Bo knows Crooked Stick, sort of

    Wednesday, September 5, 2012

    Writing from Carmel, Ind.

    Bo Van Pelt is the local boy who is making good.
    A native of nearby Richmond, Ind., who now lives in Tulsa, Okla., Van Pelt is likely the only man in the field of 70 BMW Championship players who was at Crooked Stick Golf Club during the 1991 PGA Championship.
    Watching. As a spectator, complete with ticket hanging around his neck.
    “I played here one time growing up, and I was here in ’91 and watched as a spectator,” Van Pelt said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t say I have any local advantage. I’ll get some home cooking at my sister’s house, so that’s about it.”
    Not only did nobody in the field play in the 1991 PGA, nobody in the field was on the PGA Tour yet.
    Vijay Singh had played in a handful of British Opens by then, but he was still on the Asian and European circuits. Phil Mickelson was still an amateur, so had played in the Masters and U.S. Open – and won the Phoenix Open in 1991 – but wasn’t yet a pro, so wasn’t at Crooked Stick when John Daly, the most famous ninth alternate in the history of golf, came up from Arkansas the night before and ended up holding the Rodman Wanamaker Trophy after Bruce Lietzke and the other contenders failed to charge on Sunday.
    To show how fast time passes, Rory McIlroy, the world’s top-ranked player, was still in diapers. He was born in May of 1989, though let the record show he smacked a drive 40 yards, only about 280 yards behind big-hitting Daly, at age 2.

    It’s Rory’s world

    It’s good to be the king.
    It’s even better to be the king and 23, as the aforementioned Rory McIlroy is.
    A year after winning the U.S. Open by eight strokes in his first major after throwing away the Masters Tournament, in the middle of a blossoming romance with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, McIlroy silenced his critics and collected even more fans by winning the PGA Championship by eight strokes.
    The only other player since World War I to win more than one major by eight or more: Tiger Woods, who has done so in the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA. (The only guys before were Yound Tom Morris and J.H. Taylor, twice each in the British Open.)
    How good is that?
    And how does he get into such an amazing zone?
    “When that does happen, you have to realize it’s happening and just get out of your own way and just completely play one shot at a time,” McIlroy said. “Obviously you’re hitting the ball well, you’re just trying to hit it in the fairway, hit it on the green, hole the putt, go to the next hole, do it all over again. That’s what you’re trying to do.”
    Tiger Woods calls it plodding along. It’s a little more than that.
    “When you’re on like that, it’s obviously a great feeling,” McIlroy said. “It’s very difficult to play like that all the time, and that’s why the great players, they learn to win when they’re not playing their best.
    “That’s something that I still feel I’m learning to do. I think I sort of did that a little bit last week. I struggled to close out the tournament (the Deutsche Bank Championship near Boston), but had a couple of crucial up-and-downs on the way in. That’s what the great players do. They find a way.”
    Unless they’re injured. McIlroy’s great good friend Wozniacki, who has been nursing a wonky right knee, was knocked out of the U.S. Open in the first round by Irini-Camelia Begu.

    Around Crooked Stick

    The par 72 course tops out at 7,497 yards, but is expected to play closer to 7,350 in each of the four rounds, once tees and pin positions are juggled around. It would have listed even longer had Pete Dye, the founding architect who has a home off the 18th fairway, gotten his way and added even more back tees to his 40-plus-year pet project. ... Play in Wednesday’s pro-am was held up for nearly two hours starting at 11:31 a.m. because of a thunderstorm that drenched the course, with the morning rounds ended where they were stopped – Tiger Woods’ group, first off, played 15 1/2 holes – and the afternoon groups limited to nine holes beginning at 1:15 p.m.. This year’s tab for playing in the pro-am, which helps fund the Evans Scholars Foundation: $8,000. It had a full field of 156 amateurs, bringing in $1.248 million for the caddies-to-college program.
    – Tim Cronin

