Illinois golfer wins free beer for a year in a putting contest alongside Paige Sprianac
Golf Culture

Illinois golfer wins free beer for a year in a putting contest alongside Paige Sprianac

A photo of Paige Spiranac
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Imagine winning free beer for year. Now imagine winning free beer for a year because of your golf skills.

Most people would crumble under the pressure of draining a putt to win a case of beer every week for 52 weeks, but Johnny Quenan of Arlington Heights, Ill., thrived -- even with golf influencer Paige Spiranac watching.

On Aug. 16, Garage Beer, a craft brewery out of Columbus, Ohio, held Puttapalooza -- a concept created after the brewery saw a Spiranac social post with one of their beers in frame. Garage Beer reached out for a potential collaboration, and Spiranace said she just wanted to help give away a lot of beer.

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So, at Coyote Run Municipal Golf Course, after 10,000 people entered the contest online, the randomly chosen finalists competed to take on a series of putts at different lengths. Sportscaster Trey Wingo was on hand for play-by-play, while Spiranac offered putting tips for the competitors -- and shotgunned a beer with all the putters.

In the end, Quenan made five consecutive putts, including a final three-and-a-half-footer to win 52 cases of Garage Beer.

The brewery then gave Quenan a chance to win beer for life (which would have been a 15-pack per week for 60 years) by draining a 50-foot putt. He missed long and left, but Quenan still had plenty of beer in the bag.

Not bad for a day's work.

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Ryan Ballengee

Ryan Ballengee is founder and editor of Golf News Net. He has been writing and broadcasting about golf for nearly 20 years. Ballengee lives in the Washington, D.C. area with his family. He is a scratch golfer...sometimes.

Ballengee can be reached by email at ryan[at]thegolfnewsnet.com

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