Katie Chipman Rallies to Win the 107th Michigan Women’s Amateur
By Tom Lang and Greg Johnson
SPRING LAKE – Katie Chipman of Canton did not start the final round strong.
Yet her strong finish was key to earning the championship title of the 107thMichigan Women’s Amateur, played at Spring Lake Country Club.
Chipman’s name is forever now on the historic Patti Shook Boice Trophy – named after the current Spring Lake member who won the event seven times – along side several past winners from Michigan who made it onto the LPGA Tour.
Runner up Olivia Hemmila, age 18 of Troy won the first hole, immediately placing Chipman behind. The lead grew to 2-up on the front nine, before Chipman won the ninth hole with a birdie, then won the 10th with a par to make it all square.
While Chipman was in a great position taking her third shot into the par 5 10th, her accuracy backfired when the approach shot hit the pin hard and went off the green and into the thick rough, leaving a very delicate up and down with very little green to work with, but she made it to win the hole.
“I thought I had a good mentality this week, and if something didn’t go my way I just tried to stay in it,” said Chipman, a Plymouth High and former Grand Valley State University player.
On holes 11-15, Hemmila – a recent grad of Troy Athens High who is on her way to Oakland University – built and lost two more 2-up advantages in part from a chip-in birdie by Chipman on 13, before the match went all square on 16, where Chipman got her tee shot on the par 3 to within 18 feet and Hemmila found the back sand trap.
Chipman never had the lead the entire final round until the next hole, where she drained a 39-foot birdie putt from the back edge of the 17thgreen for the winning margin of 1-up. In the second round of match play she made an even longer putt to defeat the medalist, Shannon Kennedy of the MSU Women’s golf team.
“I tried to just feel out that putt,” Chipman said. “I tried to use more feel than judging the distance of the green, and it worked out. It did drop.
“It’s been kind of a crazy week,” added Chipman, the 2017 runner-up who has been working the last two years in golf after an unsuccessful LPGA/Epson Qualifying bid but has not played competitively and decided to seek amateur reinstatement.
“This means a lot – a lot,” she continued. “I haven’t had much practice time at all. I never thought this was how it would end up. I’m really grateful that it did, and it was really a great experience and a really fun tournament.”
Hemmila said she had an amazing week, too.
“It stings definitely, I mean, because I was leading the match, so to come up short hurts, but I can’t be mad at how I played,” she said. “I mean for the first time I made match play and then to win all those matches and be part of the final match and give myself a shot the entire day to win the whole thing is just incredible and just something I had not imagined myself doing. But here I am.”
