About Us

We play 9 holes at the Schaumburg Golf Club on Mondays from May through August.

League History

The School District 54 Golf League began in the summer of 1970 at Hilldale Golf Club. All of the members were central office or building administrators from Schaumburg School District 54. The format was 8 teams of 3 players with one from each of the 3 flights. A tournament was held at the end of the year at various golf courses in the area, but mostly at Nordic Hills in Itasca. The first "Commissioner" was Ken Ciosek who reigned until 1981.

In 1981 Dave Boze took over as the commissioner until 1986. During the 80's members of the teaching staff were able to join the league raising the number to 32 at one point. Throughout the 55 years of its existence the league usually had 24 golfers.

In 1986 Dan Farinosi took over and has been the "Commish" for the last 39 years. The formats have changed to more individual play and is now mostly match play within flights. As staff members of the district retired we began adding outside members to keep the numbers up. As of now (2021) there are no active staff members in the league although 7 are retired from the district: Summers, Brand, Opalinski, Arizpe, Cull, Ciosek, and Farinosi. We no longer have an end of the year tournament because it is difficult to find time for all of us retirees to set a date!

We played at many courses in the area. After Hilldale we moved to Moon Lake (currently called The Bridges at Poplar Creek), had a brief stint at Whisper Creek in Huntley and have been at Schaumburg Golf Club ever since.

The league name was changed in 2012 to the John Beer Memorial Golf League in honor of one of our members who passed away from cancer. In 2017 the league got a website!

Some interesting fast facts:

• The original fee for playing 9 holes was $5 with a $25 league fee; we currently pay $28 with a $120 league fee (includes closest to the pin, prizes for winning, and misc. fees).
• Closest to the pin was an option back in the 1970's and 1980's; a bag was put out on the tee box and you would put your money in before your tee shot.
• Although records were not kept or are unavailable until 1978 I believe there are 2 original members still playing. Some of them took a hiatus at times but are back: Ken Cull and Gene Opalinski.

Flight Champions

1986:   Rogers, DeStefano, Flamini 1987:   Wilson, DePinto, Swoboda 1988:   Derr, Burke, Swoboda 1989:   Rogers, Johnsen, Bugay 1990:   Wilson, Anderson, Bugay 1991:   Rogers, Summers, Flamini 1992:   Dwyer, Anderson, Bugay 1993:   Derr, Downs, Swoboda 1994:   Downs, Burke, Flamini 1995:   Dwyer, Farinosi, Anderson 1996:   Johnsen, Anderson, Opalinski 1997:   Dolinky, DePinto, Wallarab 1998:   Keeley, Summers, Flamini 1999:   Johnsen, Opalinski, Halterman 2000:   Dwyer, Lucier, Anderson 2001:   Dwyer, Anderson, Dahle 2002:   Dwyer, Campagna, Dahle 2003:   Beer, Downs, Wirtanen 2004:   Farinosi, Summers, Bugay 2005:   Farinosi, Summers

2006:   Patterson, Summers, Scimeca 2007:   Johnsen, Opalinski, Cull 2008:   Beer, Grady, M. Zinn 2009:   Patterson, D. Zinn, Baranowski 2010:   Sjoholm, Grady, Bollinger 2011:   Beer, Opalinski, Baranowski, Ewing 2012:   Farinosi, Downs, Sanders, Greco 2013:   Patterson, Arizpe, Brand, Ewing 2014:   Johnsen, Downs, Grady, Bollinger 2015:   Tykal, Brand, Ciosek, Ewing 2016:   Johnsen, Arizpe, Mason 2017:   Johnsen, Falckenberg, Brenner, Lovell 2018:   Tykal, Opalinski, Cull, Lovell 2019:   Tykal, Grady, McKirahan, Pearce 2020:   Downs, Summers, McKirahan, Pearce 2021:   Rogers, Dolinky, Brand, Sanders 2022:   Summers, Tarpley, McKirahan, Ewing 2023:   Falckenberg, Johnson, Brand, Ewing 2024:   Johnsen, Brenner, Johnson, Pearce