Even at 46 years old, Wheaton native Kevin Streelman wakes up every morning with the drive to be one of the best golfers in the world.
He’ll need that mindset this year after the PGA Tour introduced dramatic changes to its membership qualifications for the 2026 season, the most noteworthy of which reduces full-time cards from the top 125 players in the FedExCup standings to 100. The Tour last cut cards in 1983. (For more details on these changes, read Bob Harig’s Final Word column on Pg. 64).
As someone who worked his way through the mini-tours and earned his PGA Tour card at Q-School in 2007, Streelman isn’t a fan of the shakeup.
“It shrinks opportunities,” he said. “It’s already a difficult job to get and then keep, and now they are taking away one-fifth of the spots. There’s no freedom to have an off year.”
A two-time winner, Streelman finished outside of the number at 142nd last year for the first time since joining the Tour in 2008, handicapped by a back injury he suffered in his third tournament. He missed 12 cuts in 25 events and didn’t post a top 25 until October when he tied for third at the Black Desert Championship. He cashed in a minor medical exemption to secure status for 2025.
Conventional wisdom suggests the Tour’s reforms are a response to LIV Golf, which started in 2022 and poached several of golf’s star players with promises of guaranteed money, smaller fields and no cuts. The Tour created eight signature events with limited fields and increased purses. Five of the events have no cuts. Streelman didn’t play in any of them last year.
“Players that didn’t go to LIV saw things they liked about its setup, and I felt like the Tour was pressured into enacting similar changes,” Streelman said. “It goes against what made pro golf different. You had to always earn your playing privileges, nothing was guaranteed. I’ve had an incredible run, and being out here as long as I have is something I’m proud of.”
Chicago-area products and PGA Tour members Doug Ghim and Nick Hardy both own full status this year. Ghim finished 92nd in the FedEx last year, highlighted by his solo second at the Shriners Children’s Open in October. Hardy ended up 163rd, but he’s back on Tour due to his win at the 2023 Zurich Classic, which came with a two-year exemption.
Ghim got off to a good start this year, making the cut in his first two tournaments of the year, tying for 72nd at the Sony Open and tying for 21st at The American Express. Hardy, the 2016 Illinois State Amateur Championship winner, missed the cut at both.
Those players not on the PGA Tour have seen the path to the big league get more challenging. Cards through the Korn Ferry Tour (KFT) shrunk from 25 to 20 and through Q-School to five. Streelman was one of 26 players at his Q-School to receive cards. Journeymen won’t get as many opportunities, as Monday qualifying will be eliminated at some tournaments, including the Sony Open, Farmers Insurance Open, WM Phoenix Open and Cognizant Classic. Streelman earned his spot at this year’s Sony Open as a Monday qualifier and tied for 53rd. Tournaments with Monday qualifying will only award two spots instead of four.
Patrick Flavin, a native of Highwood who grew up playing junior golf with Ghim and Hardy, remains steadfast in his pursuit of playing on the PGA Tour despite the new barriers in his way. Injuries last year played a part in Flavin narrowly missing out on keeping his KFT card. Once again, he’s in pro golf’s wilderness. The 2017 State Am champion’s most likely starts will come on PGA Tour Americas, a league one rung below the KFT. The first event is March 27-30 in Argentina.
“I’m excited where my game is right now,” said Flavin, who tallied eight top 25s and two top 10s last year. “I know I have what it takes to play at that level. I continue to improve, and I still love what I do.”
Although he’s not a fan of the PGA Tour’s restructuring, Flavin, who turns 29 in February, isn’t wasting time worrying about it.
“Complaining about the system doesn’t help and isn’t productive,” he said. “I’ve always been under the gun. Best I can do is put my head down and continue to grind with a singular focus on making the PGA Tour.”
Streelman said he’s healthy and still loves working on his game. He has every intention of extending his career on the PGA Tour, where he’s earned more than $27 million.
