On the pro golf tour, it’s considered a compliment when a TV announcer says about an unflappable golfer like Tiger Woods, “You can’t tell whether he’s five over par or five under.” It’s the same way on the Manure Tour, a loosely connected series of two-day amateur golf tournaments that take place mostly at old public golf courses in northern Illinois. Nicknamed for the rural nature of the host towns, including Streeter, Plano, Pontiac, Sandwich and Toluca, the Manure Tour attracts golfers who go about their business as if there were a million dollars at stake.
In reality, the biggest prize an amateur can win and keep his amateur status is $750, which, not coincidentally, is the top prize at some of the Manure Tour events.
Though most of the tour participants are better golfers than I, we share three traits: We love golf, we play a lot and we want to test our games in tournament pressure. And we’re willing to pay about $100 per tournament for the privilege.
We may be amateurs, but on the Manure Tour, we act like professionals. OK, there are a few exceptions. Some golfers drink beer during their round, and occasionally, someone will throw the type of screaming fit of rage you don’t often see on the PGA Tour.
On the Manure Tour, a handful of the younger players in any given field of 100 or so are playing in college and have aspirations to go pro.
And though it’s quite possible that I’m the only guy in the field giving discreet, appreciative little waves to fans who aren’t there, I’m sure many of these schoolteachers, electricians, truck drivers, engineers, accountants and computer programmers use these tournaments to indulge their fantasies.
It’s hard to tell, because for the most part they’re an inscrutable bunch–especially in the early going of the tournament, before dreams are dashed by a ball hit out of bounds into the cow pasture.
The “gallery” at Manure Tour events usually consists of a dozen or so wives–I’ve never seen a woman play on this tour, and as far as I know, Annika Sorenstam hasn’t been invited–and a few locals who come out to take in some sun, golf and beer, not necessarily in that order.
There are so few gallery members, in fact, that a Manure Tour tournament doesn’t look like a tournament–just a golf course packed with golfers.
John Boyle of Oak Park, who played in the Manure Tour’s Mike Sipula Memorial Invitational in Ottawa on June 12 and 13, says he ignores the imaginary gallery but delights in other professional-feeling trappings of Manure Tour events.
“When I play in this tournament–and for two weeks before–I’m not just a hacker, I’m a golfer,” Boyle said. “I love to see my score up on the board with all the other real golfers. For four or five hours, two days in a row, everything counts.”
And, added the 42-year-old air pollution engineer, “I do have to struggle at the office not to mention `the tournament that I play in’ too often.”
These tournaments are small traditions in the towns where they’re played–the Sipula Memorial has been played since 1949–and they’re usually covered in the local paper.
And they’re big traditions at the courses where they’re held. Since legendary Illinois amateur golfer Mike “Pro” Sipula started the Pine Hills Invitational in 1949, the tournament has become the highlight of his family’s year. And it’s that family involvement that makes the tournament one of the homiest on the tour.
For weeks leading up to the event, the Sipulas worry and bicker and sweat over getting the course in top condition and organizing the staff and volunteers they need.
And since Pro died in 1999 and the name of the tournament was changed to the Mike Sipula Memorial Invitational, the event has taken on a spiritual dimension.
A memorial plaque is attached to a rock by the clubhouse. And during the tournament, Sipula’s widow, Ellawyn (known to the family and tournament regulars alike as “Ma”), places flowers–and a golf cap–on top of the rock.
Room for hackers
The Manure Tour’s popularity has declined somewhat in recent years, according to Jim Sipula, who runs Pine Hills. That’s why a few relative hackers like me have been allowed to play.
“We’ve had to relax the standards a little bit,” he tells me politely.
And still, his field is down from 120 players during the tournament’s heyday to 94 this year.
Most of the people who play on the tour are fine players from around the state, who can expect to shoot near par–usually 72 for 18 holes. I am a better-than-average golfer, but about the best score I can expect to shoot under pressure is 80, and that’s stretching it.
As much as any of the other tournaments that I’ve played in on the Manure Tour, the Sipula Memorial feels official.
There’s a free “practice round” the day before it starts (oh, how I love the implication that I’m good enough to have any other kind of round). On the first morning of the tournament, there’s a parking attendant in the gravel and grass parking lot, directing you to a proper spot. After you check in, a golf cart chauffeur whisks you and your clubs over the bridge to the driving range.
And on the first tee–that wondrous and dreadful place!–an announcer says over a loudspeaker, “Leading off the 7:40 group . . . David. Murray.” (My heart pounds as I type the words!)
