Sepp Straka won last year’s PGA Tour event at Silvis and will return in July to defend his title. KeynoteUSA
Illinois is one of the few states to have a PGA Tour tournament and a LIV Tour tournament this year. Friction between the two circuits still exists, but Sepp Straka downplayed it during the John Deere Classic’s annual Champions Day last week in Rock Island.
Straka will defend his title at the Illinois PGA Tour’s only annual stop at TPC Deere Run in Silvis July 1-7.
Elevated tournaments are trending on the PGA Tour in response to bigger purses, smaller fields and no-cut events on the Saudi-backed LIV circuit. The JDC is not one of the PGA’s elevated stops. It’s still a 156-player playoff with a cut after 36 holes and $8 million in prize money, a big drop from the PGA’s elevated events that offer purses in the $20 million range.
The LIV Tour, which also has prize pools in the $20 million range, returns to Illinois for the third consecutive year Sept. 13-15, but at a new site, Bolingbrook Golf Club, which replaces Rich Harvest Farms. This year’s event will be the individual championship of the LIV season.
Meanwhile, negotiations between the PGA and the LIV remain in limbo. A deal seems even more distant now that two members of the PGA negotiating group recently resigned from the board in frustration.
“It’s sadder for golf fans than it is for us (players),” Straka said. “Hopefully things will move forward a little bit, but it’s a pretty slow process and I wouldn’t expect anything to happen in the next few months.”
Don’t feel sorry for the JDC though. In fact, Straka believes there should be more tournaments like this.
“The Tour needs more than just elevated events,” he said. “None of the stars started playing in high events when they first came out. Very few of them had that status. Stars are created by playing well in these tournaments (like JDC) and rising through the ranks. That’s why a lot of kids still come to this one. It is a special place.”
Straka was the star of last year’s JDC. She had the gallery on guard 59 until she hit the water on her approach to the final green, resulting in a double bogey. He still won by two shots for his second PGA victory. He won the last Honda Classic in Florida in 2022 before that tournament changed sponsors.
Last year, Straka was runner-up at the British Open to another former JDC winner, Brian Harman, and also played on the Ryder Cup-winning European team. One of his Euro teammates, Swede Ludvig Aberg, finished fourth at last year’s JDC.
Straka, who grew up in Austria before playing college golf in Georgia, plans to play again for Austria at the Paris Olympics this summer. This year he tied for 16th in both The Players and Masters before missing the cut at the PGA Championship.
US Women’s Open
Hot Nelly Korda, the LPGA’s No. 1-ranked player with six wins in her last seven starts, will have challenges from two Chicago-connected players when Pennsylvania’s Lancaster Country Club hosts the 72-hole event that begins Thursday .
Elizabeth Szokol of Winnetka and Caroline Smith of Inverness survived the qualifying tournaments to earn spots in the field. Szokol is a regular on the LPGA Tour and teamed with Cheyenne Knight to win the tour’s Dow Great Lakes Invitational last year.
Smith, an amateur, qualified at Briarwood in Deerfield. He began his college career at Wake Forest, then transferred to Indiana and helped the Hoosiers to their first Big Ten title in 26 years. She finished tied for fourth place as an individual.
Here and there
Two Chicago-area teaching professionals, Jamie Fischer of Conway Farms and Nicole Jeray of Mistwood, finished tied for 11th and tied for 28th, respectively, at the LPGA Senior Championship in Utah.
Mt. Prospect’s Joe Cermak won the ninth Chicago District Mid-Amateur title last week at Elgin Country Club. Cermak is director of admissions and assistant golf coach at St. Patrick, his high school alma mater.
Groundbreaking on a multi-year renovation of Cantigny’s 27 holes in Wheaton will begin at 9 a.m. Thursday.
Nancy Towers of Downers Grove was one of the top qualifiers for the US Adaptive Open, a championship for the world’s best golfers with disabilities. She advanced through an Indiana qualifying event. The main event will be July 8-10 in Kansas.
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