EAST LANSING – Anna Kramer of Spring Lake earned stroke play medalist honors for the second consecutive year in the Michigan Women’s Amateur Championship Sunday.
With a 1-under 143 total off a twice weather-delayed second-round 73 on the Forest Akers West Course, the University of Indianapolis golfer topped Nichole Cox of Empire and Bowling Green State University by one shot.
It earned Kramer the No. 1 seed in the match play bracket of the 104th edition of the state championship presented by Carl’s Golfland. The round of 32 matches start Monday and four more rounds of match play Tuesday and Wednesday will determine a champion.
Cox earned the No. 2 seed spot with a closing 71 for 144. She birdied her first two holes of the day, sat through the long weather delay, and was tied with Kramer briefly on the back nine. Kramer birdied No. 14 with a 36-foot putt to take the one-shot lead and held on with pars over the final four holes.
“It was pretty exciting and this is one of my favorite tournaments of the summer so I really want to play well in it,” Kramer said. “I thought I was going to tie with Nichole. I had looked at the leaderboard at the turn and knew it was go-time because she was playing well. It was a long day. I was supposed to tee off at 10:10 (a.m.) and we final teed off about 4:10 (p.m.) with all the weather. I’m happy to have made it through everything.”
Anika Dy of Traverse City and Mikaela Schulz of West Bloomfield, a pair of University of Michigan teammates, tied with last week’s Michigan Girls Junior State Amateur Champion Ariel Chang at 146. Dy shot 75, and Schulz and Chang, a Macomb Township golfer, shot 73s for the second consecutive day.
Kerrigan Parks of Flushing and Marshall University, the 2018 champion, shot 77 and tied at 149 with Elizabeth Harding of South Lyon, who shot 74.
Michigan State University women’s golf coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll, the runner-up last year and a two-time former champion, shot 76 for 150 on the Spartans’ home course. She tied with Sydney Martens of Washington and Oakland University, who closed with a 74.
Kramer will play No. 32 seed Anci Dy of Traverse City at 8 a.m. in the first match Monday. Dy, Anika Dy’s sister, survived a four-golfer playoff for the two final spots.
Kramer said the medalist trophy was awesome, but she has learned in two runs to the quarterfinals in recent years, including last year, that the pressure mounts in match play.
“You have to take it one match at a time and play really solid,” she said. “I feel like I’m playing pretty well, but I hope it gets better. Today I kind of held it together a little bit.”
Cox, who will be a senior at Bowling Green in the fall, said she was over the moon with her play the last two days.
“I’ve worked really hard this summer because last summer was a bit rough for me, and it’s nice to see some results come out of that,” she said. “I feel really good right now. Making the “Sweet 16” is always a goal of mine, and I’ve been playing well lately so I was looking forward to playing and being in the hunt.”
