Full barn of birdies at Conway Farms

Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois

Thursday, September 12, 2013

The first clue came less than a half-hour into play on Thursday morning, when John Merrick, not exactly a household name in most households, dropped his wedge shot on the par-4 third hole at Conway Farms Golf Club into the cup for an eagle 2.

The cascade of red numbers had begun.

Before it ended, Brandt Snedeker had surfed a wave of seven straight birdies into the lead of the BMW Championship, Zach Johnson was a stroke behind him after a similarly bogey-free round, and a trio including Tiger Woods was three off the pace.

Snedeker had visions of a really low number after his putt on the first hole, the 10th of his round, dropped for his seventh straight bird – tying the Western Open / BMW mark set by Hubert Green at the start of the third round in 1985.

“A 61 or 60 was very doable,” Snedeker said.

He settled for an 8-under-par 63 and the lead.

Johnson, crediting recent improvement to better driving, birdied the par-5 18th to finish at 7-under 64. For him, the low scoring at Conway Farms is a reminder of that other tournament in Illinois, which he won last year.

“It’s not quite the John Deere Classic, but it reminds me of the John Deere Classic, at TPC Deere Run,” Johnson said. “I’m not complaining.”

Nor is the sponsoring Western Golf Association. Spectators turned out in huge numbers, causing traffic jams and forcing the WGA to close the gates during the lunch hour, because it ran out of parking. If one person was traipsing across the leafy acreage, 40,000 people were.

The high attendance contributing to the bottom line will eventually benefit the Evans Scholars Foundation, but for the nonce the low numbers being posted will contribute to the mad rush to the pay window in this $8 million turkey shoot. The winner gets $1.44 million, and the way Snedeker posted birdies on Thursday – eight of them – each birdie might end up being worth its weight in gold.

For Snedeker, there wasn’t a great deal in his recent resume to anticipate such an outburst.

“It kind of came out of nowhere,” Snedeker said of the birdie binge. Given that he holed out from off the green on the 13th, 14th and 17th holes, the first two times from about 14 feet and the third time from 37 feet, a right-to-left curler from the fringe of the green, that’s understandable. Snedeker’s a good guy, but he’s not unconscious. On this day, his play was.

“When I do have these days, I try to go as low as I possibly can,” Snedeker said.

Everyone expected low numbers, and most delivered. Those who did not included Lee Westwood, whose 9-under 80 was exaggerated by back and neck problems. Said Westwood before trudging up a staircase, “I feel sick.”

Scott Piercy went him one worse, with a 10-over 81 lowlighted by a nine on the par-4 16th. Water was involved. He played with Rickie Fowler, whose neon blue shirt didn’t hide a 6-over 77, and Nick Watney, who fired a 4-under 67 and had to wonder why the pro-am extended over to Thursday.

Then there was defending champion Rory McIlroy. His mysterious year continued. A 7-over-par 78 featured a double-bogey 5 on his second hole, and a mid-round stretch of 5-over in three holes, including a triple bogey on the first hole. He was in a greenside bunker in two and made a hash of it.

But up front, everyone was smiling. Well, almost everyone. Woods, who annexed five Western Open / BMWs on Cog Hill’s demanding Dubsdread course, the most recent in 2009, found fault with his effort, never mind that 5-under-par 66 places him third after one lap of this 6,997-yard bull ring. (While the scoring average was an over-par 71.314, that’s surely the shortest course setup for a Western since the turn of the century; Dubsdread was listed as 7,051 yards in 2001. Since the move to the fall, the shortest setup had been for the first round in 2007, with Dubs at 7,196 yards.)

“I certainly wasted a lot of shots out there today,” Woods said. “I missed three short putts and played the par-5s ‘stupendously.’ One of those days. It was a golf course in which you could be really, really aggressive.”

Woods, who parred the three par-5s, said 3-woods were traveling over 300 yards, partly because the fairways were fast. But whereas it was 82 and sunny on Thursday, with a 21-mile-per-hour wind from the north-northwest much of the day, Friday is slated to be nippy, with a high of 62 and the wind from the northeast, almost a 90-degree shift and the opposite of what prevails in the summer. That will mean a new golf course in terms of clubs into each hole, and a wind the pros haven’t practiced with.

