Changes at Cog Hill leaves players critical

Associated Press

LEMONT, Ill.

In what likely will be the last time the BMW Championship is played at Cog Hill, some of the PGA Tour’s top players are not sorry to see it leave the public course south of Chicago.

The most biting comment Wednesday came from Steve Stricker, reputed to be one of the most polite players in golf.

Stricker is among those who fell out of love with Cog Hill when Rees Jones was hired to redesign the course in 2008 in an effort to land the U.S. Open. The greens were raised. The bunkers were deepened. The course was lengthened. Steep ridges in the greens led to impossible putts for a shot that was only slightly off its mark.

Cog Hill owner Frank Jemsek didn’t get the U.S. Open, and now the BMW Championship is leaving.

“They need to get their money back, I guess,” said Stricker, who won at the old Cog Hill in 1996 when it was the Western Open held around the Fourth of July. “It’s too bad what happened here.”

Cog Hill left a sour taste last year because the course was in poor condition, the product of an unusually hot summer that was tough on golf courses throughout the Chicago area. Phil Mickelson, not a fan of anything Jones designs, said the shape of the course wasn’t the issue.

He attributed the criticism of Cog Hill to the man in charge of revamping it.

“I know we all wish it had turned out differently,” Mickelson said. “But there was a lot of other guys to choose from that probably could do the job, and maybe if they just start over, it could turn into something special. ...

“But tee to green and the property, it’s got really great potential,” he added.