Tag: madison

Photos: TPC Wisconsin, formerly Cherokee CC, opens with Steve Stricker renovation

Check out the photos of the new TPC Wisconsin in Madison.

The former Cherokee Country Club in Madison, Wisconsin, has been renovated by PGA Tour player Steve Stricker and reopened to members today as TPC Wisconsin. A grand opening will be planned for a later date.

Stricker, a resident of Madison, was helped in the renovation by PGA Tour Design Services. The private club becomes the 30th property in the TPC Network as part of a licensing deal signed in 2022, with ownership and operations remaining under Cherokee Park Inc.

Much of the course was rerouted and it all was re-grassed, and a new irrigation system was installed. Spectator mounding was added, as TPC Wisconsin will be the site of the PGA Tour Champions’ American Family Insurance Championship starting in 2025.

The club’s teaching center was enhanced — a new indoor hitting structure for club and putter fitting, plus Trackman technology, an indoor putting facility and an outdoor short-game area — and named the Steve & Nicki Stricker American Family Insurance Learning Center. The clubhouse was also extensively renovated.

“I’ve lived on this course for many years — since it was Cherokee Country Club,” Steve Stricker said in a media release announcing the news of the opening. “This is my home. I consider it a privilege to bring my PGA Tour career experience to bear on its re-envisioning, and I have totally enjoyed working on the project with PGA Tour Design Services. TPC Wisconsin will play to exact PGA Tour standards. It’ll be a fair test for players of all levels, and yes — it’s going to be exceptional.”

The renovation also saw the restoration of more than 35 acres of degraded wetlands that are tied to Cherokee Marsh.

“The redesign of the course has gone exceptionally well; we’ve raised our fairways two to four feet to ensure drainage and playing surface perfection,” Wisconsin golf legend Dennis Tiziani, owner and president of TPC Wisconsin as well as Steve Stricker’s father-in-law, said in the media release. “The work that has been put in on the property from 2021-2023 is an engineering marvel and an ecological miracle.

“I’ve been around the game of golf for a very long time, and I assure you that what we’ve created is not only going to be a challenging course, but a memorable one. Players will remember every hole — not just two or three ‘signature’ holes like on many courses. And because golf instruction is my passion, TPC Wisconsin will be among the best places in the world to improve your game.”

Big Ten opponents Notre Dame should play annually if it ever joins

Just picture at least some of these games happening annually.

The Big Ten has unveiled its “Flex Protect Plus” scheduling model, which will take effect when USC and UCLA join the conference in 2024. Eleven particular matchups will be protected and thus played every year, and every school will play every school at least twice over a four-year period. There will be both annual and rotating matchups over each team’s nine-game league schedule.

Which brings us to Notre Dame. We all know about the Irish being denied entry into the Big Ten in the 20th century’s early years, but times areMidw changing. With college football’s landscape radically changing soon, questions about the feasibility of the Irish’s longtime independence are being raised. Plus, with their next athletic director currently heading NBC Sports Group and the Big Ten about to start a long-term TV deal with NBC, the Irish almost seem destined for full-time Big Ten membership.

Now, before you Irish traditionalists hang me from the top of the Golden Dome, really think about this. Many of the Irish’s most frequent opponents in their history are based in the Midwest. This would revive annual or semi-annual rivalries that largely have been discarded to fulfill obligations to the East Coast-centeric ACC. Nothing against that conference, but Wake Forest, North Carolina and Georgia Tech just seem to be awkwardly forced upon the fan base by the arrangement and don’t exactly rile anyone up.

In the event of a Big Ten membership, certain parameters will have to be set for the Irish. They definitely would need to keep Navy as one of its nonconference opponents because any season not completely compromised by COVID that doesn’t have the Midshipmen just seems wrong. Other than that, there are some opponents that need to be scheduled every year or at least merit consideration for that. Here are the ones most worth considering:

Opinion: Madison ranked too low in Big Ten college town list

The Big Ten college towns were ranked by Saturday Tradition on Wednesday, and Madison came in eighth, which is certainly too low.

The Big Ten college towns were ranked by Saturday Tradition on Wednesday, and Madison came in eighth — a ranking that is certainly too low.

Whoever made this list failed to actually consider everything that Madison has to offer. There are few fan bases in the country that care about their sports teams as much as Badger fans do.

Camp Randall and the Kohl Center regularly sell out for football and men’s basketball, while the fieldhouse is always packed for the women’s volleyball team. To speak to the fan environment and passion of the Madison community, they were the only school in the nation to have more than 8,200 attend three different women’s sports events in 2022-2023.

Now to speak to the town as a whole, Madison is welcoming to all visitors. Operating as one of the most walkable cities in the country, with attractions like the capitol building, State Street and Lake Mendota, Wisconsin’s campus is tucked away in its own world.

I don’t think it’s crazy to consider Maddison a better college town than almost all of the schools in the conference, just ask ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt!

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Michael Graham Returning Home as Notre Dame Visits Minnesota

When Notre Dame travels to face top-ranked Minnesota this weekend, it will be a homecoming of sorts for nine native Irish players.

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When Notre Dame travels to face top-ranked Minnesota this weekend, it will be a homecoming of sorts for nine native Irish players. Among them is Michael Graham, one of four Notre Dame players from Eden Prairie. Graham, who is in a four-way tie for second on the Irish in scoring, is the subject of a new piece for the Brainerd Dispatch. Gophers fans know him well as the player who ended their team’s season during the 2019 Big Ten Tournament:

Still, Graham’s high school days are remembered fondly in his home state. Naturally, that would include Lee Smith, his high school coach:

“Michael was a four-year standout for us. There are very few kids that we bring up from our (youth hockey) association as ninth-graders, but Michael had such incredible speed and hand skills, and he’s a good person and good player, we figured we had to bring him up. And we were very fortunate he decided to stay his senior year.”

As a senior, Graham began the season with the Fargo Force in USHL. Though he strongly was encouraged to stay there the entire season, he decided to returned to an Eden Prairie roster that had lots of future Division I talent, including current Irish teammate Nick Leivermann. The team came within one victory of becoming state champions.

But Graham is not coming back to his home state for nostalgia. He’s here to try and knock off the Gophers, something only No. 12 Wisconsin has done this season. However, the Badgers did that last week, albeit in Madison. A win and a tie at minimum would be a real shot in the arm for an Irish team struggling to stay at .500.

Wisconsin Athletics thanks healthcare workers by “lighting it blue”

The Badger athletic family participates in the #lightitblue campaign

A campaign to show support for workers on the front lines of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has made it to Madison. The #LightItBlue campaign originated in the United Kingdom as a way to show appreciation for the workers that are risking their own health and safety to save the lives of others. Businesses, stadiums, and buildings have been lighting their facilities blue in solidarity with healthcare professionals and many other essential employees that are moving the world forward in such a difficult time.

Wisconsin sports recently showed solidarity at their facilities. Camp Randall Stadium was made a part of the #LightItBlue campaign yesterday evening.

The Kohl Center was also blue last night.

In such a difficult time, and a time without live sports to help us cope, it is a welcome site to see sports standing in solidarity with the essential workers in our battle against this pandemic.