better than the 140 of Minneapolis’ Thomas Campbell, who stitched a 70 to his Monday 71.
    Thompson, who turned pro after graduating from Michigan, has won in Illinois before. He captured Northwestern’s Windon Memorial in the fall of 2011.
    This field, full of seasoned pros chasing the $7,000 first prize, is as deep or deeper than the one Thompson faced in that Michigan Open. Campbell, to note Thompson’s closest pursuer, already has a pro victory this year, and while it’s on the Dakotas Tour, in some ways as far as you can get from PGA Tour headquarters in the U.S. and still play for money, he has the oversized check and the bragging rights that go with it.
    And that duo has company. Michael Schachner and Carlos Sainz Jr., from Libertyville and Elgin respectively, are two behind at 2-under 142. Atlanta’s Jordan Mitchell is at 1-under 143. A gaggle of seven at even par 144 includes Milo French and Tim Streng, two of the three overnight leaders, while Eric Sipple, who joined French and Streng in front after his opening 70, is at 1-over 145.
    In all, there are 14 players within five strokes of Thompson as the third round commences, and lurking at 147, seven strokes in arrears, is Mike Small, the soon-to-be Illinois Golf Hall of Famer. He’d have been two strokes closer but for a penalty for stepping on his ball while searching for it in the rough during the first round. That woe was felt by three other players as well.
    Thompson was not alone in carding a tournament-best 67. Daniel Zimmerman of Middleton, Wis., matched that score, and did so after an opening 80, the best recovery of any player. He did so by making nine birdies, offset by four bogeys, at Cantigny.
    The cut fell at 8-over 152 and encompassed 55 players, including three amateurs. Among those missing the cut: Medinah teaching pro Connie DeMattia, erstwhile Aurora fixture Bob Ackerman, and amateur Toni Kukoc, who prizes his 2010 Croatian Amateur title as much as his three NBA titles earned with the Bulls.

    – Tim Cronin

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

The return of an old friend

    Writing from Chicago
    Sunday, October 6, 2013    

    Ninety-nine years ago, a gaggle of professionals and amateurs, 19 players in all, gathered at Chicago Golf Club to play for $175 and a new title: The Chicago Open.
    The full title was the Chicago District Golf Association Open Championship. But the shorter name stuck, and through the decades, off and on, the Chicago Open has provided more than a few thrills, and won itself more then a few notable champions.
    Will Ben Hogan, Ken Venturi and Luke Donald do for starters?
    If not, how about Byron Nelson, Sam Snead and Bobby Locke?
    Each won the Chicago Open in a different incarnation. To detail the first three: Hogan when it was CDGA-operated on the tour, Venturi when Gleneagles had control, replacing George S. May’s Tam O’Shanter carnival on the tour, and Donald – as an amateur starring for Northwestern – when the CDGA operated it as an independent tournament.
    Monday, the Chicago Open rises again from a 12-year slumber, this time under the auspices of the Illinois Junior Golf Association. Independent again of any tour, the Chicago Open offers a $50,000 purse and has 114 players, 97 pros and 17 amateurs, ready to tee it up at Cantigny Golf in Wheaton, using the Woodside-Lakeside combination, through Wednesday.
    While Don Berry, the champion at Beverly Country Club in 2001 and thus the defender, isn’t on hand, a slew of solid players are, including Thomas Pieters, a pro of rather recent vintage who scored an individual NCAA title while playing for Illinois. His old coach, Mike Small, to be inducted into the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame later in the month, will also be on hand. So will fellow downstater Steve Orrick, the Decatur stalwart who has excelled in the last couple of years.
    The hottest player coming in is Eric Ilic, who won the Illinois PGA Players Championship at Meatmora Fields last week. He beat Rich Dukelow, a Cantigny assistant, by a stroke.
    As you might expect, Dukelow’s in the field, as is former Cantigny head pro Danny Mulhearn, now stationed at Glen Oak.
    The amateur contingent is led by Burr Ridge’s Brenten Blakeman, a University of Dayton grad who plays out of Olympia Fields these days.
    There’s another name familiar to sports fans making his golf debut. Toni Kukoc, erstwhile center for the Bulls, took up golf with great enthusiasm, and some success, upon his retirement from basketball. He’s no Michael Jordan on the links, and that might be a good thing.
    The October date was selected originally on the theory that players far and wide would use the tournament as a tune-up for Tour school. Then the PGA Tour realigned its qualifying into the web.com Tour playoffs, making this a run-through for the web.com school in December. Still, 114 entries for the inaugural under the IJGA imprint is a good start. The play should be even better.
    - Tim Cronin

