MOUNT. PLEASANT – Mount Pleasant Country Club has a storied history and it will add a chapter as host of the 17th Michigan Women’s Senior Amateur Championship Wednesday and Thursday.
The tournament, originally scheduled in June, was postponed until later in the season because of heavy rainfall that hampered course conditions at the time.
The Michigan Women’s Senior Amateur provides the best senior players in the state with the opportunity to work their way through flighted match play brackets, as well as consolation matches so all participants are guaranteed to play on both days.
New this year, the first day stroke play round is only required for players that seek to qualify for the Championship Bracket.
An additional Gross bracket of eight will be made consisting of players that do not make the top eight in stroke play, plus those that would rather play gross matches but do not want to participate in stroke-play qualifying. All other brackets will consist of net matches with players seeded by index.
Mount Pleasant Country Club, remodeled in 1981 by Jerry Matthews & Associates, dates to 1921 as a golf club and in 1922 a site was developed along the Chippewa River and opened in May of that year.
The private club was played by golf legend Walter Hagen in a 1938 exhibition. He shot what was then a 2-over 70 and helped promote the club as a first-class venue according to the club’s history. The club is also the home course of former PGA Tour player Doug Labelle II.
Learn more about Mount Pleasant Country Club at mtpleasantcc.com.
The tournament was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 concerns but returns with three former champions in the field. Two-time champions Sue Campbell of Kalamazoo and Joan Garety of Ada are in the field in Mount Pleasant this week, as is 2009 winner Barb Schmid of Grand Rapids.
Donna Benford of Linden, the defending champion from 2019 and a two-time winner, and Julie Massa of Holt, the champion in 2017 and ’18, withdrew from the field to play in the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship. They qualified earlier this summer and play at the national championship starts Friday at The Lakewood Club in Point Clear, Ala.
In the 2019 Michigan Women’s Senior Amateur Benford turned back Campbell 1-up in the title match at Verona Hills Golf Club in Bad Axe. Benford had a hole-in-one on hole No. 11 during the final match.
