ARLINGTON LAKES GOLF CLUB 1211 South Wilke Road in Arlington Hts. call for tee times at (847)-577-3030 and visit AHPD.org. The 9-hole par-3 course Nickol Knoll is still open for golf but will be closing soon. Located in North Arlington Hts. #PaytonsHill34

THE GOG BLOG by RORY SPEARS-Director of Content and Creation for Golfers on Golf. Follow Rory on Twitter-X or connect on LinkedIn/Facebook and Instagram.

Dottie Pepper holds the WWGA Woman of Distinction Trophy at Lake Shore Country Club in Glencoe. Photo courtesy of the WWGA.

Dottie Pepper a 17 time winner on the LPGA Tour, was the Women’s Western Golf Associations 2024, Woman of Distinction.

Pepper was honored at the Lake Shore Country Club, by the WWGA at it’s annual meeting.

Pepper won two major championships, and was a winner on the JLPGA Tour. She competed for Team USA in the Solheim Cup six times, compiling a 13-5-2 record. But was an even better 5-1 in singles competition.

Pepper’s LPGA career ran from 1988 until 2004, when she started working in television. But her television work is just as impressive. Because it includes all the men’s majors and most of the women’s major championships. Pepper’s work includes all of the major international amateur championships as well. She was the first woman to do live announcing at the Masters in 2016. Then in 2020 she became the first female walking reporter to cover the tournament.

Pepper served three years on the PGA of America Board of Directors, and has won multiple awards from various golf media associations. She is the current  winner of the old Tom Morris Award from the GCSAA.

In addition to being a walking reporter at the Masters and the PGA Championship, she has authored the self-published book and audio book. “Letters to a Future Champion: My Time with Mr. Pulver.”

The 2025 WWGA Amateur is July 14-19 at the Red Run Golf Club in Royal Oak Michigan. The 2025 WWGA Junior Girls Championship is June 9-13 at the Maketewah Country Club in Cincinnati Ohio. But for more information please visit WWGA.org.

COURSE #3 AT MEDINAH COUNTRY CLUB has reopened for play following a major renovation by the Australian design firm of OCM. Photo’s by Rory Spears.

BACK IN THE SADDLE AT MCC-nice to return to Medinah Country Club today for the 1-2-3 outing.

EASY AS 1-2-3

It was great to finally return to my job at Medinah Country Club today for the 1-2-3 outing.

1-2-3 means the outing is played over all three of the clubs courses.

BACK IN THE SADDLE AGAIN!-Finally, but better late than never.

This week parts of the clubs team will head to Royal Montreal for the 2024 Presidents Cup. The Presidents Cup will visit Medinah in fall of 2026, and it will be the first big test for Course #3, that just reopened a little over 60 days ago from renovation.

So far the early reviews are good from those members who have played the golf course, and the raters from a few national golf publications that have been out to play.

2019 BMW Championship champion Justin Thomas snuck out for a round. The word is that Thomas had a normal round of golf, even for a PGA Touring professional. A few birdies, pars and bogeys in a casual round. As for a score, word is that Thomas did break 70.

Course #3 does look really good as it continues to grow in, it should be in really good shape by the time the Presidents Cup rolls around. Next year the club will celebrate it’s centennial, it should be a great year to be a member or a guest at the club. The new short hole course and very large putting green, look pretty sharp too. It makes for a great view. When one drives up the main drive towards the historic and famed Medinah clubhouse.

LAST WEEK I did my first media golf coverage of the year. As I went to the LIV Golf Chicago tournament at Bolingbrook GC. I will write more about the tournament, but now with sometime to think about things even further. I have come away with some real good impressions of the week that was. Kudo’s to Jon Rahm who won the season long LIV Golf individual championship.

TIGER WOODS has announced that he has undergone yet another back surgery, the number of surgeries Woods has been through has become a very big number. So a result, it is time for Woods to retire. But would he could do is sit out a few years. Then go give it a shot on the champions tour.

THIS PAST WEEK I did go play the recently renovated Winnetka Golf Club, the final project by architect Rick Jacobson. Jacobson has decided to retire after a long run in the world of golf course design. I will be writing more about Winnetka GC and the par-3 course in the near future. The par-3 course is really fun, and the course is now under the watchful eye of Northbrook based KemperSports management.

CONGRATULATIONS to now former Callaway sales guy Billy Trimble, as he heads west to Colorado. Trimble will join Titleist Golf out in the Rocky Mountain State.

IT WAS NICE TO SEE the PGA of America clarify a few things in regards as to who is eligible to play in the Ryder Cup, and or the PGA Championship going forward. The recent decision by the PGA, clears the path for LIV golfers to be participants in the Ryder Cup. 2025 Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley made it clear that Team USA will have the best 12 American golfers on the team. No matter which tour they are playing on. Good for Bradley to standing up to some of the politics that have been a thorn in the side of golf the last few years.

I WAS SURPRISED to see the recent story by a Tampa area paper, about LPGA Hall of Fame inductee Jan Stephenson’s Tarpon Woods Golf Course. A town hall type meeting was held at the club, and Stephenson and her manager took some abuse by those in the crowd. It will be interesting to see what ca be done to put the course and clubhouse back on track.

