| by: Len Ziehm - 9/4/2003 6:20:08 AM |
| Just a few big events are left in this, most eventful, Chicago golf season.
The Illinois PGA Match Play Championship is on tap Tuesday through Friday (SEPT. 2-5) at Oak Grove in Alden. The Illinois Senior Open is the following week, on Sept. 8 and 9, at Balmoral Woods in Crete and the Illinois PGA Fall Classic moves to a new location to wrap up the IPGA season Oct. 6-7 at Country Club of Peoria. It has been held at Eagle Ridge in Galena the previous 10 years.
With University of Illinois men’s coach Mike Small sitting out due to his coaching duties with the Illini, the Match Play and Fall Classic will decide the IPGA player-of-the-year. Small was the run-away point leader going into the Match Play with his unprecedented sweep of the Illinois PGA Championship and Illinois Open.
With Small giving up the points from the last two big events, the player-of-the-year race was left wide-open. Dino Lucchesi, the Twin Orchard assistant who became the first section member in nine years to qualify for the PGA Championship, was the defending Match Play champion and poised to win player-of-the-year honors for the fifth time in seven years.
As for the Chicago District Golf Association, its season has a few biggies left, too--the Illinois Senior Amateur Sept. 22-24 at Mauh-Nah-Tee-See in Rockford, the CDGA Mid-Amateur Championship Sept. 29 at Chevy Case in Wheeling and the Tournament of Champions, pitting the best of the private club champions against the best of the public course champions, Sept. 30 at Whisper Creek in Huntley.
The CDGA also has player-of-the-year points on the line, but Jay Dempsey--with a 145-point lead on Todd Mitchell and Andrew Price--seems a lock for the award.
Anyway, that’s how the end of the season shapes up. As a means of looking back on the season that was, I find it appropriate to focus on the one new event that may have gotten lost in the shuffle.
The Celebrity Players Tour made its return to Chicago this summer with the late-August staging of the Tom Dreesen Celebrity Invitational at the spiffy new Bolingbrook Golf Club.
Celebrity golf is a phenomenon that once had it day, largely lost its place in the spotlight and now may be able to regain it.
A little history lesson:
Michael Jordan, at the height of his popularity as a basketball player, did more than anyone to get celebrity events going. People would pay significant amounts to play in outings that he was in. Others would pay to watch. The golf events made money, most notably the event that for years had Jordan’s name on it in the early 1990s. It’s still a big fundraiser as the Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities Celebrity Classic, which takes over all four courses at Cog Hill in Lemont for a glorious day in July.
While the RMCC remains the biggest, best and most fun of the celebrity events in Chicago, the Celebrity Players Tour moved on after Jordan scaled down his involvement in events here. The CPT--which includes members from the entertainment world as well as sports--has struggled, but survived. In 2002 it was affiliated with 11 events, including the Dreesen event. It had previously been held in Lake Geneva in support of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society of Greater Illinois. Dreesen, a popular comedian from Harvey, had lost a sister to that disease.
As is the case with the RMCC, I took in the Dreesen Invitational as a participant and had a great time playing one day with baseball great Mike Schmidt and another with former Bulls’ star Ron Harper. The rest of the celebrity participants included many from the previous Chicago tournaments--Mike Eruzione, Ed Marinaro, Rollie Fingers, George Gervin, Dan Janson, Adam Baldwin and the Gatlin brothers.
The one notable absentee was Rick Rhoden, the Dodgers’ pitcher who has won 40 times on the CPT Tour. He received a sponsor’s exemption to the Champions Tour event that week.
Having seen the CPT up close and personal again, I’m convinced there’s a place for such events in many communities--especially Chicago. For them to be successful, though, takes loads of work from many parties. The golf has to be decent. The celebrities have to be friendly and willing to mingle. The location has to be right.
Bolingbrook certainly fit the bill. After two days of celebrity-amateur competition the CPT members played a 36-hole tournament in three-man teams. Dreesen joined with two ex-NFL quarterbacks, Billy Joe Tolliver and Jim McMahon, to shoot 3-under-par golf for the victory.
Everybody seemed to have a good time, and Bolingbrook wants the event back. Those are positive signs for the future of the CPT here. |
