After Finding Drive for Golf, O'Grady Grows Into GR Christian Ace, Finals Contender

By Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com

September 26, 2024

Lillian O’Grady will be the popular choice to win when she tees it up in this week’s Ottawa-Kent Conference White championship tournament at Thornapple Pointe.

West MichiganHowever, at one point in her early life, the Grand Rapids Christian junior standout was admittedly uninterested in the sport in which she would soon thereafter excel.

“I really didn’t like golf when I was younger,” O’Grady said. “I thought it was boring and just not fun. My dad made me go out and practice.”

O’Grady was 7 years old when she started playing golf with her parents and siblings. She got her first hole-in-one a year later.

While that ace is the pinnacle accomplishment for every golfer, O’Grady was less than enthusiastic.

“I remember that I didn’t want to golf that day, and it was the second hole at Cascade Hills Country Club.” O’Grady recounted. “I was hitting off the U.S. Kids Golf Tees, and I hit my 5-iron right of the hole and it just rolled down into the hole. My brothers (Max and Sawyer) are still jealous of it.”

Despite her hole-in-one, which is still the only one she’s ever had, O’Grady still wasn’t fond of golf.

But that all changed a couple years later, when at age 10, she took part in a Drive, Chip & Putt Regional event at historic Muirfield Village Golf Club in Ohio.

“That’s when I realized I was pretty good at this and I could go pretty far with it,” O’Grady said. “From there I was like, ‘I want to play in college and be the best I can at it’.”

O’Grady became engulfed in the sport and kept her promise to be the best she could be by practicing diligently and taking part in several tournaments throughout the summers.

Fast forward to the summer of 2022, just before her freshman year, and O’Grady’s hard work paid off. She was named the 15-and-under Junior Girls Player of the Year by the Golf Association of Michigan (GAM).

“That was super cool and amazing,” O’Grady said. “I just played well and was consistent in a lot of those tournaments. I had a really great summer.”

“Consistent” is the word that best describes O’Grady, according to Grand Rapids Christian girls golf coach Seth Davies.

O’Grady points out her score, which tied for second among individual competitors.“I think I’ve seen her maybe hit two bad shots. She would say it was a lot more, but she doesn't have a lot of those kinds of shots,” he said. “She’s a little off-line at times, but it’s part of the competitiveness that makes her so good – and most of the time she’s just consistent.

“She’ll bomb a drive down the fairway, hit something on the green and then she has a really good short game. She has a good feel as a putter, too. If you look at her game, there isn’t anything that you could identify as a major weakness.”

O’Grady wasted little time making her mark on the high school scene.

As a freshman, she placed fourth at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final as an individual. Last year, she finished in a tie for second.

“My goal is to always win,” O’Grady said. “I’m a very competitive person, so even though I was a freshman and sophomore. I wasn't going to let that stop me from trying to win. 

“My goal coming into high school was to win everything I could and be No. 1 on my team, which was building at that point.”

Over the last three years, O’Grady has been winning – a lot.

The two-time conference and Regional medalist has won all three of her 18-hole tournaments already this season and has a 35.57 scoring average in conference play. She’s had only one round over par.   

“The last couple years she has worked a ton just to improve,” Davies said. “She has a goal of playing big-time college golf somewhere, and she has done a lot of work on her own. She enters all kinds of tournaments in the offseason, and she's working out and getting stronger and longer with all of her clubs. She is just someone that puts a lot of time and effort into it.”

O’Grady is thrilled with how she’s been swinging the club this fall and is looking forward to the postseason.

“I’ve been playing really well this year, and that makes me excited for state,” she said. “I always go into the state finals to play my own game and be confident in myself because I can’t control anybody else.”

While O’Grady has qualified for Finals the last two years as an individual, she hopes to have some company this time around.

“I really hope my team can join me this year,” she said. “We are ranked third in our region right now, so that’s a big goal for our team. It would change the experience for me.”

Davies believes O’Grady has all the tools and talent to make another run at the top spot.

“That’s one of her goals this year,” he said. “This year, next year. She has as good a shot as anybody in Division 3 to be a state champ.”

Dean HolzwarthDean Holzwarth has covered primarily high school sports for Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV for five years after serving at the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years along with shorter stints at the Ionia Sentinel and WZZM. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties. 

PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids Christian’s Lillian O’Grady powers through an approach during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 Final at The Meadows at Grand Valley State. (Middle) O’Grady points out her score, which tied for second among individual competitors. (Top photo by High School Sports Scene; middle photo courtesy of the O’Grady family.)

Banner Day For Lutheran North Golfers

By Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com

October 15, 2022

EAST LANSING - With his team tied with Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood after the first round of the MHSAA Division 3 Girls Golf Finals, Macomb Lutheran North coach Alex Schlump didn’t need to deliver a big pep talk to his team going into the second and last day.

Instead, it was just a simple message he’s preached to his team all year.

“The focus was to play your own game,” Schlump said of what he told his girls. “We had to be mentally stronger than everybody else and we knew we were. That’s been our strength all season long, whether it’s been playing in the rain or playing in 40-degree weather.”

That mental strength was the difference for Lutheran North, which captured its first state title since 2017 on a chilly and windy day at Forest Akers East.

After Cranbrook and Lutheran North shot identical scores of 336 on the first day, Lutheran North was six shots better on the second day, shooting a 332 to finish with a final total of 668. 

Cranbrook finished as the runner-up with a final score of 674, while Grosse Ile, which entered the day three shots back, took third with a 677.

Grand Rapids South Christian (682) and Grand Rapids Catholic Central (695) rounded out the top-5.

Leading the way for Lutheran North was junior Lauren Timpf, who followed up a first round score of 70 with a 72 in the second round to finish as the medalist with a 2-under par score of 142. 

“I have played this course many times, and just coming into the week, I tried to give myself as many birdie opportunities as I could,” Timpf said. “Just take advantage of the short par-5 and getting there in two. Just really playing aggressive to get those birdie opportunities.”

Flanking Timpf was sophomore Saige Rothey, who tied for 13th with a two-day total of 163 (78-85). 

Grosse Ile senior Lily Bargamian was the individual runner-up, finishing seven shots behind Timpf with a 149 (75-74). 

Charlotte senior Hannah Robinson was third with a 150 (75-75), while Grand Rapids Catholic Central sophomore Ava Wisinski and Grand Rapids Christian freshman Lillian O’Grady tied for fourth at 153. 

The highest finisher for runner-up Cranbrook was junior Mackenzie Behnke, who tied for ninth at 160. 

Cranbrook was the defending state champion, but head coach John Minnich wasn’t unhappy at all to at least come away with a runner-up trophy given he called it a rebuilding year for his squad with no seniors.

“We play in the same conference in the Catholic League that Lutheran North plays in, and we’ve played them several times this year,” Minnich said. “Every match and every tournament we’ve played with them has been neck-and-neck. To be honest, they’ve had more firepower than we’ve had all year. Our players were more consistent though. We didn’t make the big numbers. We didn’t avoid them this tournament. We made a few too many big numbers.”

In the end, that proved costly for a Lutheran North team that beat out several larger schools to win the Macomb County championship earlier in the year, and now has another state championship trophy to add to its case. 

“We knew we had so many good players and talent coming back,” Schlump said. “We have a team that’s mentally strong,” he said. “That is something we knew we could do with the group of girls we had.

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PHOTOS (Top) Lauren Timpf wins her second consecutive MHSAA medalist honors. (Middle) Division 3 team champions, Macomb Lutheran North. (Photos by James Traynor.)