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.)

Mercy Takes 3rd Team Title, Byron Center Wins 1st Individual Championship

By Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com

October 15, 2022

EAST LANSING -- Finally, Farmington Hills Mercy girls golf coach Vicky Kowalski can talk a little less about the history of her program. 

It’s certainly a rich history since Mercy won two state championships and finished as a Finals runner-up between 1999 and 2002, but in her 45th year of coaching this fall, it was getting a little harder to resonate with her current group that wasn’t even born then.

“The game has changed so much now,” Kowalski said. “If you go back and look at the scores that were shot back then when we won, we had to go a lot lower than that these two days to get the victory.”

But Mercy did just that, and now the current group has its own history to bask in. 

2022 Div 2 Champ - Farmington Hills MercyFor the first time since 2001, Mercy is a Finals champion in girls golf, winning the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 title at Forest Akers West with a two-day score of 684.

“To finally get that third state title is just a great feeling,” Kowalski said. 

The Marlins took a 10-stroke lead with a first-round total of 343, and followed that by going two shots lower for a second-day score of 341. 

Leading the way for Mercy was sophomore Maeve Casey, who finished fourth with a two-day score of 159 (79-80). 

Senior Chloe Vig was ninth at 166, sophomore Lila Polakowski was 16th with a 178, while junior Abby Slankster was 20th at 181 for a Mercy team that returned its entire lineup from a squad that finished fourth in 2021.

Still, Kowalski knew it would be a task to outlast South Lyon, which was seeking its second title in two years. 

“We spent all year chasing South Lyon,” she said. “We beat them once in one tournament. I guess these two days were the days to do it again.”

South Lyon did manage to finish runner-up with a final score of 711 thanks in large part to senior Gabby Tapp, who was second individually with a 153. 

“We just didn’t play as well as we could’ve, and Mercy played well,” South Lyon head coach Dan Skatzka said. “It’s just one of those things. It’s the way golf is.”

Individually, Byron Center junior Macie Elzinga made history by becoming the first girl in her school's history to win a golf Finals title.

Elzinga entered Saturday with a one-shot lead over Tapp after a first-day round of 72, and followed that up with a 76 on a chilly and windy day to finish at 148, five shots ahead of Tapp, who won the championship in 2021 and 2019.

“It’s just kind of a surreal feeling,” Elzinga said. “I’m just very honored to be able to represent my school.”

Elzinga was familiar with the course given she’s played it plenty of times over the summer and during high school season, so it was a matter of hanging in mentally.

“It was a battle,” Elzinga said. “The wind was really tough. There were times where you thought it was a one-club wind, and it was a three-club wind. It was really hard to judge. Given the conditions, it was a lot harder to get the ball close on the green. Lag putting was huge. I was really thankful to have lag-putted really good. I didn’t have many three putts on the card.”

Haslett senior Sydney Dausman finished in third behind Elzinga and Tapp with a score of 157. 

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PHOTOS (Top) Forest Akers West at MSU hosted the MHSAA L.P. Division 2 Girls Golf Finals. (Middle) Team champion Farmington Hills Mercy. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)