But will that mean low scores? A betting man would lean in that direction.

The object of this week’s game is both to win and to advance to next week’s 30-man Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. That means players like McIlroy, ranked 40th coming in and tied for 66th in the tournament after one round, need to step it up over the last three rounds.

Snedeker is a lock, a far cry from the situation he found himself in at Cog Hill in 2009. With one hole to play, he was headed to Atlanta. He four-putted Dubsdread’s last green and fell out of the final field. Last year, he won the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus that goes with it. This year, even if he withdraws, he’ll be ranked no worse than 17th heading to Atlanta.

Nice guys do finish first sometimes.

Traffic a nightmare, but ...

... that’s a good thing in the long run. First, it means the tournament, which languished in the fall at Cog Hill, largely because fans used to coming out in the summer no longer did so, has renewed its Chicago base, and in one fell swoop.

Second, there are plans to open auxiliary parking lots adjacent to the main lot for the weekend to lessen the strain on the main parking lot on Everett Road, which was filled by about 12:30 p.m. At 12:40 p.m., the WGA announced a sellout for the day – daily tickets are $55 at the gate – the first time they’ve had to do so. It had the look of a Masters practice round crowd in places. The IG estimate for the day is 40,000, the largest crowd for the tournament in Chicago since it moved to the fall in 2007. That equaled the WGA’s estimate for last year’s final round at Crooked Stick last year, which was whispered into NBC’s ear.

(There was no limit to the crowds at Cog Hill, which often topped 50,000 in the summer, because of the huge parking lots across the street.)

The morning’s headache, however, included a backup of about 1.5 miles on the northbound Tri-State Tollway at the Route 60 (Town Line Road) exit. The problem was increased by a lack of police overriding the traffic lights on the overpass or at the turn from Town Line to the parking lot. With poor traffic flow, there was no flow at all. Traffic also backed up to the east of the main entrance.

Around Conway Farms

Phil Mickelson, who didn’t play in the pro-am because of a family issue back home, rolled in Thursday morning and posted a 1-under-par 70 on his first trip around Conway Farms. (Luke Donald, who has played the course more than anyone, came in with the same number.) ... One must hope that the WGA is getting a cut of the concessions this week. Aside from a glass of wine, the most expensive item is a $7.50 veggie wrap that likely costs no more than a dollar to wrap together. ... Friday’s round starts at 10:20 a.m., the same as the first round, when the last tee time 12:21 p.m. Leader Brandt Snedeker will be off the first tee at 11:48 a.m. ...  The longest drive of the day belonged to Ernie Els, who belted his tee shot 361 yards on the par-5 eighth hole, which had a following crosswind.

– Tim Cronin

The password is: Birdies

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Wednesday, September 11, 2013

