Veteran Comets Prepping for Title Run
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
March 27, 2018
KALAMAZOO – Golf, barbeque and honoring Martin Luther King Jr. are on the agenda for Kalamazoo Christian’s boys golf team during spring break.
The six varsity players, coach Brian Seifert and their families are headed to Memphis next week.
“We plan to take in a couple of golf courses down there and also have the opportunity to play the TPC Southwind that hosts the FEDEX St. Jude Classic, so we’re excited about that,” Seifert said.
“We’re going to be at the Martin Luther King Jr. 50th anniversary of his assassination on the actual day, April 4, so it’s a little bit of an inspiration trip along with the golf to get us focused for a big run on the year.
“We’ll be down there to play some golf and eat some barbeque.”
Three of the Comets, who as a team finished third at the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final last year, had a bit of a delay in starting this season.
They were part of the K-Christian basketball team that lost in the Class D Quarterfinals last Tuesday.
While the rest of the golfers were already practicing, seniors Colin Sikkenga and John Cramer plus junior Ben Cramer did not pick up the clubs until Wednesday.
“The speeds are a lot different,” John Cramer said of the two sports. “After a little bit, you start to get used to golf again. The first week and a half or so, it’s a little tough to make that transition.”
Next sport, new home
Once they make that transition, the team will start the journey to what it hopes is another shot at an MHSAA title.
“It’s tough to win,” Sikkenga said. “It’s just two days of 18 holes. You’ve just got to get really hot those two days.
“That’s what it comes down to. Anyone can really win it. It just depends on how well you play those two days.”
Last season’s three other varsity golfers also are back: senior Derek Block and juniors Elijah Devries and Josh Bouma.
Although they lost their former home course when Thornapple Creek Golf Club closed last year, they moved to a closer one: Kalamazoo Country Club.
“That is pretty awesome,” said Sikkenga, a finalist for the coaches association’s Mr. Golf Award last year. “I’m excited. Hackett (Catholic Prep) would do their invite there, and I’ve done that since freshman year.”
The country club has not been home to a high school team in 40 years, according to Seifert.
“After 40 years, they said maybe this is the year to do it, and our ‘ask’ was at the right time,” he said. “It’s a matter of timing.”
Two of the golfers, Ben Cramer and Bouma, both caddy there in the summer and know the course layout very well.
“That will help,” Cramer said. “But most of us on the team have played the course quite a few times.”
Valuable experiences
Sikkenga and the Cramer brothers all started swinging the clubs at a very young age, but in different ways.
Sikkenga’s parents do not play golf, while dad Rick Cramer had a membership at Thornapple and started his sons in the sport.
“I had the Little Tike’s blue plastic club and I just started hitting balls,” Sikkenga said. “I loved to hit the ball really far. I think that’s why I liked it so much.”
Hitting the long ball is just one asset that put the scratch golfer on varsity all four years.
“The thing about Colin that is good for everybody else in his leadership is that he is so patient playing golf,” Seifert said of his senior captain. “That’s a real important asset to have in golf because it just takes so long to get around, and you get groups that get stacked up on top of each other.
“Nothing rattles him. That’s a real bonus when you’re playing golf.”
Sikkenga will attend Oakland University on a golf scholarship with an eye on a pro career.
“My goal since I’ve been little has been to play professionally,” he said. “It’s definitely a goal that is not easy by any stretch of the imagination.”
Oakland golf coach Nick Pumford talked about Sikkenga on the college’s web site.
"Colin brings a lot of national exposure and experience to our program,” he said. “Not only has Colin tested his game against the best players in the country, he's had success doing so.
“I'm looking forward to Colin carrying over that success and experience into our program next season.”
Besides playing their opponents, the Cramers also compete against each other.
“Oh yeah, there’s always a competition with my brother,” John Cramer said. “We always compare scores after the round. I usually win.”
But when a threesome includes their dad, “We’re pretty competitive because we’re all pretty much around the same kind of scoring level,” Ben Cramer said.
