Byron Center's Elzinga on Track to Contend for Rare Back-to-Back Finals Title
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
August 23, 2023
BYRON CENTER – Macie Elzinga will attempt to accomplish a rare feat this season as she embarks on her senior year.
The Byron Center standout is looking to join an elite group of golfers who have won multiple individual MHSAA Finals championships.
Elzinga blazed to an impressive five-stroke win over 2019 and 2021 medalist Gabriella Tapp of South Lyon at last year’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final at Forest Akers West Golf Course in East Lansing.
Only 10 Lower Peninsula golfers have won back-to-back Finals titles. Shannon Kennedy of Bloomfield Hills Marian was the most recent in 2019 and 2020.
“I always expect to win, and I'm really hoping I do again this year,” Elzinga said. “Two of my best friends are in Division 1, and we are moving up to Division 1 this year, so the competition is definitely better than it was last year. But I know that if I play my game and play to the best of my ability, then I can make something special happen. That's the goal.”
Elzinga shot rounds of 72 and 76 en route to her 2022 Finals victory while helping earn the Bulldogs a fourth-place finish.
“I wanted to win badly, and I knew I was capable of it,” Elzinga said. “I had come up barely short the year before and got third. I was coming off a really good season so I definitely knew that I had a chance to win it, and that was my expectation.”
Her stellar overall game was on display as she managed the course with accuracy off the tee and a deft short game.
“Everything was going well for me, but the biggest thing was I think I missed less than five fairways the whole tournament so that was definitely big,” Elzinga said. “I was driving the ball really well and putting well, which helped me seal the deal.”
Byron Center girls golf coach Jon Van Ryn believed his No. 1 player had the skill set to be in the mix.
“I knew that she had it in her to be one of the top contenders in the state, but I was just so impressed with how poised she was throughout the whole tournament,” he said. “I was pleasantly surprised by the win, but I knew she was capable of that as well.”
Elzinga, who has committed to Bowling Green State University, became the first golfer in Byron Center history to win an individual Finals title.
“I definitely love my school and the community, and it was definitely cool to be the first golfer to win a state championship,” she said. “I’m glad I could win something like that for the school.”
Elzinga’s quest to repeat will be more difficult as Byron Center moves up to Division 1.
She will more than likely be challenged by two of her friends and area rivals, Rockford’s Jessica Jolly and East Kentwood’s Elise Fennell.
Fennell finished runner-up last year in Division 1, while Jolly finished in a tie for third.
“We’ve grown up around the game together, and it’s definitely a lot of fun playing against them,” Elzinga said. “All three of us were talking to the same colleges for school.”
Van Ryn also has high aspirations for Elzinga despite the jump to Division 1 this fall.
“My expectations for her are to hopefully see her take a state title again, and I would love to see the team take a state title along with her,” he said. “We moved up a division, so it's going to be tough. We have a lot of competition, but she loves all the other strong golfers and has a good friendship and rivalry with all of them.”
Elzinga made an immediate impact upon arriving at Byron Center and helped lead the team to a Finals appearance as a freshman in 2020.
She didn’t finish among the top 10 individually that year, but was a key cog in Byron Center’s best finish (runner-up) the following season while placing third as an individual.
“I’d known her for several years before that, so I knew when she came in that she immediately was going to be one of our top players,” Van Ryn said. “She definitely came right in and filled that No. 1 spot right away and never looked back.
“She just makes very few mistakes and is always thinking multiple shots ahead. She keeps her ball right down the middle of the fairway and she has a phenomenal short game. She's just a very intelligent and skilled golfer.”
Elzinga has played well so far this season with a pair of third-place finishes at the Kent County Classic and Sydney Carfine Memorial Invitational, where the Bulldogs finished runner-up to Rockford.
She is one of three returning golfers after the team graduated five from a season ago. But despite the departures, Elzinga has confidence in the team’s ability to contend.
“We’ve built a pretty good program around here since I’ve been here, and I’ve already been surprised by this year’s team,” Elzinga said. “Everyone worked really hard in the offseason, and the girls we have coming up from the JV are just as good. I think we have a chance to do something special this year as well.”
