By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – A Bloomington man who is considered one of the top innovators in golf has died.

Mark Laesch died Saturday after a lengthy battle with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Laesch created Golfstat which the Golf Channel reports quickly became one of the most reliable tools for anyone with interests in or ties to the college game.

Laesch was part of the family that owned Laesch Dairy in Bloomington for decades before Oberweis Dairy bought the business in 1998.

He told GolfWeek.com last December his friends help him stay positive as be battled an incurable disease.

“I remember Lou Gehrig said, ‘I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.’ Well I’m not going to go there, because I’ve got this disease,” Laesch said. “But I do consider that I’ve got the finest friends on the face of the earth, and I have more people that love me than I deserve.”

Laesch was 62. His father, uncle and sister had also died of ALS. He is survived by a fiancee and his three children. He also has a sister who lives in the Chicago area.

Local golf instructor Rick Sellers said Laesch had a profound impact on the sport.

“As a golf instructor you kind of want to know what players need to work on and his statistics and his analytics began to show areas where players were weak in and maybe teachers along the way were missing,” Sellers said.

Sellers added he loved to pick Laesch’s brain about ways to help people golf better. He recalled Laesch once created a prototype the idea of a lighter golf cart that could be easily pushed.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].