July 2024 - A Wide-Open Amateur Beckons

Absence of back-to-back champ McClear provides opportunity for state's top ams
This article appeared in the July 2024 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
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The Louis L. Emmerson Trophy will change hands for the first time since 2022, as back-to-back Illinois State Amateur Championship winner Mac McClear is not in this year's field after turning professional.

Amateurs in Illinois who are eager to get their name in the record book as the winner of the upcoming 93rd Illinois State Amateur will be pleased to learn of the turning professional of one Mac McClear, the resident of Hinsdale and Iowa Hawkeye standout who has dominated the state’s amateur championship the last two years.

The absence of McClear, who won at Westmoreland Country Club in 2022 and at Bloomington Country Club in 2023 – and who joined 2021 winner Ethan Farnam in a three-way playoff at Mistwood Golf Club – opens the door to the championship he had guarded like a Rush Street bouncer.

His turning pro makes the scrap for the Louis L. Emmerson Trophy on July 16-18 at Atkins Golf Club at the University of Illinois in Urbana a free-for-all. Picking a favorite this year is an impossible task, with 13 of last year’s top 19 finishers returning, though a few players stand out.

One is T.J. Barger, who finished second last year, five strokes behind McClear despite a third-round 64 in the morning of the 36-hole final-day test. McClear lapped him with a final-round 63 while Barger closed with a 69. Barger was pleased to hear McClear decided not to attempt a three-peat.

A key member of the Illinois State University golf team, Barger originally enrolled at the University of Illinois, so he is intimately familiar with Atkins’ formidable features.

Atkins Golf Club at the University of Illinois will host the state's best amateurs for the second time in July. The first came in 2004, back when it was known as Stone Creek and before an extensive renovation project.

“You have to drive it well. If you’re not hitting it straight, you’ll have a tough time,” Barger said. “I know it like the back of my hand.

“This will be a State Am where nobody has an advantage. Because of how long Atkins plays, it’ll be like a USGA event.”

Tipped out, Atkins can play as long as 7,538 yards, though round-by-round yardage in this year’s State Am will be shorter. The last four holes are a grinder, beginning with the 575-yard par-5 15th, the longest hole on the course. Then comes the 424-yard par-4 16th, the No. 2 handicap hole, the beastly par-3 17th, an adventure that will be played from 212 yards, and finally the 406-yard par-4 18th, where a gully just off the right side of the fairway and a bunker on the left side of the landing zone makes the final drive a daunting task. After that finish, the clubhouse will be a welcome sight.

Marcus Smith, Jr., a Rockford native who helped lead Howard University to the Northeast Conference title this spring, finished tied for fourth last year, and considers himself improved going into this year’s championship.

“I know my game’s a little better,” Smith said. “I’m hitting a fade now, and that’s been helpful. I’ve always hit a draw, and now I’m able to do both. My game’s always been tailored to scrambling, not as much about making birdies. I know when to be aggressive, but you’ve got to be able to putt.”

As far as Smith is concerned, the longer they set up the Atkins, the better.

“Length is no problem,” Smith said. “I appreciate it, because it takes a lot of players out of play. That’s the separator.”

Barger wants to return to his old form by playing a limited schedule.

“I played so much golf I felt burnt out. Golf wasn’t fun,” Barger said of the last two summers. “I want to get back to the way I used to be. It seems that in junior golf, I peaked, and the expectations grew.”

TJ Barger (left) finished second at last year's State Am, a performance highlighted by a 6-under 64 in the third round. Marcus Smith (right), a Rockford native who helped lead Howard University to the program's first-ever conference title in the spring, aims to improve upon his T-4 placing from 2023.

It’s the second State Am at Atkins. The first was played in 2004, when T.C. Ford outlasted Rob Grube in a three-hole playoff after a final 36 holes played in high winds. Ford, a Northwestern graduate then working as a caddie at North Shore Country Club, navigated the 72 holes in 2- under-par 282, as did Grube, a Stanford product from Hinsdale. Ford birdied the first of the three playoff holes, and that proved to be the difference. Grube would win the title two years later. (Both Ford and Grube are in the financial services business today.)

The course, which opened in 1999, has changed since 2004, including in name. Then, it was Stone Creek Golf Club, a privately-owned public layout built around – and to entice sales in – an upscale housing development. In 2020, the Atkins family donated the 300-acre course to the University of Illinois. The school, which already used the facility as the home course for its golf teams, hired architect Drew Rogers to improve the original Dick and Tim Nugent layout. The renovation included rebuilding greens, relocating bunkers and stretching the layout to the aforementioned 7,538 yards, a set of tees the Illini men’s team is likely to use more than anyone else.

“For the public, I think it’s a fun golf course,” Illini men’s golf coach Mike Small said when the deal gifting the course to Illinois was announced. “In my opinion, I think Stone Creek in the past has had a tendency to be a little soft for our type of players.”

Rogers took care of that.

“The ability to control it, manicure it, design it to the way it’s going to benefit our team and development is a big thing,” Small said. “That gives us another opportunity to play the game of golf. Right now, our guys tend to practice too much sometimes, and we need to get them to go play more.

“Now, we have a golf course that we can do that with. Now, we have a golf course that we can firm up, grow the rough and get the greens firm and fast, speed the greens up before the national championship and actually play some golf and actually replicate that feeling.”

The field in the Illinois State Amateur will experience that.

Tim Cronin is the author of 12 books on golf.