GAM Senior Men’s Player of the Year: Leo Daigle
By Greg Johnson
Leo Daigle of Wixom had just won the season-closing GAM Senior Tournament of Champions but was unaware that he had also wrapped up the top spot on the GAM Senior Men’s Points List.
Greg Davies of West Bloomfield and Orchard Lake Country Club, last year’s GAM Senior Men’s Player of the Year and a Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member, filled him in on what he had accomplished.
“Greg, a great guy who has always been so nice to me, gave me a beautiful gift in telling me I had accomplished something a golfer never forgets,” Daigle said.
The 60-year-old Daigle has been named the 2024 GAM Senior Player of the Year.
Daigle, a GAM member through the Michigan Publinx Golf Association (MPGA), qualified for the U.S. Senior Amateur, reached the semifinals of the GAM Senior Match Play and tied for second in the GAM Senior Championship to help earn 340 points.
The final critical points for Daigle came in the Senior Tournament of Champions where he finished just ahead of Mike Ignasiak of Saline, another MPGA member who tied for second in the championship.
Ignasiak, a former Major League baseball player, finished second on the season points list, too, with 332.5 points, just 7.5 behind Daigle.
“Dad got me playing and my grandfather got me playing it better and some of the old guys started calling me Leo,” Daigle said. “I played some golf until I was about 18, then it was off to the Army and Florida, and around age 30 I met my wife and started playing again but didn’t get serious and take lessons until age 45.”
GAM Super Senior Player of the Year: Randy Lewis
By Greg Johnson
Randy Lewis of Alma stayed healthy in 2024 and had fun playing golf once again.
“That’s the beauty of the game, finding satisfaction in things that maybe you didn’t when you were younger,” said the 67-year-old Michigan Golf Hall of Famer and Pine River Country Club member. “I was hurt in 2023 and barely played. I was thrilled to simply play a whole year without being hurt. That hasn’t happened for a while.”
The healthy retiree won the Super Senior division of the GAM Senior Match Play Championship early in the season and capped the year with the Super Senior title at the GAM Mid-Amateur Championship.
Lewis earned 235 points over the season to top the Super Seniors just ahead of Ian Harris of Bloomfield and TPC Michigan, who was runner-up to Lewis in the Senior Match Play and runner-up in the GAM Super Senior Championship. He had 205 points.
One of the state’s most accomplished amateurs, Lewis is a Super Senior Player of the Year for the second time (2022) and has been a Player of the Year in three age categories. He was a two-time GAM Men’s Player of the Year and the GAM Player of the Decade in the 1990s, then later was the GAM Sr. Player of the Year for four consecutive years. Career highlights include the 2011 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, a start in the 2012 Masters Tournament, 37 starts in USGA championships and two Michigan Amateur titles.
Winning the Super Senior title at the Mid-Amateur at The Highlands in Harbor Springs was his highlight of the summer.
“Boyne and especially the Heather (course) are special,” he said. “That second round of the Heather was a little return to my old self for a round. I hit it where I wanted to hit it and made the putts I needed to make. Those days are fewer and farther between.”