    Professional golfers often talk in code.
    Rarely do they criticize a course outright – though Cog Hill’s Dubsdread layout was an exception after Rees Jones’ redo of the Dick Wilson original. Even Steve Stricker had harsh words.
    So it was interesting to hear Stricker comment on Conway Farms Golf Club after his pro-am round on Wednesday, a day in advance of the commencement of hostilities in the BMW Championship – the 110th Western Open, as it were – on the Tom Fazio layout.
    The key phrase from Stricker’s dissertation: “I think this venue is – I think the scoring is going to be a little bit better here than what we’ve seen at Cog Hill.”
    That’s code for: Birdies, baby. We’re going to shoot the lights out this weekend.
    As in the course record 11-under-par 60s Harris English and Patrick Reed fired during Wednesday’s pro-am. That wasn’t their team score. That was their individual scores. Sixty.
    Stricker didn’t know that, but he knew why low, low numbers are possible.
    “Conway Farms is, I think, a little bit more generous off the tees,” he explained. “The green complexes here are a little bit more old school, even though the course is not that old.
    “Cog Hill (has) a little bit harder green complexes, a little bit more manufactured, tougher to get to some of the pin locations. Here I think you can get to a lot of them.”
    Getting to the pins means putting for birdies, and Conway Farms’ greens were, even before Jones put Dubsdread’s greens on steroids, much flatter, built for the 11-foot Stimpmeter readings the club commonly boasts.
    Pros can sink straight putts all day long, even if they’re putting on marble.
    Stricker is not alone in his assessment. Henrik Stenson, leader in the PGA Tour’s playoff derby that concludes next week at East Lake, sees players able to be aggressive or conservative.
    “It gives you quite a few different opportunities and tactics,” Stenson said.
    “Par is not going to be a great score come four days, but we’re used to that,” Zach Johnson said, adding that he prefers it to Cog Hill. “Making birdies is part of it. This has got some teeth; it’s going to be based on wind.”
    Then there’s Jordan Spieth, the rookie sensation who won the John Deere Classic on TPC Deere Run, the birdie and eagle sanctuary in Silvis two months ago. Even though most of the fairways at Conway Farms are at least as wide as those at Deere Run, he sees challenges.
    “I think when the pins start getting put onto ledges, these greens are pretty funky on the back nine,” Spieth said. “If you’re attacking with an 8-iron, it’s going to make you think.”
    Tiger Woods, seeking his eighth victory in the Chicago area – five Western Opens and a pair of PGAs – has already thought it out.
    “We know we’ve got some easier holes out there, and if you drive the ball well, you’re going to have a lot of 8-iron on down, and those are some scoring clubs,” Woods said. “There’s a lot of funneling where you can get to some of these pins. You don’t have to fire right at the flag, you can funnel it in there.
    “You can get the ball pretty stiff. Yeah, the scores are going to be low.”
    Woods noted the weather is supposed to change on Friday – a 64-degree high, compared to the 90s of Tuesday and Wednesday – which would make things completely different, from wind direction to the distance a ball would carry.

    The Numbers Game

    Some of the numbers this week are obvious: the top 30 in the standings advance to East Lake and the Tour Championship, leaving 40 players to slam their trunks on Sunday, rather than Friday. There’s $8 million on offer, with $1.44 million shoved in the winner’s pockets.
    But there are also less obvious numbers, including five. Squeeze into the top five in the standings, and you can win the FedEx Cup and the $10 million bonus that goes with it if you win at East Lake. Arrive in Atlanta sitting from sixth to 30th, and other things have to happen besides a victory to bag the extra boodle.
    The other number of interest this week will be the attendance. Galleries at Cog Hill never warmed to a Western Open / BMW in September. The week’s attendance two years ago was only 49,000. Moving to Conway Farms, almost a different market given the 40-mile difference as the Titleist flies, and in the middle of the high-income district, has coaxed more corporate support from Chicago firms than the WGA has seen in years. Ticket sales are also up. The net may approach the $3 million earned at Bellerive near St. Louis in 2007, which will boost the Evans Scholars Foundation, the WGA’s caddies-to-college charity wing.

    Around Conway Farms

    A pair of brief showers cooled down the atmosphere in the early afternoon, but didn’t stop play. Had this tournament been played at Cog Hill, play would have been halted at mid-afternoon, when a severe thunderstorm rolled through the Lemont area, including 56-mile per hour winds. ... Golf Channel and NBC are combining for 22 1/2 hours of coverage, some of which will overlap on the weekend. Golf Channel will present “complementary coverage” of the final four holes for 5 1/2 hours while NBC is covering the whole tournament on Saturday and Sunday. Thursday and Friday, GC is on from 2-5 p.m. Chicago time.

    – Tim Cronin

Party at Luke’s place! (He gets to play too)

