Woods: Olympics, Cog Hill perfect for each other

Writing from Lemont, Ill.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Count Tiger Woods among those who not only approve of the changes on Cog Hill's difficult Dubsdread course, but among those who see it as a potential site for the U.S. Open – and the Olympics, if Chicago wins that prize for 2016.

"I think it would be great, and I think you would have to have it on a public venue," Woods said. "I don't think you could have it on a country club. I think it would have to be a public venue, just because of the nature of what the Olympics is all about. Certainly, this golf course is a stand-alone among public venues in the Chicago area.

"I don't know another (public) golf course that could rival this one as far as difficulty."

Tim Finchem, the PGA Tour's commissioner, is also in the Chicago Olympics camp.

"We could play golf in the Olympics in 2016 in any of these cities, but Chicago has the best golf, probably, of any city in the world," Finchem said. "This isn't a bad place right here at Cog Hill. But there are so many great courses in Chicago, it'll be good to have a couple of years to decide where to play."

The governing body of Olympic golf would be the international federation that includes the United States Golf Association, Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, and the various pro tours, including the PGA Tour, LPGA and European PGA Tour. The Chicago Olympic organizing committee would have a great deal to say about it.

Cog Hill and Olympia Fields have shown great interest, Medinah is expected to be interested, and Conway Farms, the club in Lake Forest which recently hosted the Western Amateur, also wants to host. The first three places are far more likely, and, from successful fundraisers for World Sport Chicago the last three years, Olympia Fields probably has the inside track.

As for the Open, Woods said he thought Dubsdread could host the USGA's big party.

"It depends on how they set it up, though," Woods said. "If you get the rough up, fairways would certainly be narrowed. I can certainly see them hosting one here, but you have to get the right conditions, or guys would be posting some pretty good scores here."

Verplank recalls the magic of 1985

Scott Verplank was still a student at Oklahoma State when he won the 1985 Western Open as an amateur. Even now, he has fond memories of that amazing week at Butler National Golf Club in Oak Brook.

"What a great experience," he said of beating the best players in the world, including, in a sudden-death playoff, Jim Thorpe. "It was pretty out of the blue. And it's kind of a shock, regardless of who you are.

"It would be like an amateur kid coming out and winning one of these playoff events," Verplank continued. "That's the field the Western Open drew."

Verplank wasn't just another token amateur in the field. He had won the U.S. Amateur the year before, and came into the Western the winner of his previous three tournaments, including the Western Amateur, and, the week before, the Porter Cup. On top of that, the day before the Western Open began, on the final day that Medinah Country Club's No. 3 Course was played as a par 71, Verplank went out with Bill Shean and posted a course record 65, birdieing the first four holes.

"Looking back, I should have known," Verplank said. "I had a 10-shot lead at the Porter Cup with four holes to go, got bored and bogeyed the last four to win by six. I should have said, 'I need to move on (and turn pro).' So then I come here and win the tournament.

"If I could have advised myself, I probably would have turned pro. But I don't regret that, because I went back to college and had a great time, graduated and accomplished goals I'd set for myself. It (turning pro) was a half-million dollar deal, not a $50 million deal. If it was today, if somebody did what I did 24 years ago, he'd be hitting the jackpot."

Verplank's done all right as a pro. He's 13th on the regular PGA Tour career money list, with $24,353,656. That $90,000 that went into Thorpe's pocket for "low pro" honors isn't even missed.

Around Dubsdread

Paul Casey withdrew with a rib injury, leaving the field at 69 players. It's the third year in three that the full 70 players will not be in the championship. Last year, Woods was MIA because of his wounded knee, while in 2007, four players, including Padraig Harrington and Phil Mickelson, were not at Cog Hill. … Along with Stan Mikita, WGN Radio's Steve Cochran and Auto Show PR maven and radio host Paul Brian, owner of one of Chicago's great voices, were in the pro-am field. So was golf architect Rees Jones, who refurbished Dubsdread. Said Jones, "The course won."

– Tim Cronin

Dubsdread: Devilish or docile?