Dean 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) Byron Center’s Macie Elzinga sends a putt toward the hole during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 Final. (Middle) Elzinga celebrates her individual championship at Forest Akers West. (Top photo by High School Sports Scene; middle photo courtesy of the Byron Center athletic department.)
4 Years of Work Paying Off as Senior-Led Linden Heads to Finals
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 13, 2021
Ask any member of the Linden girls golf team if she thought three years ago that the current level of success the team is enjoying was possible, and they quickly say no.
It’s tough to blame them. In 2018, the varsity team was made up of five freshmen and two sophomores, and the Eagles were struggling to be competitive, shooting a 467 in the Regional and coming in 10th out of 10 teams.
But that didn’t stop them from buying all the way in, and now the Eagles – led by those five freshmen who are now seniors – are headed to the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals with all of their season goals already accomplished.
“I would tell them then, ‘Three years from now, if you keep working, maybe you might have a chance to do something,’” Linden coach Jon Hamilton said. “I was talking to their parents about this, but how many kids will keep going when you tell them that if they work for something for three years, that maybe you’ll accomplish something? They did.”
Linden placed third in this year’s Region 10 tournament, shooting a 364 to qualify for the Finals, which will be played Friday and Saturday at Bedford Valley in Battle Creek. All four scorers for the Eagles – Ella LaMothe, Cate Draper, Kaitlyn Straub and Emma Lurvey – are seniors, as is Brooke Goll, who was the No. 5 on that day. All five were on the team in 2018.
“During freshman year, I wouldn’t have seen myself going to states,” LaMothe said. “I would have seen us as a team being a lot better, and maybe having a chance in the Metro League and the Regionals. But it’s taken a lot of hard work – four years of practicing every day in the fall and on our own during the summer. It’s been a lot of fun.”
It’s the first time in the nine years Hamilton has been coaching that he will take a team to the Finals, and that wasn’t the only first for the program under his guidance this season.
The Eagles won the Flint Metro League title, edging rivals Fenton and Goodrich in the league tournament. They also earned a head-to-head victory against Fenton.
After that win, Hamilton dug into his archives to pull out the scores from the 2018 showdown between the programs. Back then, Fenton won 179-257. This year, Fenton was again at 179, but Linden shot a school-record 165.
“After beating Fenton it was like, ‘Wow, we’re actually at the top of our league at the moment,’” Straub said. “It just feels amazing that we were able, as a team, to get better. It wasn’t just one singular girl getting better, it was all five of us from the beginning of freshman year to now getting better.”
LaMothe, Straub and Draper – who missed most of her freshman year with an eye injury – had played some golf before they joined the varsity squad. Lurvey said she had been on a course “a few times” but that freshman year was truly when she started. Goll was basically brand new.
“I was friends with the girls, so I figured why not try?” she said. “I had some kids clubs that I used to use to just hit some whiffle balls in my hard. I had to get a new set and everything, because those were really small.”
While they’ve made up the majority of the scoring for Linden during each of the past four years, they haven’t been completely alone. Hanna Baldwin and Cassie Most were the sophomores on that 2018 team, and Emma Most has contributed this season.
But the core has been the Class of 2022, which believed enough in itself, even when times were tough, to work toward bigger goals.
“I think that it’s super amazing,” Lurvey said. “We all didn’t really expect this at all, and this year we really just kicked it in. It’s a big accomplishment for all of us.”
The season isn’t over, of course, with the trip to Bedford Valley still to come. But while there are some admitted nerves heading into the biggest tournament of their careers, the Eagles are rolling into Battle Creek without any pressure as they’ve already accomplished all they had set out to do this season – and much more than anyone believed they were capable of just a few years ago.
“I’d say it’s probably icing on the cake,” Draper said. “We want to go in and compete, shoot a low score and place. But we’re going to go and have fun and work together as a team. I don’t really feel pressure to be the best in the state in our division. I think we’re just going in to have fun.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Linden’s Ella LaMothe, Emma Lurvey and Kaitlyn Straub convene during the Flint Metro League Tournament, won by the Eagles. (Middle) The team’s five seniors, including also Cate Draper and Brooke Goll, have played varsity together since they were freshmen in 2018. (Below) The five seniors stand together during one last Regional, from left: Lurvey, Draper, Straub, Goll and LaMothe. (Photos courtesy of the Linden girls golf program.)