    Writing from Lake Forest, Illinois
    Tuesday, September 10, 2013

    Once upon a time, Luke Donald scored 61 at Conway Farms Golf Club, where he’s a member.
    Someone may do that this week, for the understatedly posh club in tony Lake Forest is hosting the BMW Championship – or the 110th Western Open, for the history buffs out there – and with the top 70 players in the field and the par-71 course listed at just 7,149 yards, a 61 could well be out there. So could an aggregate of around 20-under-par 264.
    But it would be an upset if Donald, the Northwestern grad who was ranked No. 1 in the world not too long ago, was the culprit.
    He’s fallen to 13th in the world ranking now, and that’s a generous placing, thanks to how  older scores decay slowly. The more accurate ranking is 54th. That’s where Donald sits in the PGA Tour’ s playoff standings through two of the first four tournaments. Thus, he was only 17 places from not making the show he helped draw to his home club. Donald’s game isn’t in tatters, but it isn’t close to where he wants it, either.
    That’s why he’s changing teachers. Longtime guru Pat Goss, the Northwestern coach who lured Donald from England to Evanston in the first place, and has remained his main man since Donald matriculated from NU to the professional ranks, will now work with Donald only on the short game. Chuck Cook will work with him on hitting the ball longer and in the fairway more often, which has always been a weak point.
    “It’s been very hard this year,” Donald said Tuesday. “It’s been frustrating at times, and I’ve had to make some tough decisions in terms of changing swing coaches. ... I feel pretty good about where things are headed and I’m excited about the future.
    “This year? I still have time to rescue it. I’m going to have to do it this week, and that’s the beauty of the FedEx Cup. It takes one good week to kind of rescue a year. I have a great opportunity.”
    Donald’s goal has been to win major championships, and he’s rarely contended in them. Several of Cook’s students have won majors, beginning with Payne Stewart and continuing to Jason Dufner, who has the Wanamaker Trophy in his house even as we write.
    Donald has a space for it, but it hadn’t happened with Goss working on the entire swing.
    “Outside of telling my brother I didn’t want him to caddie for me anymore, it was the second toughest decision I’ve ever had to make on the golf course,” Donald said. “I got to No. 1 and certainly would never take anything away from what we did together.
    “But it’s a feeling – as a player, you always know what you feel inside, and I want to just feel a little bit more in control of my ball when I’ve over it.”
    So he went to Goss with the news.
    “He understood it perfectly,” Donald said. “I felt like if I didn’t at least try something different, I would have regrets that I didn’t at least try.”
    Donald realized something was off when he played with Justin Rose in the final round of the U.S. Open. Rose shot 70 and went on to win. Donald shot 75 and finished tied for eighth, five strokes behind. It was similar to his pairing with Tiger Woods in the final round of the 2005 PGA at Medinah, when Woods shot 68 and won, while Donald shot 74 and tied for third. He was there, and it didn’t happen.
    Now, it was happening again at Merion.
    “A light went off in my head,” Donald said. “I was just very impressed with his ball striking. Major championships, if you want to win them and be consistent and have chances to win there, there’s a little bit more of a premium on tee to green at majors than most weeks.
    “I feel I needed to get a little bit more consistency in my game. I have a little bit of an old-fashioned swing where I use my hands a bit too much and not rely on just the bigger muscles, which is what Chuck is trying to get me to do in my swing now.”
    Swing changes can take months to implement, even for top players. Tiger Woods took more than a year to get used to his new swing when he went to Butch Harmon, and a long time again when he went to Hank Haney. His switch to Sean Foley hasn’t resulted in a major yet.
    Donald went to Foley and was told by Foley that he didn’t have enough time to work with him, given Donald’s plan to work long hours on the change. But Foley recommended Cook, and after a meeting at Firestone, they began working together at the PGA Championship the following week.
    “I’m a quick learner, and I should be able to get most of it down by the end of the year,” Donald said. “So far I’m seeing results.”
    So should the Western Golf Association this week. Corporate tents have sprouted across Conway Farms like dandelions in a golf writer’s backyard, ticket sales are booming, and there’s a buzz in the air that is different from the one at Cog Hill after the Western Open was switched from July to September. Donald, involved in the process, is thrilled.
    “It was nice to have an opinion,” Donald said. “I’m not sure they listened to me or not, but they certainly asked my opinion, and it’s nice to see it finally come here. I tried to steer them towards this course. Obviously selfishly because I know it very well, and I think it’s a good place to have a tournament.”
    Donald scored his 61 when the course was a bit shorter. New back tees have been added on a handful of holes since, and the first green was reworked as well.
    “They Luke-proofed it,” Donald kidded. “No, it doesn’t play that long, but they certainly made some good changes over the last couple years, and even asked my opinion, which was nice of them.”
    Donald is in the next-to-last grouping on the first two days, playing with fellow Brit Ian Pounter and Charley Hoffman. That’s a little out of the spotlight. It’s up to Donald to make it shine more brightly on him over the weekend.
    – Tim Cronin

