Chicago Public Golf

Boy, this Mark Wilson story is just great. Our main man Ed Sherman has not been updating his blog that often but he has vindicated himself with the this piece on Thursday in the Chicago Tribune.

I may just start milling around in the Western ‘burbs just on the off chance that I run into Mark Wilson running some errands so I can say “dude, you kick ass!” Not only is it a great story that this local journeyman finally won on tour, but he did so after assessing himself a two stroke penalty, thereby upholding the integrity of the game and the integrity of all Chicagolanders (even though he is a Packer fan).

If you haven’t heard, on Friday of the tournament he heard his caddie tell another caddie what club he hit. You can’t do that. It doesn’t matter if it’s you or your caddie, neither can give or receive advice in competition to/from another player/caddie, period! He told a rules official and was assessed a two stroke penalty. Then he still goes on to win.

Read Sherman’s article and let’s starting getting into Chicago golf. Also, relish the 50+ degree day we are going to have and get fired up because the season is right around the corner.

Check this out. I’m banging through the Sun Times today at my favorite McDonald’s and Len Ziehm has a great article from the PGA Tour. Mark Wilson, who lives in Elmhurst and plays out of Cog Hill, won the Honda Classic and the accompanying $990,000 in a four man playoff. Keep in mind, Luke Donald, Evanston resident and Northwestern graduate, won this same tournament last year. We [Chicagolanders] rock the golf world and this is further proof that Chicago is the best golf town in the country.

I watched a lot of this tournament this weekend. There were very few big stars down the stretch but the drama was huge. If you’re a fair weather golf fan that watches only when Tiger and Phil play, then you’ve cheated yourself out of some great theatre.

Let me tell you something about Mark Wilson that you may not know unless you were watching on Saturday. He loves to run errands! Yeah, I’m serious. They showed a little taped interview with him about mid way through the Saturday telecast and he says basically that he loves to run errands. Actually, he couched it in these terms, “I love to check things off a list.” He goes on about how he likes it when his wife gives him a list of stuff to do and he figures out the quickest and most efficient way to get it done. Wow, these guys are good…husbands!

I can picture him running around the western suburbs grabbing a gallon of milk, picking up some duct tape from Home Depot, then hitting a bucket of balls at Cog. How cool is that? Congrats Mark.