Washtenaw Golf Club Hosting Fourth GAM Junior Kickoff By Brian Weis

Washtenaw Golf Club Hosting Fourth GAM Junior Kickoff

By Brian Weis

For the fourth consecutive year Washtenaw Golf Club, one of the oldest golf courses in Michigan, will host many of the state's best young golfers in the GAM Junior Kickoff Championship presented by Pepsi Saturday and Sunday.

A field of boy and girl junior golfers playing in four divisions based on age and gender will compete in the tournament designed to give junior golfers some additional early season opportunities.

The format is 36-holes of stroke play over two days and boy and girl champions will be crowned in 15-and-under and 16-18 categories. Play will start at 8 a.m. each day with a single tee start.

Washtenaw opened in 1899 and has evolved over the years into a 6,512-yard classic parkland style golf course featuring tree-lined fairways, strategically placed bunkers, and quick, undulating greens.

In January of 2020 KMD Investors took the reins of the historic golf club that remains open to the public, and award-winning Michigan-based architect Raymond Hearn's firm is performing master plan renovation and restoration projects.

Hearn's research of the property found a rare 1930 aerial photograph he is using to bring back some of the classic golf course design features. Through his research Hearn also found at least nine holes of the design should be credited to William Herbert "Bert" Way, a golf professional and course designer from England.

The course has a rich tournament history, including hosting the 1927 Michigan Amateur Championship, and many major events since for both the Golf Association of Michigan and the Michigan PGA. The 1955 Michigan Open at Washtenaw included Michigan Golf Hall of Fame members Walter Burkemo (the champion), Horton Smith, Chick Harbert, Chuck Kocsis and John Barnum.

The Kickoff tournament, established as a new GAM championship in 2019, launches the golf season for junior players.

Last year Drew Miller of East Lansing and Sophie Stevens of Highland, a pair of then 15-year-olds, emerged as overall winners.

For Miller it was a first-time win playing in the upper age division against 16-to-18-year-old players, and Stevens won among the older age players for the second time. She won the 2019 15-and-under title at age 13.

Mason Sokolowski of Northville and Mia Melendez of Ann Arbor won the 15-and-under titles a year ago.

Revised: 04/21/2022 - Article Viewed 2,141 Times - View Course Profile

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.