Strong Finishes Vault Lumen Christi to Top
June 10, 2017
By Butch Harmon
Special for Second Half
BIG RAPIDS – After coming up three strokes short of an MHSAA title last season, the seniors on the Jackson Lumen Christi boys golf team were determined to leave Big Rapids with a championship trophy this weekend.
That determination was put to the test on both days of the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at Katke Golf Course, home of the Ferris State University golf teams. Turning in strong scores on the back nine both Friday and Saturday, Lumen Christi finished with a two-day total of 639 strokes. Hometown contender Big Rapids took the runner-up trophy with a 647 while Grand Rapids West Catholic, a team featuring three sets of twins, placed third with a 659.
The road to the title was anything but easy for Lumen Christi. While the Titans returned four seniors from last year’s runner-up squad, they faced challenges from the beginning of the season through their final holes of this spring.
“We had four seniors on this year’s team, and that always helps having that senior leadership,” said Lumen Christi coach Dave Swartout. “What is real amazing about this group is they never quit. We started poorly on both days, but the guys just kept plugging away and plugging away and plugging away. We really played well on the second nine on both days. These were long, six-hour days, and to do what they did on the second nines was just amazing.”
Senior Logan Anuszkiewicz led the way for the Titans as he shot rounds of 75 and 78 to finish in a tie for third individually with a 153 total. The team title was the first since 2012 for Lumen Christi, and for this group of seniors it was a goal they’d had since entering high school.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Anuszkiewicz said. “Four years in a row we’ve been close, and finally we did it.”
Fellow senior Phil Stuart was a testament to Lumen Christi’s tenacity. Stuart carded rounds of 81 and 82, but the scores were hard-earned.
“I shot a nine on number one (a par four) today so I didn’t start out strong,” Stuart said. “I wasn’t about to give up, so I kept grinding for the team. We really wanted this, so we all just kept grinding.”
One of Lumen Christi’s biggest obstacles came shortly before the season began when Luke Girodat, the Titans’ number one golfer, was hit by illness.
“Luke, our number one player, came down with mononucleosis before the season, and that put a crimp in things,” Swartout said. “He shot an 83 and an 84 for us this weekend, and that was with him feeling about 70 percent. He just never quit and kept grinding.”
“We just wanted this, that was it,” Girodat said. “We lost last year when we couldn’t finish on the back nine, and we were not going to have that happen this year.”
Senior Riley Hestwood turned in rounds of 85 and 81, believing all the time in his coach and teammates.
“Coach told us to keep going and keep grinding it out,” Hestwood said. “We believed in each other and our team and just kept grinding.”
Big Rapids, playing in the shadow of its high school just up the road, improved on a third-place finish from last year and also provided itself with a tangible goal heading into next season as the team will graduate just one player.
“First off, congratulations to Lumen Christi,” said Big Rapids coach Mark Posey. “They played two good days of golf. It always hurts and stings for a while, but we hope to move up one more spot next year. We have four guys coming back for next year.”
Tait Morrissey, that lone senior, fired rounds of 79 and 85.
“We sent Tait out with a second this year after a third last year,” Posey said.
Sophomore Pierce Morrissey finished in a tie for fifth individually with rounds of 77 on both days for a 154 total.
Charlevoix senior Matt Good came away with the individual medalist honor. Like the Lumen Christi team, Good needed to grind it out both days plus one additional hole as he and Tawas junior Daniel Shattuck both carded 150s for the tournament, forcing a playoff.
On the first hole of the playoff, both Good and Shattuck reached the green in three strokes. However, Good had a 4-foot putt while Shattuck faced roughly a 30-footer. Shattuck two-putted the hole and Good drained his on the first try to win the individual title.
“I just focused on my breathing and making good swings,” Good said. “I put in a lot of hard work, and it paid off.”
That hard work included countless hours working on short putts like the one that won him the title.
“I’ve spent thousands of hours dropping down a chalk line and practicing those 4-footers,” Good said.
He was two strokes off the lead heading into Saturday and started the final 18 slow, but came on strong on the back nine.
“I struggled at the start today,” Good said. “I started with a double and then bogeyed the next hole. I just kept grinding and trying to hang in there all day. I just tried to hang in there both days.”
For Good, hanging in there has been the story of his high school career, as he returned to the Finals this season for the first time since his freshman year.
“I struggled the last two years,” Good said. “I worked real hard over the offseason, and I had some really big goals this year and I achieved every one of them.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Jackson Lumen Christi’s Luke Girodat follows a shot during Saturday’s Division 3 Final. (Middle) Charlevoix’s Matt Good watches his approach on the way to winning the individual title. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Gull Lake Ready for Challenge of Adding to 2022 Finals Runner-up Finish
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
April 20, 2023
RICHLAND — Hank Livingston is a prime example of how fickle a golf course can be and why it is important not to give up.
The Gull Lake sophomore started last year’s MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 Golf Championship carding an 11 on the first hole of the second round.