Weeks: Open berth "great reward for Armstrong"

    Writing from Chicago
    Wednesday, July 4, 2012

    In his years as a teaching professional, Kevin Weeks has tutored many fine players, including several notables on the PGA and LPGA tours.
    Of Ashley Armstrong’s berth in the 67th United States Women’s Open, Weeks says, “Nobody has worked harder nor deserves it more. This is a great reward for her.”
    Weeks was at Blackwolf Run, where the Women’s Open begins Thursday morning, earlier in the week to help tune the Flossmoor standout’s game. The veteran teacher at Cog Hill said one thing she hasn’t been thinking about is making the cut.
    “You don’t think about cuts,” Weeks said. “You just play as good as you can play. She will play as good as she can play. You play and you see where you stack up.”
    After the Open, Weeks and Armstrong will meet at Cog Hill, where Weeks will pose this question to her: “Where do you want to get better?”
    Armstrong, an eager learner and tenacious competitor, will no doubt have a long list, no matter how she fares at Blackwolf Run. She tees off on the 10th hole Thursday at 2:31 p.m.
    – Tim Cronin

Armstrong braces for Blackwolf's bite

    Writing from Chicago
    Monday, July 2, 2012

    Ashley Armstrong knows what she’s in for.
    “Blackwolf Run is insanely hard but awesome,” Armstrong said Monday from Kohler, Wis., where she’s preparing for the 67th United States Women’s Open at the posh course attached to the even more posh American Club.
    “Like my caddie says, this course has the highest winning score for all the U.S. Women’s Opens.”
    To get technical, the 6-over-par 290 scored by Se Ri Pak and Jenny Chuasiriporn in 1998 to force a playoff – Pak won it on the 20th hole of a playoff the following day, scoring 2-over 73 for the regulation 18 – matched the highest winning score in a Women’s Open since 1977. In other words, since about 16 years before Armstrong was born.
    Armstrong, whose talent on the course manifested itself when she was in grade school, has blossomed in the last 12 months. Winning in her final appearance on the AJGA circuit, and then capturing the Women’s Western Junior at Flossmoor Country Club, her home course, was the ideal grand finale to her junior career. Since then, she’s picked up the individual Big East Conference title, plus a first-team conference berth, plus rookie – freshman, that is – of the year in her first go-round for Notre Dame.
    Thursday at 2:31 p.m., she’ll stand on the opening tee of the biggest women’s golf tournament in the world, the most major of the women’s major championship, hear her name announced, and, ideally, take a deep breath.
    “That’s when it’s finally going to kick in,” Armstrong said. “There will be some spectators today, but there will be a lot of them on Thursday. Garrett (Chaussard, a Cog Hill teaching pro who will caddie for her) says the biggest adjustment this week will be from Wednesday to Thursday. He said, ‘Everybody will be looking at you.’ ”
    Armstrong has dealt with eyes on her in competition before, notably at three straight Class AA tournaments, when she and next-door neighbor Michelle Mayer, now at Illinois, were leading Homewood-Flossmoor to a team title and a pair of runner-up berths. And she felt their gaze in the Women’s Western Junior last year, when, 2 down with three holes to play, she forged a tie at the last and scored the victory on the second extra hole with a passel of Flossmoor members rooting her on.
    Pressure? Armstrong’s been there, done that. Even waiting to find out if she moved up from alternate status to a berth in the field – she found out Sunday on the putting green when a USGA official gave her the word – was dealt with matter-of-factly.
    “I didn’t want to get too excited about it, because I didn’t want to be too dejected if I didn’t make it,” Armstrong said.
    What she hasn’t dealt with is a course this long. The United States Golf Association can set Blackwolf Run up as long as 6,954 yards. Four par-4s are over 400 yards. The seventh hole is a 590-yard par 5, while the 16th is 602 yards, a mammoth distance for the women. Armstrong, a mighty mite but not the world’s longest hitter, played from every back tee in Monday’s practice round to see what the grind would be like.
    “There are some par 4s I’ll play as par 5s and try to make ‘birdie,’ ” Armstrong said. “My strategy is to not make big mistakes. There are gonna be bogeys out there. It’s pretty crazy long. I’ll take it one shot at a time and see what happens.”
    The unstated goal is to make the cut, to advance to the final 36 holes. Only the low 60 players and ties from the field of 156 advance to the weekend. In 1998, the cut was 8-over-par 150, but Blackwolf Run’s Championship Course – the original 18 crafted by Pete Dye – played close to 500 yards shorter. This time? Who knows?
    Armstrong believes her first year of college play has steeled her for what’s to come.
    “The biggest thing college golf has done for me is help my confidence,” Armstrong said. “I realized I was not exactly the biggest hitter on the range. So I’ll be hitting hybrids and woods into the greens. And there are some mean pins out there.”
    The best part of her game is her approach game, and putting. Growing up at Flossmoor may give her an advantage, for superintendent Tom Lively can really speed Flossmoor's greens up.
    “Flossmoor is very, very fast,” Armstrong said.
    Parents Dean and Carolyn are busting their buttons with pride, of course.
    “By now, they’re more excited than I am,” Armstrong said.
    But this cool customer is also just a bit wide-eyed about the whole thing.
    “Today we picked up my Lexus, the courtesy car for the week,” Armstrong said. “Today I signed autographs for little kids. It’s all so cool.”
    Things heat up at the previously-noted time of 2:31 p.m. Thursday, the penultimate tee time of the day. Armstrong, the only Illinoisian in the field, will be playing with Cydney Clanton of Concord, N.C. and fellow amateur Shannon Aubert of Champions Gate, Fla.
    – Tim Cronin

