Midland’s Kimberly Dinh Tops 2021 Women’s Points List
By Greg Johnson
Kimberly Dinh looked over her summer golf statistics with her coach, PGA professional Kyle Martin of The Fortress in Frankenmuth, and they noticed across-the-board improvement.
“It’s crazy to think I’m a better player now than at the end of my college career when I was playing all the time,” she said. “It’s cool and motivating to know there is a little more out there.”
Dinh, age 29, topped the Golf Association of Michigan (GAM) Points List and has been named the 2021 GAM Women’s Player of the Year. Dinh, a GAM member through Midland Country Club, keyed her season by winning the Michigan Women’s Amateur Championship, reaching the round of 16 in match play in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship and finishing second in the GAM Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship.
The Senior Research Specialist for Dow Chemical in her hometown of Midland, she played in just four tournaments using her four weeks of vacation from work – two GAM championships and two USGA championships – but totaled 860 points for the season.
Mikaela Schulz of West Bloomfield was second with 625 points. The University of Michigan golfer won the GAM Women’s Championship and was runner-up to Dinh in the Michigan Women’s Amateur.
Dinh played college golf at the University of Wisconsin and then played zero competitive golf during five years of graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She said winning the Michigan Amateur was the highlight of her golf career to this point.
She plans to play a similar schedule next summer and is excited for the opportunity to make another run in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur.
GAM’s Ken Hartmann said Dinh winning Player of the Year off of four tournaments is an impressive accomplishment. “Especially now that she is working, it’s tough to compete with the younger players who have more opportunities to play and more time to practice,” Hartmann said. “She has found a way. She is gifted with intelligence, works hard on her game when she can and takes nothing for granted. It looks like she has taken the successful approach to her academics and applied it to her golf.”