This is not your father's WGA

    Writing from Fort Wayne, Indiana
    Thursday, August 29, 2013

    There was a time, not too many years back, when you could set your watch by the timing of the Western Golf Association’s three championships, and could drive to two of them in your sleep, so hardened was the pattern.
    The Western Open was on Cog Hill’s treacherous Dubsdread course around the Fourth of July. The Western Amateur was at Point O’Woods, just outside of Benton Harbor, Mich., in early August. And the Western Junior was in between, moving from site to site.
    That worked, and worked well, both in terms of player acceptance – the pros were pleased with Dubsdread, at least until they weren’t, the amateurs enamored with what Chick Evans once called “the peerless Point” – and in revenue. In some years, the Western Open sometimes cleared $2 million, all of it filling the coffers of the Evans Scholars Foundation, the WGA’s caddies-to-college charity wing.
    But times change. On the amateur side, crowds at the Point dwindled after the grand era of Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard and Tiger Woods ended, and the club, which made money the great triumvirate of parking, admission and concession sales, began to ask the WGA for a site fee. After a year of that, the WGA took the Western Amateur back to its Chicago roots, establishing a rotation of metropolitan clubs that was amended this year for a jaunt to the Alotian Club, the Augusta Nationalesque spot just outside of Little Rock, Ark. Jordan Niebrugge, a Wisconsin lad of whom much more will be heard, emerged victorious.
    The emergence of the PGA Tour’s playoffs, which, as longtime readers will recall, the WGA was shoved into, has proven to be a boon for the organization. Leave aside that BMW, even while changing the Western Open’s name, has proven to be a far more worthwhile sponsor than Cialis, both from an image standpoint and from the marketing angle. Other benefits are mush more tangible.
    BMW has also filled the WGA’s coffers, both directly and indirectly. The automaker sponsors another Evans Scholarship every time a player makes an ace in what is now called the BMW Championship, and the move to the playoff season – when the tournament was played outside Chicago, at least – has returned bigger net results than ever to the operation.
    The lesson of the excursions to Bellerive in 2008 and Crooked Stick last year, where the BMW drew massive crowds – Sunday at Crooked Stick attracted about 45,000 people, compared to 49,000 at Dubsdread for seven days the year before – has not been lost on Western Golf’s leaders, from boss John Kaczkowski and tournament impresario Vince Pellegrino to the volunteer directors who wear green coats. Paraphrasing bank robber Willie Sutton, the lesson is this: Go where the money is.
    That’s why Dubsdread is in the WGA’s rear-view mirror and Conway Farms Golf Club is straight ahead. The last few weeks, Pellegrino has been looking at maps of the course and looking for more room for corporate hospitality, which goes for anywhere from $18,000 to $300,000 – the latter granting the ability to use the clubhouse for the week, and that’s spoken for. Suites weren’t nearly as valuable at Cog Hill, because there was more supply than demand.
    What’s more, advance ticket sales are up. If as many come to Conway Farms for the week as they did to Crooked Stick, it will be crowded, and that’s a problem the WGA would love to have. And have again in 2015, when, barring flood or famine, the tournament will come back to Conway.
    The pattern now seems set. Odd-numbered years somewhere in Chicago in a moneyed neighborhood – that likely leaves out the south and southwest suburbs – and even-numbered years out of town. Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colo., just outside of Denver, is next week’s destination. In 2016, it’s expected Harding Park Golf Course, the ultra-tough municipal course in San Francisco, will be the host, whether or not BMW extends its contract to sponsor the Western beyond next year.
    Ticket sales in Denver have just opened and are boffo so far, boosted by a TV spot that includes John Elway, who was president of Cherry Hills when the 2014 deal was struck, and Peyton Manning. Nobody’s ever heard of those guys in Denver.
    All of this means more Evans Scholars at a time when educational costs are going nowhere but up. This autumn, two scholars are attending Notre Dame, the first time in over a half-century that the WGA and ND, which has no fraternities, have collaborated.
    But wait, there’s more. Many WGA staffers and directors are here in Fort Wayne this week for the Hotel Fitness Championship, the first of four tournaments in the web.com playoff series, a.k.a. the new version of PGA Tour School. Kaczkowski, having created the Match Play Challenge and Green Coat Gala, wanted to expand the WGA’s tournament slate, and this fills the bill.
    Thursday’s first round at Sycamore Hills Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus design in a development with homes almost the size of San Simeon, was better attended than might have been expected for a tournament in a small city with a former Masters and Western Open winner – Trevor Immelman – as the biggest name. But the circus is in town, and the 2,000 car parking lot was more than half full by late in the morning, with more people coming in. Scott McCarron’s 8-under-par 64 brought him a one-stroke lead and matched the course record.
    If hanging the WGA shingle out at Sycamore Hills means a few more Scholars for the next academic year, on top of the publicity for the program, the goal will have been met. And after Sunday night, the next stop is Conway Farms, where today the welcome sign went up. Next week, the welcome mat will be rolled out.
    – Tim Cronin

