YPSILANTI –
Washtenaw Golf Club, the third oldest golf course in Michigan, is now a public
facility welcoming Michigan golfers.
It also continues to
be a great host for Golf Association of Michigan tournaments, and Monday and
Tuesday will host the Second Senior Net Amateur Championship presented by
Michigan Golf Live.
Senior male golfers
over age 55 with GAM/USGA handicap indexes lower than 20.4 have a standalone
net championship for the second time this year. The field of 54 golfers will
play for the title over two days and 36 holes of competition on the classic
Washtenaw course.
The Senior Net
Amateur is among five Net championships presented this year as part of the
GAM’s continuing effort to provide competition for members of all playing
ability levels on some of the state’s top golf courses.
Washtenaw opened in
1899 and has evolved over the years into a 6,512-yard classic parkland style
golf course featuring narrow tree-lined fairways, strategically placed bunkers
and quick, undulating greens.
The course has a
rich tournament history, including hosting the 1927 Michigan Amateur
Championship, and many major events since for both the Golf Association of
Michigan and the Michigan PGA.
The original founders Cora Henry, I. Newton
Swift and Daniel L. Quirk Jr. persuaded a local farmer to let them stick three
empty tomato cans in his freshly cut hay field west of the city and invited
their friends over for a game of golf. The event was a success, and 15 men from
Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor formed the Washtenaw Country Club in Ypsilanti Township
a year later. Eventually, the sheep that grazed on the greens were replaced
with lawnmowers and the tomato cans with golf holes, and the small hay field
became a club.
In the first Senior
Net Amateur last year at Saginaw Country Club, Robert Kenworthy of Clio shot a
personal best 79 for a net 61 to win. He is returning to the field.
“It really was the
best round I’ve ever had,” he said. “I had 82 as my previous best, but normally
I’m around 90 or just under, a bogey golfer with some double-bogeys and I might
slip a birdie or two in there.”
The 61 paired with a
first-round 70 off an 88 for a 131 net total was six better than Jack McHale of
Macomb Township and first-round leader Michael Lam of Northville, who each
finished at net 137.
-Greg Johnson, [email protected]