On Saturday morning, I hit the ball too close to the trees on the left. But I recovered with a nice chip shot and some solid putting. After nine holes, I was only three over par.
Walking toward the scorer’s tent with my scorecard (yes, there’s actually a scorer’s tent–an awning off the clubhouse wall that shades the scoreboard), I tried mightily to conceal my elation at having shot the best score of all my years at the Sipula Memorial.
I was 10 strokes behind the first-day leader, who had shot a one-under-par 69, but I couldn’t manage to affect the sort of disgust that a top player would have had at my score.
The cheeseburger break
After lugging my bag around the course and fighting my nerves for five hours in steamy Illinois humidity, one of the best parts of a Manure Tour event–the very best part is when my wife joins me on the 18th green–is the traditional beer and cheeseburger on the clubhouse porch on Saturday afternoon.
Luckily for me, the Sunday round, per usual, was a bit more relaxed. There was more talking, much of it about Saturday’s regrets. One member of my foursome analyzed his Saturday failure and came to the conclusion that he had drunk too many Mike’s Hard Lemonades.
“I should have stuck to beer,” he said.
Of course, the leaders aren’t mulling their regrets; they are playing for money–that $750 (which they must spend in Pine Hills’ small pro shop). And some of them are dreaming of bigger and better things.
Winner Terry Werner, 50, of Dyer, Ind., has won a number of these local tournaments during the last couple of years–he jokes that he’s becoming “the Tiger Woods of the Manure Tour.”
Although he isn’t quite ready to quit his day job as a project manager for an insulation company, Werner is hoping to catch on with the PGA’s Champions Tour, a professional tour for ex-PGA pros and other top golfers 50 and over.
But he’s stopping to smell the well-fertilized roses on the Manure Tour. After his victory on Sunday, he recalled, he was buying beers for everybody in the clubhouse. A young player who had played badly in the tournament walked up to him and asked him for advice.
Remembering the advice he had been generously given by one of the top amateurs when he needed it, he gave the young man the name of a good pro he knows and added, “Go home and hit 2 million balls, and then realize you’re a third of the way there.”
Fading on Sunday
By the end of the round on Sunday, everyone was out of adrenaline and sagging from the heat.
Boyle finished in the 90s on both days.
“I joked at the scorer’s tent after the final round, asking, `Is it too late to withdraw?'”
After a ghastly 46 on the first nine, I made some pars and righted the ship a bit and was on track to shoot 85 for the day–still not terrible for my standards.
My foursome all sat yawning on the bench on the 17th tee, waiting for the green to clear.
One of my companions, a good player whose putting had let him down on Saturday, summed up the feeling, muttering, “I’m dreaming of cheeseburgers.”
But after we putted out on the 18th green and went to shake each other’s hands, at least one member of the group still had his game face on and betrayed just for a moment that maybe I wasn’t the only Walter Mitty in the group.
“Come on, guys,” he said. “Let’s act like professionals and take our hats off while we shake hands.”
Embarrassed, we all whipped off our caps frantically and then shook hands like the professional golfers we secretly, for some reason, wish we were.
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If you can pay, you can play on the Manure Tour
This season on the Manure Tour: Six events to test your game.
The word “invitational” is a misnomer on the Manure Tour. None of the events listed here requires an invitation. But the events do require an entry fee, which must be sent in advance. And some have handicap requirements.
Call each course for more information.
July 10-11: Ledges Invitational, The Ledges Golf Club,
Roscoe. No handicap requirement. Entry fee: $80. Phone: 815-389-0979.
July 18: Dwight Invitational, Dwight Country Club, Dwight. No handicap requirement.
Entry fee: About $50. Phone: 815-584-1399
Aug. 21-22: 10th annual
DeKalb County Amateur,
Edgebrook Country Club, Sandwich. Handicap requirement is 25 or lower. Entry fee: $100. Phone: 815-786-3058
Sept. 11-12: 50th annual Bill Dix Men’s Invitational, Morris Country Club, Morris. No maximum handicap requirement. Entry fee has not been set yet but should be about $100. Phone: 815-942-3628
Sept. 18-19: Pontiac Elks
Invitational, Pontiac Elks Country Club, Pontiac.
Handicap requirement is
18 or lower. Entry fee: $70. Phone: 815-842-1249.
Sept. 25-26: Fall Classic,
Cedardell Golf Club, Plano.
No handicap requirement.
Entry fee is under $100. Phone: 630-552-3242.