Small back on top

    Writing from Olympia Fields, Illinois
    Wednesday, August 28, 2013

    Mike Small is back.
    Back to hitting booming drives. Back to hitting crisp irons close to the cup. Back to making birdies when he needs them.
    Back in the winner’s circle. Back on top.
    Small scored 3-under-par 68 on Wednesday to capture his 10th Illinois PGA Championship with a three-round total of 4-under-par 209 on Olympia Fields’ demanding South Course.
    It was Small’s 15th state major championship – a record, as is the 10 section titles – and his first title in three years. One of three inductees to the Illinois Golf Hall of Fame in the fall, the 47-year-old Small had been in a drought since winning the Illinois PGA on the same South Course in 2010.
    This victory came by four strokes over the trio of Curtis Malm, Matt Slowinski and Travis Johns. Only Johns could match Small’s 68, and merely matching the Illinois men’s golf coach wasn’t enough on this breezy day when he had complete control of his game, and the result that control deserved.
    “Today, I did it,” Small said. “It was an easy, solid 68.”
    As opposed to, say, his scramble for a 2-under 69 on Monday, which started the adventure. Then, Small, a perfectionist, was less than perfect, but made the most of his misses. Wednesday, there were no misses.
    “The last 12-13 holes, I didn’t come close to making bogey,” Small said.
    Or the rest of the day, for that matter. And he made only one bogey in his last 27 holes.
    The day started with Slowinski in the lead, but not for long. Three bogeys on the first three holes dropped him down, and Malm, with birdies on the third and fourth, moved in front.
    Then Malm bogeyed the fifth and seventh holes, opening the door for Small, who had parred the first six holes. His birdie on the seventh gave him the lead.
    Give Mike Small the lead and he’s not going to give it away. Three more pars followed, then a birdie on the par-4 11th, then the blow that locked it up, a 30-footer for birdie on the par-3 12th.
    Small was pleased, but more pleased with the shot that set up the putt.
    “It was a 215-yard 6-iron to the middle of the green,” he said. “The putt just happened to go in.”
    With that, Slowinski and Malm knew they were playing for second place.
    “Curtis and I were in the same boat all day,” Slowinski said. “I was still right there after getting up-and-down on the fourth and fifth. I three-putted the sixth, and Mike got a couple ahead.”
    And stayed there.
    “How do I win this? I need Mike Small to retire,” Malm kidded.
    Johns was in a familiar position. He was also runner-up to Small at Olympia Fields three years ago.
    Aside from Small, who was already exempt, ten players from the field qualified for next year’s PGA club pro championship, to be held in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The last man in, via a four-for-one playoff, was Cantigny teaching pro Rich Dukelow, who made a par on the first playoff hole when the other three made bogey.
    
    Mitchell captures Illinois Mid-Amateur

    Todd Mitchell of Bloomington added a 2-under-par 70 to his opening pair of 69s to score a four-stroke victory over Glenview’s Kyle Nathan in the 21st Illinois Mid-Amateur at Flossmoor Country Club.
    The overnight leader, Mitchell birdied two of his first four holes to expand his lead, and coasted home with six pars and a birdie in his last seven holes – the birdie on the treacherous 17th – to collect his fourth victory in the CDGA’s state championship for the 25-and-up set.
    Mitchell’s three-round total of 8-under-par 208 and Nathan’s 4-under 212 – the latter highlighted by Wednesday’s 4-under 68, the best round of the day – were the only two aggregates under Flossmoor’s par of 72. Brian Hickey of Downers Grove was third, at even par 216.

    – Tim Cronin