Chicago Native Wins 52 Cases of Garage Beer in Inaugural Paige Spiranac 'Puttapalooza'

Johnny Quenan, of Arlington Heights, Illinois, won a new putting contest that will set him up with beer for a year courtesy of Garage Beer.

On a beautiful, summer evening 20 miles south of Chicago, Johnny Quenan, of Arlington Heights, Illinois, drained five consecutive putts (including the final 3 ½ footer) at Coyote Run Municipal Golf Course to win 52 cases of Garage Beer, hence Garage Beer for a Year. More than 10,000 golf-playing, beer-drinkers entered the inaugural contest. The randomly chosen finalists competed Wednesday, August 16 at Coyote Run with a series of putts of different lengths. After Chicago Bears-lid wearing Johnny outlasted the competition and won the prize, Garage gave him one additional bonus putt from 50-feet to win Garage Beer for Life (a 15-pack a week for 60 years!). The attempt was long and left, but no matter, Johnny was celebrated instantly as a local (putting) legend.

Trey Wingo with the winner

Sports broadcaster and golden-jacket-wearing Trey Wingo provided the on-course play-by-play while golf omni-channel media juggernaut Paige Spiranac offered putting tips for all (and led a contestant beer shotgun, seen below).

Puttapalooza was created after Garage Beer saw a post in which Spiranac had a Garage Beer on hand and reached out to ask if there was anything that could be done together. Spiranac said, “Yes – let’s just give away beer, a lot of beer.” Puttapalozza was formed.

“Johnny’s got beer!”, the famous phrase coined by Trey Wingo after the last putt was holed, has already been turned into t-shirts available in the Garage merch store. Do not be surprised if you see Johnny Quenan, now known simply as Johnny Garage, on a Chicagoland beer display soon.

Garage Beer is a craft-made, classic light beer available in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee and now in Illinois (Chicago and surrounding areas will stock shortly at Binny’s, Jewel-Osco and Berkot's). It’s brewed for quality in small batches. Johnny Garage is set up nicely.