Written By: Greg Johnson
ANN ARBOR – The GAM Team won all three rounds – foursomes, four-ball and singles – to win the 72nd Atlas Trophy Matches Saturday and Sunday against the Michigan Publinx Golf Association team, 16 ½ – 6 ½ at Polo Fields Golf & Country Club.
The GAM has won or retained the Atlas Trophy eight consecutive times in the historic biennial competition and now leads 49-20-3.
The GAM started Saturday morning with a 4 ½ – 1 ½ win in the six foursomes matches (also known as alternate shot), and then won the four-ball (best-ball) matches 4 ½ – 1 ½ as well. In Sunday singles the GAM’s 12-golfer team had a 7 ½ – 3 ½ advantage.
Matt Zerbel of St. Joseph, Ieuan Jones of Ann Arbor and Peter Roehl or Rochester Hills each helped account for three points to lead the GAM team.
Also representing the winning GAM team were Vibhav Alokam of Ypsilanti, Julian Menser of South Lyon, Connor Fox of Lake Orion, Chet VandenBerg of Portage, Matt Bartnick of Livonia, Andrew Tindall of Chelsea, Remy Stalcup of Lake Orion, Jared Lyons of Portage and Mike Zoerhoff of Caledonia.
The MPGA was represented this year by John Quigley of Sterling Heights, Chad Johson of Farmington Hills, Nicholas Winiarski of Pontiac, Gavin Depauw of Almont, Robert Bedder of Whittaker, Lucas Belanger of Holly, Sean Friel of Keego Harbor, Jonathan Larson of Brighton, Greg Davies of West Bloomfield, Razmig Boghikian of Novi, Scott Jaschuk of Walled Lake and Johnny Chaivre of Ann Arbor. Glen Piot of Canton was a substitute for the final two rounds after Davies withdrew due to back spasms.
Review the results of the matches by clicking 72nd Men’s Atlas Trophy Matches Event :: Tournament Results (golfgenius.com)
The series of matches originated in 1938 as a competition between private club golfers represented by the GAM and public course golfers represented by the MPGA with the trophy honoring Edward Atlas, who then was a GAM Governor as well as a USGA Public Links Committee member and Detroit area public golf official.
Prior to 2010, the competition was conducted annually except for World War II years, and historically, private club players competed against public course players. Beginning in 2011, however, it became a biennial competition between GAM member golfers regardless of their course or club affiliation and members of the MPGA.
The GAM and MPGA each select a captain, who then selects 12 team members by using GAM Honor Roll points, MPGA Honor Roll points and other criteria. The event is complimentary for the players as the event is designed to honor those chosen for the teams.
