Repeat Medalist Autore Leads as Islanders Start Next Championship Tradition
By
John Vrancic
Special for MHSAA.com
June 3, 2022
HYDE — The Cedarville girls golf team won the Upper Peninsula Division 3 championship last season, and DeTour took the top honor in 2017.
So it was only logical that the first-year cooperative program comprised of two schools would be a formidable favorite Thursday at Highland Golf Club.
True to expectation, Cedarville/DeTour fired a 420 to win by 43 strokes.
“I think we have a pretty good team,” said Islanders coach Jeff Autore. “We were defending champions from last year, and the girls played well all year. They worked and practiced hard.
“We’ve done well, and it started with the boys years ago. We’ve always had a good golf program. Once you get a tradition going, it draws players to your program. We also have a good junior high program. We have 14 kids there, too.”
The Ontonagon girls took home the runner-up trophy, with Cooks Big Bay de Noc third. Ontonagon is a regular among the top two Finals finishers, most recently earning championships in 2018 and 2019.
“We’re very pleased with how everything went,” said Ontonagon coach Brady Guilbault. “We knew the Cedarville/DeTour girls would be tough.
“It’s a short season up here. We were waiting for the snow to melt and cold weather to go away. It was hard to get on the course. We were hitting a lot of foam balls in the school.”
Islanders senior Zoe Autore repeated as medalist, shooting a 99 and edging North Central senior Sarah Snyder by a single stroke. Cedarville/DeTour’s Lily Plowman took third with 104.
“Last year there was no pressure,” said Zoe Autore, who plans to continue her golf career at Albion College. “This year there was more pressure. It got kind of nerve-wracking at times. My drives were a little better today, but the course was wet and muddy. It probably wasn’t the way they wanted it to be. I didn’t get any roll (with the ball) – although it worked out good overall.”
This marked the first full round all year for Snyder, who played with a torn right ACL and will attend Northwest Wisconsin Technical School in Green Bay this fall.
“I just tried my best,” she said. “Even though this my first time golfing a full round this year, I didn’t let that affect me. I just tried to focus on my game and keeping the ball straight.”
Taylor Williams finished fourth individually, and Hayley Kohlman was sixth to round out
Cedarville/DeTour’s scoring. Madyson Pantti finished fifth to lead three top-10 individuals for runner-up Ontonagon. Macy Peterson was eighth individually as low scorer for Big Bay.
PHOTOS (Top) Cedarville/DeTour's Zoe Autore sends an approach during Thursday’s UPD3 Final at Highland Golf Club. (Middle) The Islanders hold up their championship trophy after winning by 43 strokes. (Photos by Todd Rose.)
3-Time Finals Champ Cherishes Memories, Considering Golf Future
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
August 3, 2022
Golf has been a major part of Katy Nightwine’s past – and it could be a big part of her future.
But at the present time, there’s something more important to tend to that’s putting golf on the backburner.
Close to three decades after making history as a golfer at Ann Arbor Pioneer, much of Nightwine’s time and energy these days is as a stay-at-home mom raising her 2-year-old son Henry with her husband Bryan.
But even while doing that, it’s hard to get golf completely out of her mind, as she’s already trying to plant a seed with her son.
“He enjoys putting the ball on the tee,” Nightwine said. “We’re happy with that progress.”
If the little guy starts fully getting into the game, he’ll be hard-pressed to find a better mentor than his mother.
Nearly 30 years ago Nightwine, then Katy Loy, made history by becoming the first to win three straight MHSAA Girls Golf Finals individual titles in the highest classification/division when she claimed three consecutive crowns in Lower Peninsula Class A.
Nightwine said she grew up on a golf course in Dexter (now closed), which is where she learned the game and grew a passion for it.
“I liked going to golf more than I liked going to swim practice,” she said. “It became that thing I did with my dad after work. The weekends would be spent golfing, and that became my favorite place to be.”
Nightwine won the Class A title in 1993 as a sophomore, and then repeated as a junior in 1994.
She remembers going into her senior year with a lot of people talking about whether she could make it three in a row, but it didn’t put any more pressure on her than she’d already put on herself.
“If I didn’t get it then, that was going to be the blemish,” Nightwine said. “It had so much more meaning than it being the third time, but let’s cap it off and really give me something to remember.”
In her words, it “wasn’t looking so good,” for Nightwine on the front nine during the last round of the Final in 1995, but she turned it around on the back nine at Michigan State’s Forest Akers West to claim her third-straight title.
From there, Nightwine went on to the University of Michigan and was named Freshman of the Year in the Big Ten in 1996.
Due to a desire to play in warmer weather and more prestigious tournaments, Nightwine transferred after her freshman year to the University of Kentucky, where she finished out her collegiate career.
Nightwine turned professional after college and played in a futures tour, but a back injury ultimately led her to quit playing professionally.
She worked as a golf instructor here and there. But in 2008, Nightwine started focusing on what she said was her other passion: Baking.
She opened up a pastry shop in Ann Arbor and continued in that business for 10 years before her family decided in 2018 to sell the property where the bakery was located to a company that repurposed it.
Now, Nightwine is fully entrenched in the business of being a mom and raising her son, but is hoping for a golfing revival in the future.
When her son gets older, she’s thinking about getting back into golf instruction or doing something else in the industry.
If nothing else, she wants to at least get back to playing consistently again.
“To see where my swing is at and go from there,” she said.
Regardless of what the future holds in the sport, Nightwine will always own a piece of state golf history, something she cherishes to this day.
“I will always be involved with golf, especially if (my son) takes a liking to it,” she said. “I have such fond memories of people I met.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Katy Loy watches a drive during the 1994 Lower Peninsula Girls Golf Final. At right, Loy, now Nightwine, with her husband Bryan. (Middle) Katy Nightwine takes a swing at the driving range. (Below) Katy and Bryan Nightwine. (1994 Finals photo courtesy of Ann Arbor News/MLive; current photos courtesy of Katy Nightwine.)