“I want to be excellent and get the most out of myself while I can,” Streelman said. “I’m thankful I’ve been doing this for so long. I do feel for the younger guys because of how much harder it’s about to become.”
—Matt Harness
This is the first in a series of CDGA Member Spotlight articles that the CDGA and Wintrust will partner on to highlight an individual, group or program making their underrepresented community Better Through Golf. Individuals with CDGA Member Spotlight ideas should reach out to magazine@cdga.org.
In high school, CDGA member and prominent Chicago sportscaster Peggy Kusinski had the option to take golf lessons in gym class. She passed.
“I thought, ‘I’ll never play this game. This is ridiculous,’” Kusinski said, citing her “blue-collar” background having grown up on the city’s Northwest Side.
Fast forward three decades and it’s safe to say her thoughts on the game have changed.
“I love everything that [golf] brings,” she said.
Kusinski, currently host of the “Chicago Bears Post Game” and “Peggy & Dionne” shows on ESPN 1000, first was exposed to the game at the outset of her long professional career in sports journalism. Following college at Southern Illinois University and a local internship at NBC 5, she moved to Bristol, Connecticut to work as a production assistant at ESPN. What Kusinski deemed as the “master’s degree in my career” consisted of working 6 p.m.-3 a.m., leaving the days unoccupied.
Hundreds of miles from home, Kusinski sought camaraderie with her ESPN colleagues. The way to do that?
“I learned really quickly that if I want to make friends at ESPN, I better learn how to golf,” Kusinski said.
Starting with a rag-tag set of clubs purchased at various garage sales, Kusinski’s affinity for the game progressed part and parcel with her professional career. Following her stint at ESPN, Kusinski returned to Chicago and worked for the likes of CLTV, WBBM Radio and additional stints at NBC 5, all while playing alongside some of the city’s most prominent athletes at various charity golf outings.
One of the connections she made was with the daughter of Blackhawks legend Stan Mikita, Jane Gneiser (Mikita). One day, Jane brought Kusinski to play a round at Medinah Country Club, a place where the self-taught, blue-collar woman felt like a fish out of water.
“I had on all of the wrong clothes!” Kusinski sheepishly admitted.
The lasting impact of that round for Kusinski came not on the course, but in the parking lot afterwards. It was there that she first met her now-husband Jason Kinander, whose family belongs to Medinah.
Kusinski now plays a prominent role at the place she once felt she didn’t belong, helping to run the 18-hole women’s league at the club. Her golf career highlight came in 2020 on the club’s Course Two, when she notched an ace on the par-3 sixth. She’s also playing an active role in helping the club celebrate its centennial in 2025.
In short – she’s hooked.
“I’m slightly obsessed with [Medinah] at times,” Kusinski admits. “I dove in head-first.
“I really grew to love the game,” she added. “The camaraderie. I don’t play it to be good. I play it to be with other people and the challenge that it gives you.”
Kusinski’s passion for golf and sports media is matched by her affinity for giving back to her community. For close to 16 years, she has been heavily involved with Girls in the Game, a non-profit dedicated to providing various programs for young girls from underserved communities. The organization is turning 30 this year.
“It’s leadership, it’s health and sports as well,” Kusinski said. “We try to expose girls to things they may not have the opportunity to do. Golf is one of those. I was exposed to golf in high school and I didn’t take advantage of that opportunity. We want to at least expose these girls to different opportunities.”
Kusinski also plans to spearhead a breast cancer fundraiser at Medinah this year, the first one at the club in more than a decade. Additionally, her family – husband Jason, twin 22-year-old sons Jason, Jr. and Shea, and 16-year-old daughter Stella – avidly support the Evans Scholars Foundation, with Jason serving as a Western Golf Association Director.
As a teenager, Kusinski thought golf wasn’t for her. Now, she is dedicated to making sure as many people as possible can be empowered by camaraderie and challenge the game provides.
