Seaholm Seniors Say Bye With Another Win
October 17, 2015
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
BATTLE CREEK – As the Birmingham Seaholm girls golf team gathered Saturday in the clubhouse of the Bedford Valley Golf Course, the body language of the girls suggested they might not have played well.
They were somber. They hugged. They cried. However, they actually played well enough to win their third consecutive Lower Peninsula Division 2 championship, and the emotion they were showing was the sadness of losing 11 seniors to graduation, including three who played this weekend.
“It was more sadness that it was the end of their high school careers,” said Seaholm coach Cathie Fritz, a co-coach along with Leon Braisted.
Seaholm’s fourth MHSAA championship came with a score of 664, 13 strokes ahead of runner-up Midland Dow and 28 ahead of third-place South Lyon. But it was closer than scores made it appear.
After play Friday, the leaderboard was quite jumbled as four teams were within 13 strokes of first-day leader Seaholm (335). Midland Dow was second (337), St. Joseph third (344), South Lyon fourth (347) and Okemos fifth (348).
Seaholm senior Allegra Cunningham explained the team’s strategy going into the second day with a slim lead.
“We did not have a score in mind,” she said. “We had a goal of just beating the girls in our group, or at least staying as close to them as possible so nobody could get too far away.
“My sophomore year we came back from 17 down to win by one, so every shot seriously counts, and we just focused on the notion that everything counts.”
Seaholm’s second-day score of 329 was at least 11 strokes better than the rest of the field, and senior Catherine Markley led the way with a 79 after a first-day 85.
“I was just hoping to do better than yesterday, and I didn’t expect to do this well, so I’m really proud of myself,” Markley said. “This was a roller-coaster of emotion, especially at the end.
“I was so nervous to finish, but at the same time I knew it was my last hole of high school golf, so it was really emotional, but I’m really excited that it ended so well.”
Cunningham, who delivered back-to-back rounds of 82, had high praise for Markley.
“Our team really pulled it together, and Catherine Markley, she’s MVP,” Cunningham said. “She had 79 and everybody played amazing. We could not be happier with how the girls played today.”
Seaholm’s steady scoring was the ticket to the title. The eight scores used toward their total ranged between 79 and 89. In addition to the scores by Cunningham and Markley, Jordan Michalak had 80 and 79 to lead the team with a 159 total, and Hailey Roovers added rounds of 88 and 89.
“We have focused this season in getting the girls to think in the here and not look ahead or behind at previous holes,” Fritz said. “They were really in the here and now, and that made a huge difference.”
Seaholm also used Cate Joelson on Friday and Emma Whittington on Saturday, but neither figured in the top-four scoring. Joelson said watching on Saturday was tougher than playing on Friday.
“You’re kind of biting your nails watching your teammates and hoping for them to do well,” she said.
Michalak’s effort was good enough to earn her a tie for third place individually, but she was left with a feeling of frustration after a triple bogey on her final hole. A par would have put her in a playoff for the individual championship.
“I had a bad last hole of high school golf, but that’s OK. I still finished great and it was enough to be top three,” she said. “I was so overwhelmed with emotion, both good and bad, and the tears were definitely flowing.
“I knew that it was close, and I was a little bit worried. But then I came in and it really didn’t matter, and everyone else was pleased with their own scores.”
The individual MHSAA championship went to Muskegon Reeths-Puffer freshman Karina VanDuinen, who followed a first-day 82 with a 74 to edge Stephanie Carras of Midland Dow by two strokes. VanDuinen sat in the front row as the scores were put on the big board one by one.
“It was harder watching than it was playing,” she said shortly after learning that she had won the championship. “I’m trying not to cry right now, and I’m just shaking.”
VanDuinen is just 14 years old, and she has been playing golf for just three years. Her parents, Mike and Christa, knew immediately that she was gifted in golf.
“She was in the high 90s in her first week, and the second week she was in the 80s, and it went from there,” her father said.
VanDuinen won the regional with a 71 but soared to a first-day 82 at the MHSAA Final, leaving her five strokes off the pace going into the final day. It was a deficit she knew she could overcome, but she also knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
“I knew if I shot low enough there was a chance, but I didn’t think I was actually going to do it,” said VanDuinen, who had a second-day 74. “I thought I needed to shoot 72, so I didn’t think it was going to be good enough.
“My drives and putting were definitely good, though.”
VanDuinen’s parents said the difference between Friday and Saturday was simple: Putting.
“Her putts weren’t falling Friday like they did today,” her mother said.
“I actually think she hit the ball better Friday than she did today, but she made the putts today,” her father said.
VanDuinen started her second round with five pars and a birdie through the first six holes and went on from there to win. As a freshman, she has the opportunity to win four MHSAA Finals titles, but she knows that won’t be easy.
“I’m going to try,” she said, “but right now, one time is good enough for me.”
Portage Northern senior Morgan Janke-Wolff had a highlight of her own with an eagle on the par-5, 378-yard fourth hole. She chipped in from about 10 yards off the green.
PHOTOS: (Top) Birmingham Seaholm poses with its MHSAA championship trophy Saturday at Bedford Valley. (Middle) Seaholm’s Hailey Roovers follows through on an approach shot. (Below) Muskegon Reeths-Puffer freshman Karina VanDuinen unloads a shot on her way to the individual title. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
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.)