Top 10 Golf News Moments in 2024 in Michigan
By Tom Lang
In addition to all the wonderful people and places to play in Michigan that are featured in this magazine all year long, we have picked out the top 10 golf news stories in remembrance of the year 2024:
10) LINKS magazine points out that Michigan still has the most public golf courses than any other state in the country, and Golf Digest placed Michigan in a tie with California for the second-best state for the quality of its public golf courses.
9) The Meijer LPGA Classic celebrated its 10th anniversary in June. Lilia Vu won in a fabulous playoff performance over former Meijer winner and fan favorite Lexi Thompson, and Grace Kim. Meijer is credited for taking the chance on pro golf tours in Michigan several years after all the tours left our state in the late 2000s. Since then, pro tours from the LPGA, PGA and PGA Tour Champions have added tournaments in the Great Lakes State.
8) Professional Scott Hebert and amateur player Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll extend and set records when Slobodnik-Stoll won the GAM Women’s Senior Championship (Stroke play), her 19th GAM individual title – and Hebert captured the Michigan PGA Match Play, his record-breaking 18th Michigan PGA major championship.
7) East Lansing native Jacqueline Setas earned medalist at US Women’s Mid-Am, before going on to reach the match play quarterfinals (her second time). Setas is a great comeback story having missed a year of golf at Michigan State to conquer cancer, then came back to finish her college career there and now plays in occasional amateur championships.
6) Michigan said goodbye to the Senior PGA Championship, played every-other year since 2012 at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor. It is not scheduled to return. The course, however, earned the title of 2024 Michigan Golf Course of the Year and was in the mix for National Golf Course of the Year.
5) Michigan was well represented during the summer in the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 – by Flint native and touring pro Willie Mack III, mini tour pro Otto Black of Brighton, and MSU senior Ashton McCulloch – a student-athlete from Kingston, Ontario and winner of the 2023 Canadian Amateur.
4) Tom Gillis retires: the Lake Orion High graduate played professionally worldwide, including five years on the European Tour and several more on the PGA Tour. His closet chance at victory on Tour in America was the 2015 John Deere Classic when he tied for medalist with Jordan Speith, who went on to win the playoff in two holes. He also had a good Champions Tour career, ending it in August with a T10 8-under par behind winner Stewart Cink at the Ally Challenge at Warwick Hills – the same golf course he began his pro career 31 years prior. Gillis played in 188 PGA Tour events and won over $5 million, including a runner up finish at the 2012 Arnold Palmer Invitational (tying with Tiger Woods behind winner Rory McIlroy).
3) Six Michigan golf courses celebrated their centennials in 2024: Elk Rapids Golf Club, Grayling Country Club, Verona Hills Golf Course, Gaylord Country Club, Ella Sharp Park and Sauganash Golf Club.
2) Oakland Hills hosted the U.S Junior Amateur Championship in July, with fans following Tiger Woods around the course following his son, Charlie, who qualified for stroke play (but not match play). It is the first of several national championships (including the 2034 U.S. Open) on the Oakland Hills future calendar as the club heals and recovers from the tragic clubhouse fire almost three years ago.
1) Michigan’s own Ryan Brehm led fans to a nail-biting finish in April with partner Mark Hubbard as they tied for second at the Zurich Classic team event on the PGA Tour. The pairing finished just one stroke out of first place and the playoff that was eventually won by Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowery, the twosome Brehm and Hubbard played with the entire final round.
