Biagioli Wins GAM Championship

GAM CHAMPIONSHIP: McCoy Biagioli of White Lake Storms to Victory

  ANN ARBOR – McCoy Biagioli has taken the summer amateur golf schedule by storm, and Mother Nature’s storms, resulting weather delays and the rest of the state’s top golfers are having trouble stopping him.

  The 19-year-old Ferris State University golfer from White Lake, who earlier this summer won the Michigan Amateur Championship, shot a closing 71 despite about five hours of weather delays Tuesday and won the 103rd GAM Championship presented by Carl’s Golfland at Barton Hills Country Club.

  It is the second consecutive year with a single golfer winning the state’s top two amateur events – the GAM Championship and the Michigan Amateur Championship – and Biagioli is the 11th golfer to pull off the feat in 103 years. A year ago, August Meekhof won both championships.

  Biagioli’s 1-over 71 gave him a 3-under 207 total for the 54-hole championship and his name will be engraved on the historic K.T. Keller Trophy.

  Casey Baker, a two-time GAM champion (2005, 2010), the COO of sponsoring Carl’s Golfland and a Barton Hills member, also shot a closing 71, but for 211, four shots off the lead.

  A trio of golfers rounded out the top five tied at 212; John Quigley of Sterling Heights, who shot a second consecutive 69, Grand Valley State University golfer Drew Coble of Lake Orion, who shot 72, and Justin Sui, a University of Florida student from Lake Orion, who shot 74.

  Biagioli said he was proud of the way he mentally handled the long day in which he was slated to tee off at 9:40 a.m. and after all the delays finished around 8 p.m.

  “I hadn’t even teed off yet and there was already one delay,” he said. “Then I played one hole and we had another delay, and that was for a few hours and then I went back out there, made a birdie and followed it up with three straight bogeys.

  “I told myself then, ‘here we go. We have to focus up and start committing to some shots.’ Then I made a birdie and from there I stayed focused mentally, kept myself in it. With how the wind was today, it was a really tough golf course.”

   After his early bogey streak on holes 3 through 5, he made just one bogey the rest of the round on hole 12. A birdie on par 3 No. 16 hole with a 10-foot putt, which was where Baker and earlier made a bogey, gave Biagioli his final four-shot cushion.

  Baker, who now has been a GAM Championship runner-up twice as well, said he was happy and excited with his play, and that his three children were able to watch him and see him play at his best. He has not played in the championship in recent years.

  “I’m really happy to represent the club, too,” he said. “I thought with the tough set-up of the course if I shot even-par I would have a chance. I shot one-over, but (Biagioli) played great. I played with him both rounds yesterday and he’s a fantastic player, obviously one of the best in Michigan. I couldn’t be happier with the way I played, you know, for a 46-year-old guy with a full-time job.”

  Biagioli heads to the U.S. Amateur Championship at Hazeltine in Minnesota next week. He earned an exemption into the national championship with his Michigan Amateur win.

  “I’ve been playing great, have a lot of confidence and want to keep it rolling,” he said.

  Biagioli said others are surprised with his emergence this summer, but he saw it coming with the work he put into his game, especially his short game.

  “I finally committed to golf as my sport as a junior (in high school), so for the last three years I’ve seen it building,” he said. “The short game kind of brought it all together for me, and I’ve learned to handle the game mentally, too. I proved that to myself today.”

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