NORTHVILLE – Ian Harris of Bloomfield Hills and Greg Davies of West Bloomfield have each won multiple GAM titles over the years.
This time they teamed up and won the 13th GAM Senior/Mid-Am Team Championship Finals Tuesday at Meadowbrook Country Club.
“Together we made a lot of putts today,” said Harris. “Greg got a couple bad tee shots out of the way early, then he played like Greg Davies.”
Harris, 69 and soon to be 70 and in the Legends age category for GAM tournaments, and Davies, a Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member who recently turned 55 and joined the senior age group, shot 4-under 68 in the finals format of front nine four-ball or best-ball and back nine foursomes or alternate shot.
The father-son duo of Tom and Nikolas Senkowski of Rochester Hills shot 71 and finished second, just ahead of Bill Zylstra of Dearborn Heights and Chet VandenBerg of Portage who had a 72.
Six teams that won or finished second in the three first-day sectional competitions hosted earlier in the season by Dearborn Country Club, Flint Golf Club and Travis Pointe Country Club, made up the field for Tuesday’s finals. It was the second consecutive year that Meadowbrook has hosted the finals.
A field of 116 teams, or 232 of Michigan’s top golfers, competed in the opening segment of the popular championship that features a Senior golfer (55-and-over) teamed up with a Mid-Amateur golfer (23-and-over). The teams played four-ball, also known as best-ball, in a morning round, and foursomes, also known as alternate shot, in the afternoon rounds.
“We played well really, made some good putts and gave ourselves chances for birdies,” Davies said of Tuesday’s final round.
“We ham and egged it all day,” Harris said. “We were a good team.”
The duo, which finished second in a card playoff in the Flint sectional event, shot 31 in the best-ball format on the front Tuesday and led by two shots at the turn. An alternate shot bogey on No. 10 was the only blemish until No. 15 when they made bogey, but then they followed it up with a birdie.
“Winning is always nice,” Davies said. “It was fun and we had a nice day to play.”
