APGA excitement grows around Willie Mack’s recent TOUR success

SILVIS, Ill. — Two words — one name, actually — drew a wide smile Sunday from Alex Stewart that answered a question that hadn’t yet been asked.

The mere mention of Willie Mack carries that kind of currency these days on the Advocates Professional Golf Association Tour, which will continue its race to the Lexus Cup with the schedule’s penultimate event, the APGATour Deere Run, Monday and Tuesday.

The 36-hole tournament is being contested at the TPC Deere Run course where Mack scored his second PGA TOUR check in as many weeks just eight days ago at the John Deere Classic. It will serve as a prelude to the season-ending APGA Tour Championship Atlanta Aug. 9-10 at TPC Sugar Loaf in Duluth, Ga.

Highlighted by a Friday round of 66, Mack finished 61st at the Deere. That followed a 71st place finish a week earlier at the Rocket Mortgage Classic near his hometown of Flint, Mich., which followed a T62 at the Korn Ferry TOUR’s BMW Charity Pro-Am June 10-13 in Greer, S.C. All three starts came via sponsor’s exemptions.

The $31,143 Mack earned in those three events wouldn’t cover a third of the rental cost of the private jets Champion Golfer of the Year Collin Morikawa and many of the American players rode home from Sandwich, England, Sunday night. Yet, for Mack — who spent a year-and-a-half of his nine-year grind on various mini-tour circuits sleeping in his car — it represents a windfall.

For Stewart and the 58 other contestants in the APGATour Deere Run,…