Reflections of the BMW Championship: Thursday, September 10, 2009 - Round 1
Lemont is one of the few towns in the metro area that the people of Chicago can relate to. It's rich in history with the first Irish immigrants settling here in 
1837 during the construction of the Illinois-Michigan Canal. They stuck around, establishing farming communities, once the canal was complete in 1848 making Lemont one of the oldest municipalities in Northern Illinois.
Lemont is a tough town, from its residents right down to the bedrock. Long before Lemont became famous for its golf, it was celebrated for its particularly hard variety of Limestone; known throughout the world as Lemont Yellow Dolomite.
Upon completion of the Illinois-Michigan Canal and after farming communities were established, immigrants continued to flock to Lemont to work the mines and harvest the precious stone. The town quickly came to appreciate Lemont Yellow Dolomite for its fire retardant characteristics. Chicago's Water Tower, the only building to survive the Great Fire of 1871, is constructed entirely from Lemont Yellow Dolomite.
The golf in Lemont, just like the bedrock that is Cog Hill's foundation, is tough; especially after a $5.2 million renovation at the hands of famed course architect Rees Jones. Frank Jemsek, owner of Cog Hill Golf and Country Club, brought Jones in last year to overhaul Dubsdread in an effort to make it U.S. Open worthy. The top 70 golfers in the world were about to be tested by the new design for the first time ever. No doubt, this weekend was going to be a monumental moment in Chicago golf.
As I loaded the car and made my way from my Wrigleyville apartment to Lemont, I began to contemplate the assignment at hand. Was I going to simply report on four days of championship golf? Probably, but I was more interested in the same question that was weighing on the hearts and minds of golfers all over the metropolitan area. Is Cog Hill Number 4 - Dubsdread - after a $5.2 million Rees Jones facelift, now poised to host our country's national championship?
Sunday's final scores would almost certainly give me the answer I sought, but I needed to hear it come from the mouths of the best players in the world, namely, Tiger Woods.
I arrived at Cog Hill on a beautiful Thursday morning. These grounds are hallowed for me as I claim it to be my own. I parked my car in the rough on the first hole of the neighboring Blue Course and walked through the main lot toward the media center to claim my credentials. As I made my way, I noticed something peculiar about my surroundings; the lot was filled entirely with BMWs.
"What gives," I asked a man who looked like he may have been in charge? "Is the auto industry in this much trouble? Are you trying to incite some impulse buys and move a little merchandise?"
"What do you mean," he replied?
"What's with all of the B-Mers?"
"Oh," the man chuckled! "This is the BMW Owner's Lot."
I thought about it for a moment.
"So, if you own a BMW, you get to park right next to the course; no cost, no questions asked?
"And we'll wash it for you while you are at the event," he chimed back!
It seemed excessive to me that BMW was catering to its already spoiled clientele. These people live a lavish and privileged lifestyle, hence their expensive driving machines. Are they really entitled to the best parking spots in the house simply because they have the means to obtain an over-priced automobile? It didn't seem fair, but this wasn't my golf tournament. Even so, I had a tough time trying to shake the irony of the whole encounter.
No more than a week earlier, I was approached by a stranger who wanted to trade his silver, 1979 BMW 320 with 165,000 miles for my 2006 Volvo S40 plus $1,900. It was a bold and interesting offer on his part, but I tactfully declined. In hindsight, rolling into the BMW Championship on the shoulders of a burly 320 would have made this experience that much sweeter because of the close parking spot. But I would have surely regretted that decision when it came time to cover the Goteborg Open; Sweden's prestigious national championship sponsored by Volvo.
Editor's Note:
In an interesting twist during the BMW Championship, Mercedes Benz owners were being rerouted back down Archer Ave. toward Kingery where they were loaded onto barges stationed at the Illinois-Michigan Canal just off Highway 83. From there they steamed through the Great Lakes to the Eastern Seaboard. Upon arrival in New York City, the Mercedes Benz owners were loaded onto cargo ships for a journey across the Atlantic. Their destination? Scotland for the 2009 Dunhill Links Championship, the European Tour's version of our Pebble Beach Pro-Am, played each year at St. Andrew's, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.
I was able to catch up with one of these poor, unfortunate souls via cell phone and was amazed at how upbeat he was about his change in fortune.
"Really, the jokes on them [BMW]," Tim Richards told me in an exclusive interview. "I mean, a free trip to Europe to watch the game of golf played in the Holy land! Getting the opportunity to walk the fairways at St. Andrew's is the chance of a lifetime! How could it get any better than this? However, no one has told us how we are getting home and now that I think about it, I don't have my passport."
Indeed.