“Whether you’ve played it or not, whether you get your clubs at a garage sale or you’ve been fortunate enough to be fitted for your own set of clubs, golf is such a great game,” Kusinski said. “The challenge is unlike anything else, but the satisfaction that you feel after hitting a good shot is what keeps bringing you back.”
—Casey Richards
The Illinois PGA recently announced its slate of 14 Special Award winners for 2024 with John Varner (Beverly Country Club) earning Professional of the Year, Christopher Oehlerking (The Golf Practice) claiming Teacher of the Year and Ed Stevenson (Preserve at Oak Meadows) taking PGA Executive of the Year. Among the others being recognized were Kevin Weeks (Cog Hill Golf and Country Club), Youth Player Development Award; Eva Rogers (Medinah Country Club), Player Development Award; Kevin Fitzgerald, PGA Distinguished Service Award, and Nick Papadakes (Onwentsia), Bill Strausbaugh Award for influencing and enhancing the careers of PGA professionals.
Several accomplished young players recently signed to play Division I college golf next year. Among them were Illinois High School Association (IHSA) 2A Individual champion Regan Konen (Marmion Academy), who is headed to Marquette; 2024 Chick Evans Junior Amateur champion Drew Schauenberg (Barrington High School), Georgetown; Elyssa Abdullah (Hinsdale Central), Wisconsin; Maggie Carlson (St. Viator), Kentucky, and 2024 Illinois State Junior Girls’ Amateur Championship winner Alexis Myers (Glenbrook North), Illinois.
One of Illinois’ top juniors, Owen Coniaris of Glen Ellyn, finished runner up at the Notah Begay III Boys Junior National Championship, Nov. 10, in the 14–15 age category at Koasati Pines Golf Club in Kinder, Louisiana. The Wheaton Academy sophomore, who turned 16 in December, shot a final-round 69 for a 9-under total. Coniaris held the lead on the back nine but was steamrolled by Kaden Puranik of Windemere, Florida, who shot 62, including a 29 on the final nine, to shoot an 11-under total to win by two.
Evanston Golf Club is scheduled to reopen in June, weather permitting, following a major year-long restoration of the 1918 Donald Ross original. Prominent golf course architect Tyler Rae used GPS scans of the course’s greens in his effort to bring back Ross’ intricate green shapes and hole locations. Rae and his team also excavated and rebuilt bunkers and re-grassed the entire course. A new irrigation system was installed throughout the course while the pond guarding the 18th green was split into two to restore the hole back to the original Ross layout. Some 2,000 golf balls were retrieved when the ponds were excavated. Rae also has worked extensively on other Ross designs in the Chicago area, including at Beverly and Northmoor Country Clubs. Rae is under consideration for a potential project at Glen View Club, where William Flynn (Shinnecock Hills, Cherry Hills) was the designer.
Golf Digest recognized Medinah’s Course Three as the Best Transformation of the year, apparently a new category for judging the quality of major course makeovers. “The most important thing is that our members like it,” said Bruce D’Angelo, a member who helped shepherd the project through as the original cost increased from $17 million to $23 million because of inflation and higher interest rates. The course was altered significantly by the Australian design firm OCM, consisting of former U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead. Meanwhile, Golf Digest recognized three Chicago District-based men among its Best Fitness Trainers in America: Cory Puryear of P.U.R.E. Golf in Northfield; Scott Barthlama of Gleacher Golf Center in Evanston, and Bill Glegoroff of Golf Fitness Academy in Chicago.
If you like taxes, you’ll have to appreciate the creativity of Illinois politicians. For the first time, golfers at public courses and private clubs will be required to pay sales tax on riding carts, pull carts, rental clubs and other rented items. The tax, which applies not only to golf operations but to a wide swath of rented items, flew under the radar, as it was contained in a bill of some 1,200 pages approved by the Illinois legislature and signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
—Barry Cronin
