AUGUSTA, Mich. – Gull Lake View Golf Club and Resort’s newest and most unique golf course, Stoatin Brae, will host the 12th GAM Senior Match Play Championship presented by Sullivan Golf Travel Monday through Thursday (June 1-4).
Stoatin Brae, which opened in 2016, will host a field of 113 senior golfers, including 70 playing for the overall senior title (age 55-plus), and 43 vying for the over-65 super senior crown.
They will play 18 holes on Monday to determine a bracket of 32 for the senior division and a bracket of 16 for the super senior bracket. Matches will start Tuesday and continue through to Thursday morning’s championship matches in each division.
The championship kicks off the GAM Championship schedule for 2020, and newly developed safety-first practices and protocols will be used in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gull Lake View is one of the largest family owned resorts in the U.S., and the Scott family has impacted golf since 1963 when Darl Scott, an entrepreneur at heart and golf course superintendent by trade, decided to build and open his own public golf course.
Stoatin Brae is one of six courses the resort offers, and the name means grand hill in Scottish Gaelic. It hosted the GAM’s 2019 Women’s Atlas Trophy Matches.
Stoatin Brae along with the resort’s Bedford Valley are the two courses in the resort collection that were not designed by the Scott family members who have extensive landscape architecture backgrounds.
Stoatin Brae is also a dramatic departure from the other five courses. It is located atop a unique bluff overlooking the Kalamazoo River Valley. It offers long-distance views over natural undulations and reestablished prairie grasses, and the wind is seemingly always in play. Brian Schneider, Eric Iverson, Don Placek and Brian Slawnik, senior associates for Renaissance Golf Design of Traverse City, collaborated with the Scott family on Stoatin Brae.
The resort’s lineup of courses currently includes Stoatin Brae, the Gull Lake West course, the East course, Stonehedge South, Stonehedge North and Bedford Valley.
Learn more at gulllakeview.com.
Last year, White Lake’s Kevin Klemet turned back Chris Chocola of Harbor Springs 4 and 3 in the final match at Oakhurst Golf & Country Club in Clarkston to win the overall senior title. Ian Harris of Bloomfield Hills topped Ben Benson of Clarkson 1-up to win the Super Senior title.
Klemet, an insurance agency owner, and Harris, a tennis professional, are returning to defend their titles.
Three-time champion Bill Zylstra of Dearborn Heights, who last won in 2018, is part of a stellar list of former champions in the field. Others include 2017 winner Randy Lewis of Alma, 2016 winner Steve Maddalena of Jackson, 2015 champ Rich Wilson of Portage, 2013 champ Mike Raymond of Jackson and 2012 champ Ray Emsley of Davisburg.
Past Super Senior winners joining Harris include 2018 champion Pete Saputo of Bloomfield Hills, and two-time winners George Dillon of Midland (2016, 2013) and Claud Johnston of Ann Arbor (2011, 2010).
