Grand Blanc’s Terry Delcamp Tops Senior Women’s Points List

By Greg Johnson

Terry Delcamp of Grand Blanc retired from her family insurance business last year and played more golf this year.

“Pretty much every day that ended in a ‘y,’” she said and laughed. “I don’t practice for hours, never have. I play a lot instead. It wasn’t great golf that I played this summer, but for me it was pretty darn steady.”

Steady, and winning the Michigan Senior Women’s Amateur Championship as well as the season-ending GAM Senior Tournament of Champions helped result in Delcamp, 59, being named the Golf Association of Michigan’s Senior Women’s Player of the Year.

Delcamp, a GAM member through Flint Golf Club, led the senior women’s point list with 545 points, narrowly topping the Senior Women’s Player of the Year from the last six consecutive years, Julie Massa of Holt and Forest Akers Golf Courses, who had 540 points.

Delcamp called it a fun year and said it feels great to win the honor.

“I’ve never been a great player,” she said. “I played a little college golf (two years at Central Michigan University), then I took about 10 years away doing other things, a career, all that, like a lot of people. Then I came back to it and I’ve just been beating away at it. It’s probably more an obsession than anything else, but it feels good to do well and win something.”

Delcamp said while there are several senior women who can win tournaments Massa stands out. 

“She has been the cream of the crop since she turned 50,” Delcamp said. “You know that if you are going to go out and do anything in Michigan golf you have to beat Julie. For the most part this year I was able to do that.”

It’s fun and making friends that inspires Delcamp to play and maintain her game at an elevated level. “That’s really the big thing for me, and the GAM tournaments make that possible,” she said. “We owe a lot to the GAM for having tournaments for us to play in.”

She said her sudden-death playoff win over Shelly Weiss in the GAM Senior Women’s Championship was the top moment of the summer.

“I had not putted that well for two days and had to make a six, seven-footer to win,” she said. “By golly it went in. That felt great to pull that off.”