Remembering Don Johnson

It came as a shock to all when the news broke that former Western Golf Association executive director/president Don Johnson had died on May 24. He was 77 but seemed so young, and was always young at heart.

Johnson, who took control of the financially shaky WGA in 1988 and built a $45 million endowment by the time of his 2009 retirement, died in his Lake Bluff home.

In his 21 years, he turned the WGA from a group that lived from hand to mouth and often needed to borrow money to meet the scholarship obilgations for the Evans Scholars program to one that, as he said, "could survive a complete rainout" of a Western Open (now titled the BMW Championship) and not need to reduce the number of scholars.

That, as much or more than the memories of the golf championships the WGA conducted in his tenure – and it's hard to get the vision of Tiger Woods coming down the 18th fairway of Cog Hill's Dubsdread course, followed by hundreds of his fans, out of one's mind – will be Don Johnson's legacy.

“Don’s leadership skills were vital to our organization’s success for more than two decades,” successor John Kaczkowski said. “His leadership resulted in the presentation of world-class championships that were admired and respected throughout the golf world."

A caddie in his youth and a lawyer by trade, Johnson active first in the Wisconsin State Golf Association, and was a WGA director for five years before replacing the retiring Marshall Dann.

He exuded cool when cool wasn't necessarily part of the equation for an executive in the often stuffy world of golf. Maybe it was the full head of white hair. Maybe it was the plus-fours he habitually wore at tournament sites. It was probably both, but Johnson was also a fine leader. He said more than once, "I've got the finest staff in golf," but he built it, hiring almost everyone in the office in Golf – only educational director Jim Moore preceded him among the key personnel – in his tenure.

He is survived by his wife, Jane; a son, Benjamin, at home; two daughters, Mindy Carter, Madison, Wis., and Tally Nathan, Paradise Valley, Ariz.; four grandchildren, Nikki Nametz, Brittany Klutsky, Max Nathan and Brenner Nathan; and one sister, Lisa Hillyer, Colorado Springs, Colo. He was preceded in death by his parents and one sister, Pamela Helfrich.