Zach attack pays off at Conway Farms

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Monday, September 16, 2013

    Zach Johnson said earlier in the week that Conway Farms Golf Club’s yielding of low scores reminded him of TPC Deere Run, site of the John Deere Classic.
    “I’m not complaining,” Johnson said.
    Especially now. He completed a career Illinois Slam by grabbing the BMW Championship title on Monday, his bogey-free 6-under-par 65 for an aggregate of 16-under-par 268 beating fast-closing Nick Watney to the finish line by two strokes. Watney’s 7-under 64 was the round of the day, and got him to 270 – and to the Tour Championship at East Lake – but Johnson, who trailed overnight leader Jim Furyk by three when he teed off, passed both Furyk and Watney in the course of a frantic delayed-a-day finish to the 110th Western Open.
    Johnson took the lead for the first time when Furyk lipped out a par putt on the 13th hole and dropped to 13-under. Johnson was at 14-under after sinking a 8-footer for birdie on the par-4 12th.
    Watney was a few holes ahead, and birdied the par-3 17th to tie Johnson, but Johnson converted for birdie from 19 feet on the par-4 16th to regain the advantage. He doubled the margin to two strokes with a birdie on the par-3 17th, and coasted home, his 10th career victory placing him fourth in the PGA Tour’s playoff standings and thus within reach of the $10 million bonus if he wins on Sunday at East Lake. (He collected $1.44 million from Monday’s $8 million purse.)
    Johnson accomplished it, he said, by not thinking of the goal, just the process.
    “I was trying to make the Presidents Cup team (in Boston) without trying to make it,” Johnson said. “I was trying to make the top three (in the standings) without trying to make it. Now, I’m not going to try to win that $10 million. I’m going to try to play four solid rounds of golf.”
    As he did at Conway Farms. Rounds of 64-70-69-65 varied between solid and spectacular. He was bogey-free his last 31 holes, but never held even a share of the lead until the birdie at the 12th.
    Johnson has played stupid good golf since the Deere, where he lost to Jordan Spieth in a three-man playoff. After that second place, tied for sixth at the British Open, tied for fourth at Firestone, tied for eighth in the PGA Championship, tied for fifth in the Wyndham, and tied for 27th, his worst finish in two months, at the Deutsche Bank Championship, the second playoff tournament.
    Where was he during the Barclays? Not at Liberty National. There was a more pressing engagement.
    “I mean, you’re not going to miss your brother’s wedding, especially when you’re the best man,” Johnson said. “Especially if I’m going to get along with my new sister-in-law.”
    That included a scouting round at Conway the day before, when he charted places to hit it and not hit it for his yardage book. And that seemed to pay off. He only missed 11 of 54 fairways, and his 27 of 36 greens in the final two rounds.
    Johnson said a bad four-hole stretch dropped his standing at the Deutsche Bank, but making a putt on his last hole advanced him to Conway Farms, and from here, it’s off to East Lake with a shot at was old-timers would call bagging the whole bundle of boodle.
    Furyk failed to win for the fifth straight time while holding the 54-hole lead. Winless since 201, he was at even-par 71 on a day a number in the 60s was mandatory. Finishing third at 13-under 271, he was 12-under on his Friday 59 and 1-under the other three rounds.
    “I never looked at (the final round) as I have to hold on to the lead,” Furyk said. “That’s a definite bogey waiting to happen. Today the idea was to go out aggressive, hit the ball at the pins, try to shoot 4- or 5-under, make the rest of the field chase me.
    “I’m playing really well, on a golf course I like next week in Atlanta, and a win there could do some damage.”
    Furyk won the FedEx Cup in 2010. He’s 11th in the standings. The top five (Tiger Woods, Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott, Johnson and Matt Kuchar) cop the Cup if they win the Tour Championship. Everyone else has to win or finish high and depend on the kindness of strangers.
    Watney’s sparkling 64 started with birdies on the first three holes, and closed with birds on four of the last seven holes, but he needed to be below that when Johnson stepped up. A birdie that slid by the cup at the last and flew away stung.
    “I figured I had maybe an outside shot, but there’s so many good players ahead of me that I knew I’d need something special,” Watney said. “All you can ask for is a chance there, and I hit a good putt. It was really, really fun. I haven’t been in this position for a while, and to get back in the heat is awesome.”
    Watney improved 22 places in the playoff standings, rising to 12th from 34th, one of two players to jump into this week’s Tour Championship. The other? Read on.