Writing from Lemont, Ill.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009

So how different is devilish Dubsdread after $5.2 million in renovations?

"If it firms up, it's going to be a beast," Heath Slocum said after playing a practice round Tuesday on the jewel of Cog Hill Golf & Country Club.

That's different. In the recent past, before Rees Jones and his bulldozers played through, Dubs was sometimes a pushover for the pros, if the course was wet and the greens were holding.

Slocum's beastly notion may end up being the consensus opinion once the full field for the 106th Western Open convenes for the weekend's festivities. With the Deutsche Bank Championship ending in Norton, Mass., on Monday, few players were on hand early on Tuesday morning to give Dubsdread, revamped by architect Jones in the style of the late Dick Wilson and Joe Lee, an early whirl.

Even Tiger Woods, a notoriously early riser, skipped a morning practice round and mulled playing nine holes in the late afternoon. While Woods mulled, Steve Stricker took to the links. What he and Woods think will be revealed when they speak after their Wednesday duties in the Chick Evans Memorial Pro-Am.

Early reports found players in trouble where there had previously been easy escapes. Take Padraig Harrington, for instance. The three-time major champion found the left fairway bunker off the first tee, and needed three swipes to extricate himself from the pit.

Slocum called Dubs "kind of a new golf course. They've put in plenty of bunkers that you have to work. You're going to have to be accurate (off the tee). You get in some of these bunkers, it's going to be difficult to get the ball close and on the green in some instances.

"I'm just looking at it as a new golf course," Slocum said. "There are a few holes that visually are much the same. If you've played here in the past and had success in the past, a lot of targets are really similar."

Two years ago, Woods tore Dubsdread to shreds across 72 holes. His total of 22-under-par 262, based on rounds of 67-67-65-63 on the par-71 layout, broke the Western Open scoring record by five strokes – and runner-up Aaron Baddeley's 264 broke the old mark, established by Scott Hoch in 2001, by three. Even Stricker, who came in third, posted 266, which would have won any Western, under the BMW Championship moniker or not, by at least one stroke.

Twenty-two under par seems out of reach this week.

"I'd never put anything past anybody out here to shoot a good number," said Slocum, who won the Westchester Classic / Barclays at funky Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J. a fortnight ago. "If you play the back tees on all the par 3s and par 4s, I don't think we're reaching the number. If they move the tees around, and I think there's some chance of rain, you can still shoot some good scores out here."

The forecast is improved compared to Monday, but the course was wetter than the recent weather on Tuesday. Apparently, the PGA Tour didn't want the fairways running as fast as they might, so the sprinklers were on in the evening.

That could mean players hitting longer irons into more difficult greens, which usually means higher scores.

Hunter Mahan hopes things aren't too different.

"It's going to be longer and the greens are going to be raised up," Mahan said. "You just have to figure out the tendencies of it and hopefully you figure it out by Thursday."

Another year, another Cup

Mahan and U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover were selected for the U.S. President's Cup team by captain Fred Couples on Tuesday, while Greg Norman, captain of the everywhere-else-but-Europe squad, tabbed 17-year-old Ryo Ishikawa and Adam Scott, who has dropped from third to 53rd in the world rankings in the last 12 months.

"Everybody goes through slumps for different reasons," said Norman, who has experience in that regard. "He's got the playing skills, and the team camaraderie, what he can bring to the locker room. He was really a logical choice."

The President's Cup is three weeks from now at Harding Park Golf Course in San Francisco.

Around Dubsdread

Worries that Phil Mickelson would withdraw subsided when he requested a late tee-time for Wednesday's Chick Evans Memorial Pro-Am. Mickelson flew home to San Diego from Boston after completing play in the Deutsche Bank Championship, and is slated to fly into Chicago on Wednesday morning. Mickelson's wife Amy continues her recovery from breast cancer; Mickelson, 12th in the point standings, mulled not playing in the third of four playoff tournaments. … While forecasts still call for thunderstorms on Saturday and a chance of rain on Sunday, the PGA Tour's forecaster says the forecast has "done a 180" since Monday, and now is much more optimistic that the championship won't be affected. Last year's Western didn't start until Friday, the leftovers of a hurricane inundating Bellerive with over three inches of rain after the Wednesday pro-am.

