Rare B/W photo of Dennis "Weasel" Zielinski, Greg "Bear" Rossi, Tim "Moe" Mocarski, and Larry "The Leech" Lehoyne, along with some unidentified players, among them possibly Zielinski's brother, Jim, and co-founder of The Cragin, Bob "The Booming Hunter" Zaija, In this photo one of the original Cragin golfers lines up a putt on the first hole of Columbus Park.  Note the early Chicago skyline in the background.  Frame is not included.

This box of four balls were found by the grounds keeper at Hunter Country Club in 1991 shortly after the 18th Cragin was played.  This was the same year that founder Dennis Zielinski started running out of ideas for gifts for players in the Cragin, and began the tradition of giving each player a sleeve of  balls.  Rumor has it that in the beginning, Zielinski merely collected his own used balls that had been accumulating in his basement.  This practice ended when The Cragin received its first sponsor, WGN Radio, which for several years supplied each Cragin player with quality golf balls, tees, and markers at the beginning of each tournament.

Another rare find by Joe Drutz!  This photo shows the early career of "Bear" Rossi before his life of wealth and leisure.  Shown here with other financially challenged golfers, Rossi couldn't even afford proper golf attire.  He did, at least, know enough to wear a good pair of hose.

This is perhaps the rarest item in the Cragin Collection.  It was the most difficult to retrieve and symbolizes not only the frustrations suffered by players in the Cragin, but also the ups and downs of players everywhere.  This was one of the balls, now completely waterlogged, that "Bear" Rossi hit into the water on the then par 3 fifth hole at Hunter on his way to a disastrous 13 that ruined any chances of winning the tournament that year.  Rossi's misfortunes continued when tournament officials failed to pick the fifth hole as part of the handicapped scoring system.

If you click on the image at right, you will see a close up image of "Moe" Mocarski's balls.  This set of four shows Moe's frugality of play over the years.  Note the smooth surface of the ball in the upper left corner.  Moe started using this ball in 1967 and didn't retire its use until the 18th Cragin.  The other three are still in his bag.  The set will be available for purchase after Moe dies.

Donated to the Cragin Collection by Robert "Spar" Sparzynski, this monogrammed putter was broken by Spar after missing a one foot putt for a triple bogey on the 9th hole at Hunter which would have given Spar his best ever on that hole.  We're not sure if the ball shown here also belongs to Spar, but we think he found it across highway 173 along the 18th fairway.  You can see the monogrammed "S" by clicking on the image.

The above two ball set asks and answers questions.  The ball on the left supplies the answer to why guys play golf and why they continue coming back to The Cragin.  On the right is a ball found by Dan Doyle who was trying to figure out when a cast member of "Leave It to Beaver" ever played in The Cragin.