Memorials in the name of Don Johnson may be made to the Evans Scholars Foundation, 1 Briar Rd., Golf, IL 60029, or online at www.wgaesf.org.

– Tim Cronin

Irwin lurks, but Chapman won't go away

Reporting from Benton Harbor, Mich.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Never mind the Joel Edwards and the Roger Chapmans of the senior golf world. They're fine fellows, and Chapman has been playing like his life depends on it, but the guy who should win the 73rd Senior PGA Championship is the guy who shot his age in Friday's third round at Harbor Shores.

Guy named Hale Irwin. You've probably heard of him.

The guy who did a victory lap on the 18th green at Medinah after sinking a 45-footer to tie Mike Donald and force a playoff in the U.S. Open – and then beat Donald on the 19th hole the next day to claim his third Open title.

The guy who won the toughest Open in modern times, the one Dick Schapp named the "massacre at Winged Foot."

The guy whose other Open title came at Inverness in 1979, where the USGA planted a tree during the tournament to close off an escape route.

That guy.

A winner at Butler National, Pebble Beach, Riviera, Harbour Town, and other difficult picture postcard tests. The one going for a fifth Senior PGA title here.

Harbor Shores, despite being less than 7,000 yards, fits the profile of the above courses. The greens, heaving and swaying like wind-whipped waves on nearby Lake Michigan, make the golf course a real chore. As Fred Couples said Saturday, "Augusta (National) green roll at like 15. If these rolled at 15, we would still be on Thursday's round."

Irwin's 5-under-par 66 on Friday was a masterpiece of precision, with all the numbers that might be expected of a champion. His game, even at age 66, is capable of resembling that of the Hale Irwin who was once 36. Eleven fairways hit out of 13. Sixteen greens in regulation. Twenty-nine putts. Nary a bunker wandered into. And up-and-down pars on the two greens he missed.

Standard stuff for Irwin, of course. The only amazing thing about Friday's dramatics is that Irwin had to admit he's 66. He still has the mentality of the all-Big Eight defensive back that he was at Colorado in the 1960s.

"I think genetically I'm put together pretty well," Irwin said. "It's just my competitive nature. You might, you might not beat me, but you're not going to out-try me, out-heart me, whatever that means."

What it means is that while much of the field has been howling about Jack Nicklaus' wild-and-crazy greens, Irwin has gone about his business in this senior major. Not that Irwin was perfect in the second round. His last hole was the par-5 ninth. He bogeyed it by three-putting.

"A real killer," Irwin said. Speaking of which, the fourth hole Saturday was more than that. A par 3 with a stream to the left, it looks relatively harmless. Irwin splashed his tee shot and finished by three-putting. The triple-bogey 6 dropped him seven strokes off the lead an hour before NBC ventured onto the air.

Irwin fought back, birdies on the seventh and eighth holes, which hug Lake Michigan, allowing him to turn in 1-over 37, and then played the back nine in 3-under 32, to stand at 7-under 206 entering Sunday's final round. That's good for a tie for third with Steve Pate, seven strokes in arrears of Chapman, the Kenyan-born British subject who has won once in his professional career – that in Brazil – but refuses to go away. (John Cook is second, at 9-under 204, ater Saturday's 2-under 69.)

Chapman's course-record tying 64 on Saturday – for a total of 14-under 199 – included a back nine of 5-under 30.

"The best iron play I've ever played in my career," Chapman said. His five birdies on the back added up to only 29 feet of putts. Chapman's 2000 win in Brazil – in the Rio de Janeiro 500 Years Open – came on the second playoff hole over Padraig Harrington when Harrington plunked a shot into the water. Chapman had done so on the first hole but survived when Harrington three-putted.

"I sort of backed in, but it was still a good feeling," Chapman said.

Maybe he should be minded. At the very least, he has one hand on the Alfred Bourne Trophy. Irwin, the old defensive back, will have to throw a hard block to knock it out of his hands on Sunday.

–Tim Cronin