MPSGA announces Player of the Year awards for 2014
The Michigan Publinx Seniors Golf Association (MPSGA) recognized their 2014 gross and net player’s of the year at their annual meeting & awards banquet at the Fox Hills/Golden Fox complex in Plymouth earlier this month.
The 2014 Gross Player of the Year award went to Billy Green (Waterford), proud owner of “Greenskeeper Golf” – a specialty landscape & artificial putting green installation business here in Michigan. Billy narrowly edged out former major league baseball player, Cincinnati Reds third baseman Mike Grace (Waterford) in both the MPSGA State Tournament at Shanty Creek and in the final Player of the Year standings.
The Super-Senior of the Year award (age 65 & up) went to Dave McTear (Redford) who wound up just ahead of Mike Phillips (Bloomfield Hills). Dave finished third in the Super-Senior division of the 2014 GAM Senior Amateur at Grosse Ile CC earlier this month. Mike, a former Birmingham CC champion also had an outstanding year, winning the Super-Senior division of the 2014 GAM Senior Match-Play tournament at Western GC as well as the MPSGA Super-Senior competition at Shanty Creek.
In the Legend of the Year (age 70 &up) standings, Tom Pilon (Plymouth) a former Evans Scholar from Michigan State came out the winner. Tom was low gross among the Legends in 5 of the 13 single-day tournaments and finished third to 1962 Michigan Class A high school & GAM junior champion Dennis Ahern (Chapel Hill, NC) and four-time GAM Senior champion Claud Johnston (Ann Arbor) in the tournament at Shanty Creek. This is Pilon’s second Legend of the Year award. He has also won two Briegel Cup competitions.
The Grand Master of the Year (age 75 & up) award went to Jerry Fenby, (West Bloomfield), an Orchard Lake CC member who beat out Jim Briegel (Ann Arbor/Univ. of Michigan) for season ending honors in the MPSGA’s inaugural Grand Master competition. The 88-year-old Briegel continued to amaze, beating his age by more than 10 shots in several of the tournaments. The younger 75-year-old Fenby was low gross in 8 of the 13 single day tournaments.
Ray Maidment (Saline), a former club champion at Travis Pointe CC and past USGA Senior Amateur qualifier won his second Briegel Cup award (low gross relative to age) while shooting his age several times during the season-long competition.
In the net category, John Pratt (Troy) edged out Everett Winters (Royal Oak), Mark Iovan (West Bloomfield), Harry Hicks (Commerce Twp.), Morris DeFever (Shelby Twp.) and the 2014 MPSGA Tournament of Net Champions winner, Dave Baldwin (Northville) for the 2014 Net Player of the Year award.
Congratulations to all of these 2014 Players of the Year!
For more information on the MPSGA and their tournament competitions, you can visit the web site “mpsga.org”.