I entered the media center to claim my credentials. After proving my identity as the famous sportswriter from The Bugle (no autographs, please!), I received my press pass for the week and was free to roam the grounds.
One of the liaisons gave me the lay of the land, leading me on a tour of the media center and the two adjoining tents; the bathroom and the dining room. I have to admit, this was the swankiest port-o-potty I had ever seen. Real tile floors, cherry wood cabinets and doors and green granite sinks highlighted the interior of the mobile structure. It would definitely be a comfortable place to kill some time.
The dining room was also a treat; not that the interior was anything special, but it was stocked with all of the Pepsi products, ice cream and catered food I could handle. As wonderful as the luxuries were in each of these side rooms, I have to admit that the main room, the "War Room" as I came to call it, was the most impressive and intimidating sight I had seen in a really long time.
It was a perfect rectangle painted a sterile white. Hanging on the long wall before me was a gigantic leader board with the names of the 70 participants arranged in groups by order of tee time. PGA Tour staffers stood by at the ready, waiting to update scores with their little black and red numbers.
Six rows of tables were lined up one on top of the other, each one housing 20 of the world's best sports writers. Every station contained private internet and land line hook ups and there was enough information wires running through this building to coordinate a tactical, nuclear strike. All was quiet at the moment, however. With the tournament still hours away from starting, the brilliant minds that lay before me were busy checking their emails, updating their Facebook status or just casually surfing the internet. They were, after all, the absolute cream of the sporting press.
In the corner of the war room, a small news stand had been brought in containing free copies of the Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times, the Herald News, the Daily Southtown and USA Today. I grabbed one of each and decided to grab a spot in the dining tent to catch up on what I had missed during the two previous days. I started with the Sun-Times, it being my least favorite publication of the bunch, and turned to an article entitled "Olympics in Cog Hill's future?" by Len Ziehm. Below is a short excerpt from that article:
Cog Hill could be in line for bigger and better things, Tiger Woods said.
Asked if the recent Rees Jones renovation made the Dubsdread course suitable to host a U.S. Open - the dream of 
late owner Joe Jemsek - Woods said, "I think it can." But Woods was more emphatic about the under-consideration golf competition at the 2016 Olympics coming to Lemont, assuming Chicago's bid is accepted.
"It would be great," Woods said. "You'd have to have it at a public venue just because of what the nature of the Olympics is about. Certainly this golf course is stand-alone in public venues in the Chicago area. I don't know another golf course that could rival this one as far as difficulty [among] public courses."
My blood ran hot, my eyes caught fire and I was dangerously close to spontaneous combustion. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Len Ziehm, that rotten sneak, had beaten me to the punch and did so in the most amateur of fashions by not having the journalistic integrity to wait until the tournament had actually started before asking such a profoundly loaded question.
Ziehm could now stroke his ever-increasing ego knowing he had succeeded at being the first to bring his readers exactly what they wanted to hear; that in the eyes of the world's number one golfer, Cog Hill was poised to host America's most prestigious tournament.
As a Chicago sports fan, I have to admit that I believe in curses. Just look at those wretched losers from the North Side; my Chicago Cubs. They haven't won a championship in 101 years and I have suffered through 28 of those personally. Ziehm's actions of the previous day conjured up memories of the Goat, the black cat, Steve Garvey and Bartman. In his selfishness, Ziehm doomed Cog Hill before Dubsdread even had the chance to flex its muscle and I could feel that something spectacularly ominous was looming on the horizon. I was sick to my stomach, so I forced myself outside to take in some golf.
It didn't take long, but after spending some time at the driving range and the putting green, I began to get a sense of the mounting pressure. It was palpable in the air and stung my eyes as the beads trickled down from my forehead. Suddenly, the importance of this third leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs began to make sense.
I could relate to what these players were going through. I am a two-time veteran of tournament golf having earned my first-
ever weekend cut at the Mid West Amateur held annually at Sydney R. Marovitz golf course; the crown jewel of the Chicago Park District nestled between the shores of Lake Michigan and the towering apartment buildings on the city's North Side. I backed up my play there with another weekend appearance a few weeks later at the Indian Boundary Club Championship, one of the many golf courses managed by the Cook County Forest Preserve. PGA Pros have never seen courses like these, but I digress and will have to save my personal golf exploits for another time. I was in the company of professionals and it was my job, nay my duty, to cover them.
I bounced around the holes in no particular order, putting myself in position to snap photographs of all my personal heroes. I didn't even realize that Rory Sabbatini and Steve Marino had galloped out of the gate with scores of 66 (-5) and a share of the first round lead until I returned to the War Room late that afternoon.
Rush hour was dawning upon us and since Ziehm had already sucked the fun out of my would-be story, I decided to get into my car and beat the traffic home.
To be continued...