Memories of Drive, Chip and Putt for MI Kids
Three Michigan boys won national titles at Augusta
By Tom Lang
This year marks the 10th annual Drive, Chip and Putt at Augusta National.
It’s also the first year not a single kid from Michigan made the field of the national finals. Every year since the inaugural 2015 event, one or more young players from Michigan represented the state well. Here are some memories of their experience:
That first year in 2015, two Michigan kids went to Georgia, and have since had incredible golfing careers that are certainly not over. PJ Maybank of Cheboygan and Anika Dy of Traverse City made it in the age 7-9 boys group and 14-15 girls group, respectively. Neither placed well in year one but both eventually returned for a second try and did very well.
Maybank won the 2018 boys 12-13 division and returned again in 2019 – and in 2016 Dy was T3 overall in the girls 14-15 again, in her final year of eligibility.
“The first time I went I was nine years old, so I didn’t really realize how special it was to be at Augusta National,” Maybank told me recently. “But the last time I went at 13, and even more now, I realized how special it was to be there.
“It’s such historic grounds. Millions of people dream of just going there for a day… and I was able to go there three times. We got to go to the Monday practice rounds and meet a bunch of pros and be interviewed by media. It’s so cool. The year I won, my name was put up on the leaderboard at 18 green. That was probably the coolest moment I had, where all those great players have been.”
Maybank joined the Cheboygan High golf team his sophomore year and won Mr. Golf for the state of Michigan. Afterward he played national junior tournaments and now is a freshman on the men’s team at University of Oklahoma on a full-ride. He said being a Sooner has been everything he thought it would be and is enjoying the team play and camaraderie and the “top-notch” training facilities.
“I think Drive Chip and Putt is a great way to get young kids into the game,” Maybank said. “Looking back, I started golf at a young age, but most kids start a little older. Golf can be boring, to be honest, for an 8, 9, 10-year-old. No 10-year-old kid wants to be out there for 4-5 hours. Drive, Chip and Putt is a lot quicker for practicing and qualifying, but it gets their competitive juices going. I think it’s a great way to start for kids.”
Dy voiced almost those exact words.
“It’s a great way to start golf, even if you’ve never picked up a club,” she said. “It’s only 9 shots. And if you don’t like it, you’re done. Nine shots to show what you’ve got and it’s a fun way to start into the game. DCP is more truly like a game for them, it’s fun, like getting the ball into the circle. Not exactly what most kids think when they think of the game of golf.”
Dy has finished college at Michigan and is working in a surgery center and taking steps to go to medical school. While professional golf was a dream at one time, she is also pursuing her dream to be a doctor. She won high school’s Miss Golf three times while at Traverse City West, winning the Division 1 state title three times (2016-18). As an amateur Dy won the 2019 Michigan PGA Women’s pro tournament. She played four years for the U-M women’s golf team and helped U-M to the women’s first ever Big Ten championship in 2022.
Dy qualified for the last two U.S. Women’s Amateurs and will continue to try extending her amateur career while working.
At Augusta in 2022, Bentley Coon of Horton, south of Jackson, won the boys 10-11 age group overall, and the driving discipline. According to his dad, Brian, one errant drive kept Bentley from being at Augusta again this year. At Sectionals last fall, Bentley, currently a 7th grader, hit two impressive drives – but the third one missed the grid, where in the Sectionals, all three drives count. So, instead of winning the boys 12-13 age group by 19 points, Bentley came up one point short of going to Augusta again.
“His first two drives were in the 260s and 270s, and he just tried to get a little bit more with the third one and just over-cooked it,” his dad, Brian, told me. “In hindsight, if he just hit the sand wedge he’d be going to Augusta again.”
Bentley has been playing the Callaway/ Meijer Tour out of Coldwater and has plans to soon try GAM and AJGA events.
A third young Michigander won the 2021 Drive, Chip and Putt national finals in the boys 7-9 division. Lucas Bernstein, then from Williamston was 9 when he won the Sectional at Oakland Hills in October 2019, but due to Covid canceling the 2020 event in Augusta, he and all the others were invited to compete in 2021. Last we heard, Lucas moved back to California due to a parents’ job change.
Last year, Michigan was represented at Augusta by Lyla Hampton, a golfer at Grosse Pointe South High School; Paige Radebach, and Robert Melendez, who is in elementary school in Ann Arbor. His sister, Mia, is the leading candidate to be Miss Golf next fall.
Radebach was All State first-team Div. 3 as a freshman for the state runner-up Williamston HS team. She was 14th at the state tournament to help her Williamston team to state runner up. Hampton earned all-state honorable mention in Division 2. She placed 12th at the state tournament at Forest Akers in October as a sophomore.
