By Greg Johnson
ONAWAY – Powered by eight wins and two ties in a 9-3 advantage in singles play Sunday, and three-point maximum performances by Meadowbrook Country Club members Michael Anderson and Jimmy Dales for the weekend, the Golf Association of Michigan (GAM) Team topped the Michigan Publinx Golf Association (MPGA) 15.5 – 8. 50 in the 70th Atlas Trophy Matches at Black Lake Golf Club.
It marked the sixth consecutive time the GAM has won or retained the trophy in the historic biennial competition between GAM member golfers playing as a team against a team of MPGA members and pushed the GAM’s all-time lead to 47-20-3.
“It’s a great golf course, really challenging off the tee and I had a great time,” said the Anderson, a 50-year-old financial planner who was teamed up in the Saturday foursomes and four-ball rounds of competition with the 19-year-old Dales, who is a Western Michigan University golfer taking a redshirt season and was therefore available to play.
“Jimmy was my partner yesterday and he was really hitting it well, so I didn’t have to do that much. Today, I played well. We play a lot of golf together because we are both members at Meadowbrook. So being teammates was easy. We’re good friends.”
Anderson and Dales were the only GAM Team members to score full points in each of the three rounds of competition. They teamed up for a 5 and 4 win over the MPGA’s Scott Jaschuk and Razmig Boghikian in foursomes or alternate shot Saturday morning, and then beat the same duo in four-ball or best-ball 2 and 1 in the afternoon.
In singles, Dales won the first full point of the final day for the GAM with a 6 and 5 win over Boghikian while Anderson topped Mike Wallace 8 and 6 for the second full point.
“I didn’t even know this (tournament) existed until I got the email,” Dales said. “I was happy to come out and play in something. It was fun. I know Mike from Meadowbrook and it was fun being his teammate. I haven’t really played any golf lately because of the redshirt. I have just been hitting a ton of balls and working on my swing.”
In addition to wins from Anderson and Dales, the GAM also received final-day singles wins from Scott Sparks, Andrew Tindall, Peter Farner, the father-son combination of Jerry and Nick Gunthorpe and Will Anderson. The Sparks win, 4 and 3 over Tony Vrana, secured at least a tie and the GAM team retaining the trophy, and the Nick Gunthorpe win, 5 and 4 over Gavin Depauw, secured the win.
Two matches were tied at the end of 18 holes Sunday giving each team half-points. The GAM’s 15-year-old member Justin Sui halved with the MPGA’s Ian Martin, and the GAM’s Cameron Nelson tied with Robert Bedder.
Austin Kreger was the only golfer to score three points with wins in each session for the MPGA. He topped Shawn Sehra in the first match Sunday 5 and 4. The only other singles win for the MPGA Sunday came from Jaschuk, the playing captain and current president of the MPGA, who topped Adam Anderson 5 and 4 in the final match of the day.
The series of matches originated in 1938 as a competition between private club golfers represented by the GAM and public course golfers represented by the MPGA with the trophy honoring Edward Atlas, a former GAM Governor as well as a USGA Public Links Committee member and Detroit area public golf official.
Prior to 2010, the competition was conducted annually except for World War II years, and historically, private club players competed against public course players. Beginning in 2011 it became a biennial competition between GAM member golfers regardless of their course or club affiliation and members of the MPGA.
The GAM and MPGA selected 12 team members by using GAM Honor Roll points, MPGA Honor Roll points and other criteria. The golf is complimentary for the players with the event designed to honor those chosen for the teams.
The GAM was represented this year by the father-son duo of Adam and Will Anderson, Michael Anderson, Dales, Farner, the Gunthorpes, Nelson, Shera, Sparks, Sui and Tindall.
The MPGA was represented by Bedder, Boghikian, Depauw, Sean Friel, Jaschuk, Kreger, Martin, Nikolas Senkowski, Andrew Smith, Larry Sterling Jr., Vrana and Wallace.