– Tim Cronin

Laboring in Boston, calm at Cog Hill

Writing from Lemont, Ill.
Monday, September 7, 2009

It's a very quiet Labor Day at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club today, the first day of what used to be called Western Open week.

That's largely because the final round of the Deutsche Bank Championship, the Boston-area tournament, is underway on this very afternoon, with Tiger Woods having made the early noise with an 8-under-par 63 to finish at 12-under-par 272 and draw within a handful of shots of a feisty group of leaders.

While they fought it out, 1996 Western Open champion Steve Stricker winning to collect the $1.35 million champion's portion of the $7.5 million purse, there was little activity at Cog Hill. A handful of players, including Rory Sabbatini and Paul Casey, the latter returning from an injury, were on the practice range. Everyone else was either at or near Boston's Logan Airport by late afternoon.

Many of the special 70 who have qualified for the Western Golf Association's 106th Open Championship – the third under the banner of the BMW Championship – will arrive for their first look at the new-look Dubsdread by midday Tuesday.

Essentially, the Deutsche Bank cash grab is the qualifying tournament for this week's festivities on Dubsdread. Whereas there used to be a four-spot qualifier at the Village Links of Glen Ellyn to complete the field, the great majority of which was filled by PGA Tour exempt players, now all 70 players come from the Tour, but only by being among the top 70 in the season point standings. Stricker, incidentally, took over the top of the standings, ahead of Woods.

Happily for those who favor players with style and brio, Sergio Garcia played well enough to advance from Boston to Lemont. That was a considerable question entering the weekend, but Garcia's closing 67 for 276 lifted him to 55th in the standings from 71st.

As far as Cog Hill was concerned, the interest wasn't so much in who won in Boston, but in who made the top 70 in the standings. While Fred Couples, Lee Janzen, Briny Baird and Pekin's D.A. Points were among those falling out of the field, Garcia, former Western Open champion Stephen Ames, Woody Austin, Bruce Molder and Jeff Overton were among those playing their way in.

Charity Corner

Christopher Dobbins of Crystal Lake and Matthew Stang of White Bear Lake, Minn., are this year's recipients of the Chip Beck Evans Scholarships. The scholarships are funded by the $1 million bonus Beck earned by scoring 59 in the 1991 Las Vegas Invitational. Beck, a WGA director, is one of four incoming Illinois Golf Hall of Fame members. … Mark Wilson and wife Amy will be at UIC College Prep High on Chicago's West Side this morning at 10, leading the "Blessings In A Backpack" charitable cause. The initiative provides easy-to-prepare food in backpacks to needy school children who otherwise wouldn't have enough food for a weekend. Wilson, an Elmhurst resident who plays out of Cog Hill, is a two-time Tour winner.

Around Dubsdread

Dan Roan of WGN-TV won the Blackhawks Shootout, a four-hole exhibition with a collection of present and former Hawks, as well as some sportscasters. Roan, the best player among Chicago reporters, carded three birdies in four holes. A $10,000 donation was made on his behalf to the Evans Scholars Foundation, the championship's beneficiary. … Cog Hill president Katherine Jemsek is loving Dubsdread's par-3 sixth hole these days. She aced it on Sunday, sinking a 7-iron from the 137-yard forward tee. The pros will play it from up to 244 yards, but an ace is an ace is an ace. It's her first. … Practice rounds are on tap today – Woods is expected to play at 7 a.m., if he plays at all – as well as a wacky ceremony featuring Luke Donald waving a checkered flag to "start" the grounds crew of Ken Lapp on a final tuneup of the course.

– Tim Cronin

The Western Open returns home

Writing from Lemont, Ill.

Monday, September 7, 2009

The 106th Western Open – the third of at least six to be played under the title of the BMW Championship – today begins four days of preliminaries at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club leading up to the championship proper.

