Crystal Mountain Hosts Michigan PGA Women’s Open For 20th Time

  THOMPSONVILLE – Michigan Golf Hall of Fame members, Michigan Amateur winners, players with LPGA and Epson Tour status and golfers from 11 states and two countries will be part of the field starting Monday when Crystal Mountain hosts the 29th Michigan PGA Women’s Open Championship.

  The resort is celebrating two decades of hosting the Women’s Open, which once again will be played on Crystal’s signature course Mountain Ridge.

  “This championship always has a unique field and it makes for great tournament golf each time,” said Justin Phillips, tournament director for the Michigan Section PGA, which created and has administered the championship from the start. “This is also our 20th consecutive year at Crystal Mountain. It is a special place and through their commitment to women’s golf and putting on such a great event every year they have certainly solidified their role as the home of one of the best women’s state opens in the country.”

  The field of 74 golfers will play 54 holes of stroke play through Wednesday to determine a champion, and the professionals in the field will compete for a share of the estimated $40,000 purse.

  Crystal Mountain and the Michigan Section PGA welcomes spectators free of charge.

  Last year’s champion, Tristyn Nowlin of Richmond, Ky., is not returning to defend. She is in graduate school at the University of Illinois where she played her collegiate golf.

  Sarah Burnham, the 2020 champion now living in Temperance and with partial LPGA status this year, is returning.

  Also back is 2019 champion Anika Dy of Traverse City, the former Crystal Mountain cart attendant and current University of Michigan golfer who just last week was the runner-up in the Michigan Women’s Amateur Championship to her younger sister Anci, a University of Indianapolis golfer.

  Anci, fresh off her biggest amateur victory, is playing in the Michigan Women’s Open, too.

  Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member and three-time champion Suzy Green-Roebuck, who won the first Michigan Women’s Open in 1994, won again in 1999, played on the LPGA Tour for several years and then showed she could still play by winning the Michigan Women’s Open again in 2016, is in the field.

  Another Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member in the field is former LPGA Tour player Sue Ertl, an Ionia native who now lives in Bradenton, Fla. She is retiring this year as a teaching professional but coming home to play at Crystal Mountain once again.

  Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll, the head women’s golf team coach at Michigan State, Michigan Golf Hall of Fame member and the winningest amateur golfer in Michigan history, is playing once again and heading the usual large group of golfers with MSU ties. Her daughter, Olivia Stoll, now a Grand Valley State University golfer, is playing, too.

  Caroline Ellis, Slobodnik-Stoll’s assistant, a former Spartan star, a four-time professional winner and now a reinstated amateur, is in the field. She was the stroke play medalist in last week’s Michigan Women’s Amateur and reached the quarterfinals of match play.

  Mikaela Schulz, a University of Michigan golfer and the reigning GAM champion who was a semifinalist last week in the Amateur, is playing.

   Michigan Section PGA vice-president Stephanie Jennings, who is also the women’s golf coach at Eastern Michigan University, is in the field.

  Sarah White of Grand Rapids, an Epson Tour player and tour winner, is home to play in the Women’s Open as well, and Elayna Bowser of Dearborn, now a professional and the 2019 Michigan Women’s Amateur winner is returning.

  Several out-of-state new professionals are playing in the championship that is open to non-Michigan residents. Most have recently completed their college careers and play in state opens as a way to test the professional waters.

  The Mountain Ridge course, which will be played at par 72 and set up at about 6,115 yards for the championship, was designed by noted Michigan architect Bill Newcomb. It features some dramatic elevation changes, natural sand areas and holes cut through towering tunnels of trees.