“It’s all fun, but our dad usually wins. He’s better than both of us.”
Let the fun begin
While the brothers share camaraderie on the course, one thing they do not share is their clubs.
“His are too short for me,” the 6-foot-5 Ben Cramer said. “(John) is 5-7.”
Seifert calls John Cramer the Magic Man.
“He can get up and down from spaces that most people can’t,” the coach said. “He likes to scramble when he plays golf. It’s not uncommon for him to run together five, six long putts in a row for par or birdie just to keep the round going.
“Golf’s a matter of streaks sometimes. You get on a roll, and he can find those sometimes and put quality rounds together.”
It is also a mental game, Ben Cramer said.
“You have to be focused all the time when you’re around the ball. You have to focus on how far you’re hitting, what the wind’s doing.”
Cramer describes himself as the jokester of the team.
“I joke around a lot,” he said. “I lighten the mood. I’m never really sad.”
Seifert agreed.
“Ben carries us well with his humor,” he said. “The whole team is a load of fun to be with. For him, he’s so quiet and unassuming that you would never know if he’s having a good round or a bad round. It’s kind of like calling him patient.
“He doesn’t get down on himself. I think that’s where I noticed him being the most improved last year. He got better with each shot. Even if he did hit a bad shot, the next one was right on the money.”
None of the three boys have had hole-in-one, but their coach, who is a pastor at Milwood Community Church, has had two.
“My mom taught me to play golf when I was 5, and I haven’t stopped since,” said Seifert, who grew up outside of Seattle.
“For a number of years I managed a golf resort, so I played a lot of golf that way.”
In addition to his two aces, “I also had a double eagle, an albatross,” he said. “I’ll take that.
“Golf’s meant to be having fun, and it’s hard to score when you’re not having fun. If you’re not enjoying it, there’s no point doing it.”
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) Kalamazoo Christian’s Ben Cramer lines up a putt. (Middle top) Clockwise from top left: Kalamazoo Christian coach Brian Seifert, senior Colin Sikkenga, senior John Cramer and junior Ben Cramer. (Middle) Seifert, left, and Sikkenga survey the scene during play last season. (Below) John Cramer putts last spring. (Action photos by Daniel J. Cooke [top two] and Cheryl TenBrink, head shots by Pam Shebest.)
Brogan Finishes School Sports Career by Teaching Lesson in Perspective
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
June 22, 2023
Baylor Brogan admittedly broke down for a moment or two. Who could blame him? Six months of unpredictable lows and highs to finish his senior year of high school sports had just taken another unexpected dive.
In December, the Lansing Christian senior tore his right ACL playing basketball, ending his hoops season after it had just started. Nine months of anticipated recovery were expected to wipe out his entire golf season too – and after he’d finished eighth in Lower Peninsula Division 4 as a junior in helping the Pilgrims to their first team Finals championship.
But wait. Brogan made it back to the golf course in mid-May after just five months. He played one practice round, and the next day finished fifth individually at his team’s Regional at Ella Sharp Park in Jackson, advancing to the MHSAA Final as the third of three individual qualifiers.
His recovery was remarkable. The story just kept getting better. And if he would have gone on to win the Finals championship two weeks ago, or even place top-10 again, the ending would have been extraordinary.
Instead, he faced another completely unscriptable scenario – but the difficult decision he made launched the latest dip into the highest of notes as he ended his Pilgrims career.
Brogan headed to Battle Creek’s Bedford Valley for the weekend of June 9-10 to finish off his comeback. He thought he’d shot a 79 during Friday’s first round that tied him for 13th – well within range of a potential top-five finish. In golf, playing partners keep track of each other’s scores – and after Brogan’s group finished its 18 holes, he and his partners that round attested to what had been counted on their scorecards, and Brogan figured that was it until Saturday.
But there was a problem.
As he and his two coaches talked through the round after, they realized what had been reported for hole No. 15 was incorrect. It should have included another stroke. His total score should have been 80.
And yet, no one would have known except for those three. But that wouldn’t have sat well with Brogan or his coaches. As soon as they realized the mistake, they contacted the tournament director and rules official.