The opening gambit in this renewal of a championship that was born as a one-day, 36-hole affair in 1899 – and extended a day for Willie Smith to beat Laurie Auchterlonie in an 18-hole playoff at the Glen View Golf & Polo Club –  is a four-hole exhibition of Blackhawks wielding golf clubs rather than hockey sticks.

Given the proclivity of hockey players on golf courses, this is not extraordinary. Once upon a time, Hockey Hall of Famer Stan Mikita was a golf pro, and Original Six veteran Bill Ezinicki, to go farther back, played in the Western Open in 1958. He finished 53rd at Red Run Country Club, near Detroit, and collected $111.11. One only hopes that, should Patrick Kane be a surprise starter in the lineup, this time it won’t be a police lineup, and that, if he doesn’t tip his cabbie, he at least tips his caddie.

Whoever finishes 53rd in this year’s field of 70 will collect many times more from the purse, which will total $7.5 million if all eligible players start. This Western-cum-BMW may be the third of the four playoff tournaments proffered by the PGA Tour, but there were people missing in action the past two years.

In 2007, Padraig Harrington was the most notable of a quartet of absentees from Cog Hill. Last year, when the Western was played at Bellerive Country Club – BMW wishing to push car sales in greater St. Louis, and the timing allowing Cog Hill boss Frank Jemsek to proceed with the retooling of the always-demanding Dubsdread layout – the only man missing was the one man many casual golf fans tune in to see: Tiger Woods. He was himself retooling, recovering from the surgery to repair the broken leg he won the U.S. Open on.

The championship went on regardless, and the golf-starved fans of St. Louis turned out in the posh suburb of Town & Country to see course and championship records shattered. During one scintillating stretch on Saturday afternoon, Jim Furyk finished off a 62 on the par-70 course to break the Western’s 61-year-old scoring record, a round including a 7-under 28 on his inward nine. Minutes later, D.J. Trahan followed Furyk in with a 63. Soon after, K.J. Choi posted a 64. And Boo Weekley, not heard from much this year, was aiming at a similar low number before he cooled off.

Furyk did not, and many sane people understandably think he should have been the defending champion. His inward 28 to finish the second round, in playing catch-up to make up for a flooded out first day, was quickly followed by an outward 32 on the same nine holes of Bellerive to start the third round.

That’s 60 strokes for 18 holes, which isn’t golf unless it’s played at Haunted Trails.

But Furyk failed in a bid to collect a second Western Open title. Instead, Camilo Villegas made a bevy of birdies on Bellerive, led Furyk by a stroke entering the final round, and finished at 15-under-par 265 to score a two-stroke victory over Dudley Hart. Furyk and Anthony Kim finished tied for third, at 268.

All of this is mentioned to not only refresh recollections, but to note that it won’t happen this year. Not with the refurbished, toughened, devilish Dubsdread, as remade by Rees Jones in the style of Dick Wilson and Joe Lee, to contend with. Yes, Jones also remade Bellerive – he’s the man to call when a remodeling with an eye toward the United States Open is necessary – but Dubsdread’s green complexes are more demanding, both from the standpoint of approach shots and recovering from around the green. That should make safe the record of 22-under-par 262, established by Woods in the finale of the old Dubsdread.

Villegas went on to capture the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in his next start, but Vijay Singh, who had won in New York and Boston, needed only to keep breathing in Atlanta, having played well enough at Bellerive to effectively sew up the vaunted playoff title, and the FedEx Cup.

That premature delivery sent the great minds of the PGA Tour’s Algebra Department back to their slide rules to tweak, for a second time, the formula that so many neither understand nor care to contemplate.

This time, they believe they have it. The playoff points were not reset entering the playoffs, the first tournament – played on the Liberty National Minature Golf Course in Jersey City, N.Y. – offered only 125 slots rather than 144, and now, the top five in the standings can win the Cup if they win at East Lake, no matter what anyone else does.

