Written By: Greg Johnson
SAGINAW – The historic and familiar manicured holes of classic Saginaw Country Club will host the 33rd GAM Women’s Championship presented by Carl’s Golfland Monday and Tuesday.
A field of 78 GAM member golfers will play 36-holes of stroke play over two days to determine a champion.
Saginaw Country Club, which last year celebrated 125 years as a club and is one of Michigan’s oldest golf courses, is familiar to the field because it has hosted multiple GAM tournaments over the years, including two Michigan Women’s Amateur Championships in recent years (2017, 2021), the GAM Women’s Championship in 2019 and the GAM Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship last summer.
The classic lines of the 6,143-yard course date to the first nine holes (front nine) being developed in 1898 by Charles H. Davis, a devotee of the game who purchased a farm and built a course. By 1902 the club had 100 members.
The second nine, which was called the “new course,” formally opened in 1912 and was designed by Tom Bendelow. Bendelow is famous for his design of the Medinah Country Club courses in suburban Chicago, as well as Birmingham Country Club and The Jewel on Mackinac Island.
Saginaw CC’s course was remodeled in the 1960s, and Michigan golf course architect Jerry Matthews remodeled parts of the course again in 1983. The current clubhouse dates to 1969. A landmark bridge over Gratiot Ave. connects the two nines.
Chad Boyce is the head golf professional and Kevin Risch is the superintendent. Learn more at saginawcountryclub.com.
Last year at Washtenaw Golf Club in the 32nd championship, Canton’s Bridget Boczar, won by saving par from a greenside bunker on the second hole of a three-way sudden-death playoff with Kate Brody of Grand Blanc and Anci Dy of Traverse City.
Boczar is defending her title, and Brody is returning to the field, too.
Recent Michigan Women’s Amateur Champion Shannon Kennedy of Beverly Hills and Michigan State University is in the field, as is 2023 U.S. Mid-Amateur Champion Kim Dinh of Midland. Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll of Haslett, the head golf coach at MSU and a Michigan Golf Hall of Famer, is in the field. She won the GAM Women’s Championship in 1998 and will be competing in the same field as her daughter Olivia Stoll, who is a standout golfer at Grand Valley State University.