“For him to say, ‘Hey Coach, I just want to do the right thing,’ and knowing the right thing would potentially DQ you,” Pilgrims head coach Jason Block explained, “I just said, ‘Hey, we’re a Christian school. We have Jesus to answer to.’ I just think putting our heads on the pillow at night knowing we made the right decision for us felt good, and he agreed with that.”
Brogan figured they would just put in the lower score – after all, it was a stroke worse, and the other competitors couldn’t be mad about that. But because Brogan had already attested to the 79 – and by his own admission should have been monitoring his card after every hole while his round was being played – by rule he was disqualified and would have no score for the first round of play.
“When my head coach called me and told me, that’s when the sadness … I definitely cried a little bit,” Brogan said.
But here’s why his weekend will be recalled down the road as the games go on and others every once in a long while find themselves in a similar spot.
Brogan could have gotten angry. He could have blamed his coaches, or his partners, or anyone else supporting him on the course that day for not catching the mistake. He could have questioned the rule, called the disqualification unfair. He could have thrown a fit, made a scene. This was the last event of his high school career, and after he’d already battled back just to get here.
Instead, he chose grace. He just went back out and played. He would no longer have a chance to place with a two-round score, but also by rule he could still finish the weekend with Saturday’s 18 holes.
“To get DQ’d senior year was kind of a bummer. But in the end it didn’t really matter that much, because they let me play, and my name was still on the leaderboard,” Brogan said. “That’s really all I cared about, is that I could go out and even though it wouldn’t count if I did well, I still wanted to go out and compete. Because that’s what I missed so much from being injured, and that’s all I wanted to do – is still play.
“I just went back out to the range that night. They said I could still play. That was the one thing I could be grateful for. I just went back out and practiced again, and woke up at 6 a.m. the next morning to go play.”
It’s guaranteed Brogan will be sure to monitor every hole on his scorecard as his golf career continues at Wheaton College (Ill.) these next few years. But like his coach, Brogan credited his faith for guiding how he managed this situation. There was an unintentional mishap, and it happens. He needed to accept it and report it, and that’s how he approached it.
Still, Brogan now would have to fill people in on what happened – and that seemed worst of all.
So he sent a group text to his team. Then he waited for his parents to get home from a date night – and they definitely were curious because Block had texted them how sorry he was about the tough news. They had no idea what that meant until Baylor explained – and they told him how proud they were of him for making the right decision.
Brogan’s dad Eric then texted the rest of the family – Baylor is eighth oldest of 10 siblings – and others who had been supporting him. That helped a lot. And the next day, Brogan went out and shot an 80 – a pretty big personal win after missing all but a few weeks of a season, and after the disappointment of the evening before.
“As a coach, he missed the whole season, he comes back like he comes back, and then to have this happen, it would have been very easy to go, ‘Man, can we just forget about it? Can we just not say anything?’” Block said.
But that was never a conversation.
Now, about the hat.
During a spring break trip to Florida six years ago, Brogan and his grandfather Dr. George Bettman were on the golf course. Brogan hadn’t really started playing golf at that point, but he accompanied his grandpa as Bettman shot below his age – 90.
A week later, Dr. Bettman died. Sometime after that, as the family was looking through some of his things, Brogan found the hat. It was way too big for Brogan at that point, but by junior year he was able to wear it with a washcloth lining the inside to make it fit more snugly.
There aren’t a lot of straw hats to be found at Michigan high school golf events, so it’s definitely been something of a Brogan signature as well as a reminder of his grandpa.
“It’s his hat, and I feel like he would love seeing me have some success in golf,” Brogan said, “and probably love even more that I would turn myself in for a mistake.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He is a senior editor of MHSAA.com's editorial content and has served as MHSAA Communications Director since January 2021. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Lansing Christian's Baylor Brogan follows an approach shot during the LPD4 Final at Bedford Valley. (Middle) Brogan, in the straw hat, celebrates his team's 2022 championship. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)