Those who venture to Cog Hill this week – and advance ticket sales are up from 2007, though corporate hospitality sales are down, thanks to the so-so economy – will be in for a show, with Dubsdread sharing equal billing with the players. Here are the highlights of the schedule:

Today: Blackhawks Shootout, 9 a.m. Junior clinic featuring trick-shot specialist Dan Boever, noon at the practice center near the main entrance.

Tuesday: Practice rounds, beginning 7 a.m. Expect many pros to play only nine holes if they play at all, given today’s finish of the tournament near Boston. At 10 a.m., in a photo-op only a PR genius could love, Luke Donald will wave a checkered, rather than green, flag to send the 70-man grounds crew onto the course.

Wednesday: The 47th Chick Evans Memorial Pro-Am, 7 a.m. and noon starts from the first and 10th tees. Tiger Woods, who prefers to play without a crowd, will start at 7 a.m.

Thursday: First round, 10 a.m., threesomes off the first and 10th tees.

Friday: Second round, 11 a.m., threesomes off the first and 10th tees.

Saturday: Third round, 8 a.m., approximately, twosomes off the first tee.

Sunday: Final round, 8 a.m., approximately, twosomes off the first tee, followed by a sudden-death playoff, if necessary, and the presentation of the J.K. Wadley Trophy to the champion.

– Tim Cronin

Small's huge achievement

Writing from Chicago

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Mike Small’s victory in the 87th Illinois PGA Championship was anything but unexpected. Small, the 43-year-old head coach of Illinois’ men’s golf team, has been the best pro in the state for the better part of a decade.  His 6-stroke triumph over Ivanhoe Club head pro Jim Sobb at Stonewall Orchard on Wednesday, Sept. 2, only reconfirmed as much.

It also made history in several respects. For one thing, Small extended his record in winning the Illinois Section’s title. It was his eighth. Nobody else has more than five.

It was also his seventh straight. The previous mark was three, set by Johnny Revolta of Evanston Golf Club from 1936 to 1938, and equaled by Bob Zender from 1976 to 1978.

Most important, it was Small’s 13th Illinois major championship. That broke the tie Small was in with legendary North Shore Country Club head pro Bill Ogden, who captured a pair of Illinois Open titles, five Illinois PGA crowns and five Illinois PGA Match Play titles over a 21-year span ending in 1972.

Small now owns four Illinois Open championships, the eight Illinois PGAs and one Illinois PGA Match Play bauble. He has accomplished all that over just nine summers.

Amazingly, his record could be even more impressive. Small would have nine Illinois PGA crowns in as many starts had he not lost the 2002 title to Gary Groh in a three-hole playoff at Kemper Lakes Golf Course in Hawthorn Woods. He’d have five Illinois Open wins if he hadn’t dropped a playoff to Rockford amateur Brad Benjamin at Hawthorn Woods Country Club earlier in the summer. And his only IPGA Match Play win, in 2007, came in his first appearance in the springtime showdown. Coaching duties prevented him from playing in previous years.

Small’s 9-under-par total of 207, built on rounds of 67, 69 and 71, covered all the faults the picky pro found in his game.

“I missed quite a few putts (in the final round) but luckily, I had a lead where I didn’t have to make them,” Small said. “I hit it so good this week it got me through it.”

If Small wasn’t in the field, Sobb’s effort would have made history. The last senior to win the section title was Groh, via the playoff over Small in 2002. Sobb is 53, and was seeking his sixth Illinois major. He was five strokes behind Small entering the final round.

“It’s like spotting Secretariat 10 lengths,” Sobb said. “To have the best club professional in the country in our section and to compete against him, I think is the ultimate.”

Small won his second PGA national club pro title – officially, it’s the PGA Professional National Championship these days – earlier this summer. From Sept. 18-20, he’ll be leading the U.S. PGA team against a group of European club pros in the PGA Cup in Loch Lomond, Scotland, a Ryder Cup-style match. And his Illinois golf team won the Big Ten title earlier this season.

In other words, it’s good to be Mike Small these days.

All things considered, when hasn’t it been this decade?

– Tim Cronin