In the meantime, Kemper Sports Management is offering a special treat Tuesday. KSM had planned a low-key exhibition by Arnold Palmer to spotlight the opening of Hawthorn Woods Country Club. But after contemplating that Palmer, 76, might not be making any more such appearances in the area, KSM has opened the event to the public.
Palmer will give a clinic at 10:45 a.m. on the club's practice range, then play the back nine of the course, which he designed with partner Ed Seay, starting at 11:15. Spectators are invited to walk along with the seven-time major champion, who has no other design projects in the works in Chicago.
Palmer, though, doesn't appear on the brink of retirement. He recently announced he will assume full authority of his 35-year-old course architecture business, a decision made in part because of an illness to Seay, his partner since 1971. Palmer is relocating his firm from Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., to Palmer's Bay Hill Club in Orlando, Fla.
Hawthorn Woods, a private club that is the centerpiece for a new residential community, is one of nearly 300 active projects that Palmer's firm has going in 38 states and 23 countries. One of his courses, the K Club in Ireland, will be the site of the Ryder Cup matches in September.
As for the Western, the PGA Tour's second-oldest event behind the U.S. Open is expected to be renamed the BMW Championship for 2007. It will shift to September as one of four tournaments in the new FedEx Cup series, a NASCAR-style concept devised to boost the tour's fall TV ratings.
WGA tournament director John Kaczkowski expects Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and defending champion Jim Furyk in this year's field, though all haven't formally committed.
"This will be the best field we've had in a number of years,'' Kaczkowski said.
Kaczkowski also revealed four of the sponsor's exemptions into the Western field. Two were automatic: Western Amateur champion Jamie Lovemark and LaSalle Bank Open winner Jason Dufner. Lovemark, 17, is a freshman at USC and the youngest champion in the history of the prestigious Western Am. Dufner enjoyed a carryover from his victory at The Glen Club, surviving the cut in the U.S. Open for the first time in his career and finishing in a tie for 40th.
Also getting Western invites were Mark Wilson, a PGA Tour player who has established residence in Chicago, and Billy Hurley, a member of the victorious U.S. Walker Cup team last summer at Chicago Golf Club who recently turned pro. A 2004 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Hurley is squeezing in tournaments between his military duties. He made the cut in the Bay Hill Invitational and also played in the Byron Nelson Championship