    Donald to East Lake

    Conway Farms member Luke Donald didn’t win the tournament, but he won a ticket to East Lake after a 5-under-par 66 on Monday. That placed him at 11-under 273, tied for fourth, and when the rest of the marbles filtered down the Plinko machine, he was 29th of 30 qualifiers. And relieved.
    “I had to fight hard on that back nine,” Donald said after coming in in 4-under 32, a bogey offsetting one of his five birdies. “I figured at the beginning of the week top five or better was probably going to do it for me. I knew I had to go pretty low today. Fortunately I got it going a little bit on the back nine.”
    Donald has a history of low final rounds when he’s out of contention, but usually in less familiar surroundings. This was on his home course. But he was in a field of guys who are quick studies.
    “I had a bunch of lipouts this week,” Donald said. “If they had gone in I’d probably be contending for the title. I was hoping that being a member here would help me, and I think it did a little bit.”
    He got a member’s bounce on the par-4 15th, missing the fairway right, but carving a shot toward the green that hit the hillock to the right and bounced onto the green, rolling to within seven feet. He converted that for birdie to go to 11-under, and 5-under for the day. But a bogey at the 16th dropped him from hinting at contention. But he birdied 17 after a splendid iron to six feet, and gave the cup on 18 a scare as well.
    “There were nerves from 15 onwards,” Donald said. “I knew I got myself into position where I had a chance. That’s why we practice hard, to get in those positions.”
    And now, after Monday night’s stop at Wildcat Golf Day in Evanston, to East Lake, where, Donald said, “I’ve notoriously played pretty well.”
    He tied for third there last year, with a pair of 67s on the weekend.    
    Donald, 54th at the start of the Western, was one of only two players to climb into the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings. The other was Watney (34th to 12th). They displaced Lee Westwood (30th to 41st) and Harris English (20th to 31st). Tiger Woods replaced Henrik Stenson at the top of the ladder. D.A. Points, the pride of Pekin, skidded from 21st to 28th with a 57th place finish at Conway, but advances. His heart sank when a birdie putt at the last hung on the left edge of the cup, defying gravity, but it proved a harmless miss in the end.

    Around Conway Farms

    Biggest job the next few weeks goes to Conway Farms superintendent Chad Ball and his tireless crew, who got the course ready for Monday after Sunday’s downpours, and now have to get the area covered by structures back into shape as the city for a week is taken apart. ... The field averaged 70.557 strokes in the fourth round, and 70.811 strokes for the week, the field thus beating the course, albeit barely. ... Presuming there’s no uproar from the membership, Conway Farms will host the tournament again in 2015. Next year’s edition, the 111th going back to 1899, is at Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colo., outside of Denver, and famed for Arnold Palmer’s comeback victory in the 1960 U.S. Open. ... The WGA said over 130,000 fans came out for the week. There appeared to be about 7,500 on hand on Monday, a decent crowd considering the last-minute rearrangement of the schedule because of Sunday’s downpour, and a late shift in the parking to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, another 10 miles to the north.

