Mt. Pleasant Has Produced the Most Golf Touring Pros
by Brad MacDonald, MLive Media Group
Edited and republished with permission
Mt. Pleasant is the home of several championship golf courses, which combined with its golf training opportunities, produced six PGA Tour and LPGA Tour pros – more than virtually any community in the country.
These six golfers from Mt. Pleasant have made it to the sport’s biggest stage, going from humble beginnings at Riverwood Resort and The Golf Center just down the road, to some of golf’s grandest venues. They’ve won multiple tournaments on professional tours and competed in the sport’s most prestigious events.
For many golf fans, Dan Pohl is forever linked to his runner-up finish in the 1982 Masters at the famed Augusta National Golf Club. The 3-sport star at Mt. Pleasant High School shot 5-under-par 67s in the third and fourth rounds to charge up the leaderboard past the likes of Tom Watson, Ray Floyd and Seve Ballesteros. He finished in a tie for first, only to lose his chance at a life-time exemption to Augusta National in a sudden-death playoff to Craig Stadler.
While Pohl narrowly missed getting the iconic green jacket, he did go on to win two PGA Tour events and place in the top 10 at golf’s major tournaments six more times, including third-place finishes at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. He was golf’s longest driver in the early 1980s and had the PGA Tour’s lowest scoring average in 1987, the same year he won a match in the prestigious Ryder Cup.
“We grew up playing at Riverwood,” said Pohl, who also was an accomplished baseball and basketball player in his youth. “We were dropped off at the golf course at 7 in the morning and picked up at 7:00 at night. (Riverwood owner) Dick Figg and the Figg family was always very receptive to us being able to play.”
In addition to his success on tour, Pohl designed Mt. Pleasant’s PohlCat golf course, which bears his name. He’s currently the director of golf operations there, serving players and offering golf training opportunities.
“Having (Mt. Pleasant) looked at as a destination is big,” Pohl said. “We’ve cut the state in half. From Detroit, we’ve cut two hours out of their drive (up north) and have quality golf courses to play. We’ve got options.”
Kelly Robbins had a great career on the LPGA Tour in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Robbins grew up playing at Riverwood and The Golf Center, a practice facility still in service today, that started in the 1970s by the late PGA teaching professional Roy Gunderson.
Robbins won back-to-back individual state titles in high school before becoming an NCAA All-American and Co-Player of the Year with LPGA Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam.
Robbins won nine LPGA Tour events including one major (1995 LPGA Championship) while finishing runner-up in the 2003 U.S. Women’s Open. She played on the U.S. Solheim Cup team six times and amassed career earnings of more than $5.7 million. One of those six times she partnered with fellow Michigander Meg Mallon. “I just love Kelly Robbins; one of my favorite human beings on Tour,” Mallon said.
“I’m proud to say that Mt. Pleasant gave me every opportunity to help shape my professional career,” said Robbins, who is retired and splits her time between Michigan and Maine. “The men at The Golf Center, along with Dick Figg at Riverwood, had the most significant impact in framing my career. For me, it was an opportunity and a ‘golf family’ commitment. We just worked really, really hard and had the facilities to do it.”
Speaking of family, Cindy Figg-Currier sometimes would babysit Robbins while they were growing up in Mt. Pleasant. Ten years older than Robbins, the daughter of Dick Figg became the first woman from Mt. Pleasant to make it big on the LPGA Tour.
After winning back-to-back individual state titles in high school in the late 1970s, Figg-Currier starred at the University of Texas and enjoyed a prolific professional career. She played in more than 450 LPGA events from the 1980s into the 2000s, finishing in the top 10 more than 30 times and winning the 1997 State Farm Rail Classic.
Figg-Currier also has been successful on the Legends of the LPGA Tour, winning multiple tournaments. Her career golf winnings exceed $2 million.
When Tiger Woods made his debut at the PGA Tour’s Buick Open in Grand Blanc in 1997, Doug LaBelle II was in the field. Then a 22-year-old, LaBelle was only a few years removed from developing his game in the Mt. Pleasant junior program run by Gunderson.
“Mt. Pleasant junior golf and Roy Gunderson played a huge role in my introduction to the game,” said LaBelle, now a commercial and residential real estate agent in the Mt. Pleasant area. “From that point on, I really loved being at the golf course practicing, playing and learning to get better.”
LaBelle played in nearly 100 PGA Tour events and won $2.5 million, finishing as high as fourth place in the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii. He also qualified for the U.S. Open twice and made the cut in his lone appearance at the British Open, tying for 51st in 2008 with past major champions Sergio Garcia, Michael Campbell and Zach Johnson.
A three-time individual state champion at Mt. Pleasant High School, Ryan Brehm is the latest pro golf sensation to come out of the area. The Michigan State grad made the cut in the PGA Tour’s 2005 Buick Open as a 19-year-old and later won the Michigan Open three times.
Brehm earned his way onto the PGA Tour in 2017 and had some success, but his big breakthrough was winning the 2022 Puerto Rico Open at age 35. He played a full schedule all the way through the 2024 season, but his future is undetermined after not reaching the FedEx Cup playoffs this time around.
“All these young players just keep getting better, but so am I,” said Brehm, who has made the cut many times at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit. “There’s a lot of gas left in this tank.”
Brehm got his start in the game at PohlCat, which his family used to own. He also credits the junior program run by Gunderson and the annual Riverwood State Junior Tournament (a Michigan gold standard for junior golf before the evolution of AJGA events) that he played in many times.
Brehm remembers fishing with Pohl on Lake Michigan as a kid, and rooting for Figg-Currier, Robbins and LaBelle while he was growing up. At the Wyndham Championship last year, where Brehm finished in the top 25, his fellow competitor’s caddy was the same guy who caddied for Robbins in the 2003 U.S. Women’s Open.
“That’s always fun to hear the stories and see that some of the caddies are still out there and they remember (previous pros from Mt. Pleasant),” Brehm said. “The aforementioned players pioneered the way. We all had a common desire to play and learn the game, and we were given the opportunity.”
Dick Horgan can’t match the career earnings of any of the other touring professionals from Mt. Pleasant. In fact, he only cashed a check on the PGA Tour a few times in his life. Yet, he remains the first pro from Mt. Pleasant to make it onto the game’s biggest stage.
Horgan grew up playing golf at Mt. Pleasant Country Club, sometimes playing 54 holes a day. He played college golf at Central Michigan, becoming an All-American and finishing sixth in the country as an individual one year.
While he went to work as a club pro, Horgan finished runner-up in both the Michigan Open and the Michigan PGA Championship. He also qualified for individual PGA Tour events on several occasions. Making it into the 1979 U.S. Open was the highlight of his career – perhaps until he finally shot lower than his age (a 73 at age 75) for 18 holes in 2023.
“One thing I still enjoy is just to hit a solid golf shot,” the still Mt. Pleasant resident said. “That’s what hooks people on golf. They hit that one shot that jumps off the face, and they play forever.”