So in closing, it’s good to be back on the Gog Blog. But I do have plenty of catching up to do. Because there has been plenty of good stories that have happened. While I have been on the mend from foot surgery.

But it’s also time to be back on the golf course. Golf season here up north is starting to fade. But I am playing again, and that’s the best feeling of all. RS

  THE ARLINGTON LAKES GOLF CLUB at 1211 South Wilke Road, 18 holes of fun golf. Rounds of 3-hole, 6-hole, 9-hole and 18-hole are available. Call the club at (847)-577-3030 to book your tee time. Arlington Heights offers the Sunset Meadows practice range and the Nickol Knoll 9-hole par-3 golf course on Payton’s Hill in North Arlington.

THE GOG BLOG is written by RORY SPEARS, the Director of Content and Creation Golf on Golf. Follow Rory on Twitter-X and LinkedIn/Facebook and Instagram.

Jon Rahm holds the LIV Bolingbrook Trophy and won the season long Individual LIV championship for 2024. Photo courtesy of LIV Golf.

JON RAHM is a winner again.

Because closed the individual championship, with a 4 under par 66. Rahm defeated runner-up Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia by three strokes.

Rahm won for the second time in three weeks. So it wasn’t a bad way to finish up his first season the LIV Golf tour.

Top 10’s were the norm for Rahm this season, when he completed all three days of the tournament. Rahm had to WD from the Houston tournament, with a cut on his foot. That was the injury that kept Rahm out of the U.S. Open at Pinehurst a week later.

But what led Rahm to a solid finished was his bogey free weekend in Rounds 2 and 3. Because the only bogey Rahm made all week came on Friday during Round 1. So there was a chance for Rahm to win yet another tournament. But he lost in a playoff to Brooks Koepka in August at the Greenbrier.

Gallery size ran from 15,000 to 16,000 on both weekend days. The largest galleries at LIV tournaments in America for the 2024 season.

Rahm could have lost on Sunday to Niemann without some steady play over the first 10 holes.

Because Niemann came roaring out of the blocks with birdies on two of the first three holes. So the pressure was on Rahm early on the front nine.

But Rahm spread out three birdies over the first holes, that were followed by two clutch par saving putts on holes 11 and 12.

Rahm got home in two shots on the par-5 14th hole, but promptly proceeded to three putt for par. But Rahm made up for that with a birdie on 17 to close out the tournament with a fist-pump and some emotion.

CLICK HERE to hear champion Jon Rahm’s press conference after winning LIV Golf Chicago at Bolingbrook GC.

Niemann admitted he knew he would have to do something special if he was going to beat Rahm this week. While he felt like he did play great, it wasn’t good enough to take down Rahm. But Niemann did hit the longest drive of the day, 379.1 yards on the 14th hole.

But for Rahm what made the win so special was that, “I knew I had to win to win the season long championship. So then I went out and did it, which is something to really be proud of.”

Rahm said it was great to have another good week in Chicago. Because Rahm had previously won on the PGA Tour at Olympia Fields, in a playoff over LIV golfer Dustin Johnson. Rahm mentioned his good Top-5 play in 2019 at Medinah during the BMW championship. But Rahm said he would enjoy LIV Golf coming back to the windy city in 2025.

Team Crushers GC won the team championship in Bolingbrook, wrapping up the No.1 seed for the Team finals in Dallas next week. L-R Charles Howell, Paul Casey, Bryson DeChambeau and Anirban Lahiri.

TEAM CRUSHERS GC

The Team Crushers GC led by Captain Bryson Dechambeau, defeated Rahm’s Legion XIII team by 1 shot to win the team championship in Bolingbrook.

Anirban Lahari led the way on Sunday for Crushers GC with a 3 under par-67. DeChambeau carded a 68, with Casey in at 70 and Howell at 71. Fireballs GC was third two shots back of the Crushers.

Crushers GC had not won a tournament since their win in Hong Kong back in March. But Crushers GC did go back-to-back in Chicago. Because in 2023 DeChambeau won both the individual title and the team title at Rich Harvest Farms.

“It was time to prove a point,” said DeChambeau. “We wanted to prove that we are back, and we wanted momentum heading into next week”. So now we feel like we have put ourselves in a good place. Finishing Bolingbrook at 14 under par, was the second best team score of the year on the LIV Tour.

CLICK HERE to hear the press conference of the Team Championship winners at LIV Golf Chicago, at the Bolingbrook Golf Club. The Crushers are Charles Howell III, Paul Casey, Bryson DeChambeau and Anirban Lahiri.

2025 in CHICAGO. Maybe not, while the LIV Golf players have enjoyed three years in the Chicago market. Two years at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, and one year at Bolingbrook. Next years LIV golf schedule seems to have Indianapolis as the fall Midwest stop on the schedule. There is some speculation that Speedway Golf Course located both next to, and with three holes in the middle of the Indy 500 speedway. Is the front runner to host the LIV tournament next September.

But for more information please visit LIVGolf.com.