    – Tim Cronin

Monday finish at Conway Farms

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Sunday, September 15, 2013

    They played. They stopped. They squeegeed.
    Rinse and repeat.
    But don’t think of drying out, because that was impossible on Sunday at Conway Farms Golf Club. The final round of the 110th Western Open / BMW Championship, expected to be played for the most part in a light rain, was instead interrupted twice by downpours, and the second of them halted festivities for the day.
    That’s not unusual in golf – especially this season on the PGA Tour, where the opening Tournament of Champions didn’t finish until Tuesday – but it was unfortunate. Aside from having 70 players primed and ready to go, untold thousands likely decided to sit at home and click their remotes between the golf and the Bears, rather than navigate – and we use the term literally – the now-muddy spectator areas at posh Conway.
    Two rain delays totaling 5 hours 3 minutes before play was called for the day kept the final 11 groups, and all the leaders, was taking to the course.
    Play resumes Monday at 8 a.m., weather permitting. Leader Jim Furyk, at 13-under-par 200, and chaser Steve Stricker, at 12-under 201, will tee off at 9:40 a.m., the last to start their rounds.
    Sunday tickets will be honored and tickets will be sold at the gate at the usual $55 price. Parking lots and the free shuttle from the Lake Forest Metra station will be in operation, as well as some hospitality areas.
    There was a reasonably good gallery on the course despite the light rain that had been falling since about 6 a.m. when play began at 7:15, Charley Hoffman and Scott Piercy starting the parade. But the rain began to get harder at times, and after several downpours, the horn stopping play blew at 10 a.m sharp. The third green was taking on casual water.
    “We had a forecast of a half-inch of rain over a six-hour period,” said PGA Tour rules and  operations VP Slugger White, explaining there appeared to be no need to switch to a two-tee start. “It was raining when I got here. We didn’t get concerned until about 6:30, quarter to seven.”
    The rain came in two main waves. Play resumed at 1:01 p.m. after the cleanup for the first one, but the hardest deluge of the day hit at 2:26 p.m., and two minutes into it, play was suspended again. This one flooded the ninth, 10th and 12th fairways, not to mention the third green again. The downpour wasn’t long, but it was effective.
    “We looked at 4 p.m., and it wasn’t even close to what it was at 1:30 p.m.,” White said.
    The ground was saturated, with nowhere for the water to go. But little rain is expected between now and tomorrow morning, perhaps only a rogue shower.
    While the rain pelted down, players lolled about the locker room. Football games were a distraction, with the Bears on the big screen and others on a DirecTV-equipped iPad.
    “There were a lot of good NFL games on,” Furyk said. “I’m anxious to get out there and play, as if everyone else, but the good news is no one wants to go out and play in this and slop it around on a golf course where we’re playing the ball down and it’s probably a little too wet out there.”
    Said Stricker, “I think we got the better end of the deal by not even playing in it. But I wish we could have got it in.”
    Zach Johnson was among the 64 players dealing with the practicalities of it.
    “When should we eat our next meal, trying to figure out hotel reservations, do I need to change my flight,” Johnson said. “All those scenarios are popping up. Just something you roll with.
    “I certainly feel bad for the WGA and BMW because it’s such a great championship up until this point. You want to see a great climactic finish on Sunday, and we’re going to see it on Monday now.”
    It’s the first Monday finish under the BMW imprint, and the first final round played at least in part on Monday since 1983, when the Western Open’s final 36 holes were played on Monday. Mark McCumber won that edition, and beat Peter Jacobsen on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff that took place on a Monday in 1989 thanks to a long rain delay.
    WGA tournament VP Vince Pellegrino said he believed some spectators stayed away because of the rain.
    “We had people come in waves,” Pellegrino said, pun not intended. “Actually I was really surprised the amount of people we had come out considering the forecast. I think it was a good crowd considering the weather.”
    Pellegrino said there will be an unknown financial hit because of extra staffing and transportation for Monday, but expects “a good-sized crowd” because of a leaderboard that includes Tiger Woods, Furyk, Stricker, Dustin Johnson – Western Open winners all – plus U.S. Open champion Justin Rose, Conway Farms member Luke Donald, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler with 14 or more holes remaining in their rounds.
    “We had a great week through Saturday,” Pellegrino. “You can’t help Mother Nature.”

    Tee times for players yet to start

    8 a.m.: Brendon de Jonge (209), Jordan Spieth (209)
    8:10 a.m.: Henrik Stenson (209), John Merrick (209)
    8:20 a.m.: Roberto Castro (208), Nicholas Thompson (209)
    8:30 a.m.: Jimmy Walker (207), Matt Kuchar (208)
    8:40 a.m.: Sergio Garcia (207), Jason Day (207)
    8:50 a.m.: Luke Donald (207), Matt Jones (207)
    9 a.m.: Rory Sabbatini (206), Nick Watney (206)
    9:10 a.m.: Ryan Moore (205), Hunter Mahan (206)
    9:20 a.m.: Tiger Woods (204), Charl Schwartzel (205)
    9:30 a.m.: Brandt Snedeker (202), Zach Johnson (203)
    9:40 a.m.: Jim Furyk (200), Steve Stricker (201)

    Around Conway Farms

    Defending champion Rory McIlroy’s back-to-back 68s came too late to salvage his Tour Championship hopes. That’s because he opened with a 78-77 double-play combination, and that killed his opportunity to advance to Atlanta. McIlroy exited Conway Farms as the leader in the clubhouse, or at the airport, or back home, with a total of 7-over 291. After Friday’s disaster, he said, “I feel like I’m hitting the ball pretty well, I’m just not scoring. I felt really good after the PGA. When I’ve actually gotten myself into contention, that’s when I’ve played my best this year. That’s a good sign. The bad sign is that I’m not in contention too much.” ... Scott Piercy finished dead last in the 70-man field with a score of 18-over 302. Don’t feel bad, for he still earned $16,000. ... Only six players finished, with only the first two twosomes getting in before the first rain delay, at 10 a.m.

    – Tim Cronin