“He’s my No. 2 and makes an 11,” coach T.R. Walters said, shaking his head.
But Livingston shook it off and ended with a 79 for the round.
“He literally birdied the next two holes,” Walters said. “Flint Powers coach said to me, did you see what happened to your No. 2?
“I said, yeah, I was in the tall stuff with him.”
The Powers coach specified on the green.
“I was like, what?” Walters said. “He literally whiffed a putt that was two or three inches.”
Walters said he could not believe it. “(Livingston) said, ‘Coach, I just whiffed a putt for 10,” Walters said. “He goes, ‘I reached over to tap it in and I just bounced my club over it.’”
Neither Walters nor Livingston panicked.
“The way he said it to me, I was like, ‘This kid is absolutely fine.’ Then he birdied his last two holes,” Walters recalled. “You throw an 11 in as a freshman, and you don’t just quit. That’s a pretty good sign.”
It was a great sign.
The Blue Devils finished runner-up to Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice at the Final with Livingston tied for 18th individually with a 157 at The Meadows at Grand Valley State.
Things may be a bit tougher this year with the graduation of Bryce Wheeler, who won the medalist honor that weekend and was named Michigan’s Mr. Golf last spring.
However, the team is off to another successful start this season, winning the Greater Kalamazoo Tournament and the Coldwater Invitational.
Will Beardsley, who was part of a Division 2 championship in the fall with Gull Lake’s boys soccer team, said with Wheeler gone, everyone needs raise their games this year.
“Consistency is a big thing for us this year,” he said. “As long as everyone can play consistently and we all play as a team and have each other’s backs. If someone isn’t playing well one day, another guy can step up.
“Last year was a lot of a one-man show. This year, we’re definitely more balanced. Everyone’s contributing more this year rather than just one guy going 4-under.”
As the lone senior on the team, Beardsley, nicknamed “Will the Thrill” by his coach, said he feels like the “old man.”
“I see my role as having the experience,” he said. “If there are questions about rulings, I’ve had a couple more years experience, so I can usually answer those.
“I can tell them what a match day will look like and what we’re going to do on the range, what we’re going to do on the putting green, the ins and outs of what we do off the course.”
Beardsley got hooked on golf at age 5 from his grandfather, Bud Baldwin, who coached golf at Portage Northern High School.
Another Blue Devil with a bit of golf history is sophomore Chase Kosin, who is the great grandson of Letha and Darl Scott who started Gull Lakeview Golf Course in Richland in 1962.
Gull Lake does most of its practicing at the course, but Bedford Valley’s North Course is the team’s home course.
“Chase cracks me up,” Walters said. “I see so much of his grandpa in him. If there’s a piece of trash on the golf course, it goes in his golf bag.
“He’s an outstanding kid. He just gets better and better. His uncle (Casey Scott) played one PGA Tour, the Buick Open.”
Livingston also has a bit of golfing history. His uncle, Tom Harding, who played golf at Michigan State University, is in the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame.
Another returning golfer is junior Ben Szabo.
“Our No. 3 last year, he had an outstanding fall and played a bunch of junior tournaments,” Walters said. “He started playing significantly better golf. He’s also one of those kids who absolutely loves being on the golf course all the time.”
Walters is getting some help from an unexpected source. Junior Beau Carr, who was Plainwell’s No. 1 golfer last season, moved into the district.
“He’s amazing,” Beardsley said of Carr. “He’s fun to be around, a great player, hopefully will fill that missing spot that we lost this year.”
Carr also has some state tournament experience. As a freshman in 2021, he was on the Plainwell team that advanced to the LPD2 Final and finished 18th.
“Me and four seniors,” he said. “Once they graduated, the next year was a lot tougher.”
He added it was the first time that “Plainwell made it to state in 17 years. It was a big accomplishment for us.”
Walters, who teaches social studies in the middle school, is a Gull Lake grad whose main sport was baseball.
He did not take up golf until he suffered a knee injury playing basketball at Kellogg Community College.
“One of the first times playing golf was actually at Ballybunion Golf Course (in County Kerry,) Ireland,” he said. “I was over there playing basketball in a tournament and played Ballybunion and thought it was kind of fun.”
Once Walters found out he had the eye-hand coordination for golf, he was hooked.
He has worked the last 24 years at Bedford Valley Golf Course in Battle Creek and plays every day he can.
“I got to the point where I could qualify to play the Michigan Open and a few events like that … before kids,” he added.
Carr summed up the feelings of many golfers when he said, “It’s a challenge. You’re never going to figure it out.
“There’s one day you’re going to play great and the next day you feel like you haven’t hit a golf ball in two weeks. That sucks, but it’s all a part of the ride.”
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Gull Lake’s Ben Szabo tees off during last season’s LPD2 Final at The Meadows at Grand Valley State. (Middle) From left: Gull Lake boys golf coach T.R. Walters, Will Beardsley and Beau Carr. (Below) Beardsley works on his short game during a practice this spring. (Top photo by High School Sports Scene. All other photos by Pam Shebest.)