BATH – The Michigan PGA Section Match Play Championship presented by the PGA Tour will be decided Monday and Tuesday at award-winning Eagle Eye Golf Club
The final 16 golfers have advanced from chapter or senior organization match play rounds to battle at Eagle Eye for the Jim Picard Trophy and a $3,600 first-place place prize.
Defending champion Scott Hebert of Traverse City Golf & Country Club is back in the final 16 as one of four from the Northern Chapter bracket.
Last year Hebert made history with a 19-holes win over John Seltzer. It was a record-setting 16th Michigan Section major championship for Hebert, eclipsing the previous mark of 15 he shared with Al Watrous and Jeff Roth. His first Michigan PGA Match Play win also gave Hebert the career “grand slam” of Michigan majors. In addition to his Match Play win last year, he has won eight Michigan PGA Professional titles, six Michigan Open titles and a Tournament of Champions title.
Five-time Match Play champion Brian Cairns of Fox Hills Learning Center in Plymouth (2014, ’13, ’11, ’10, 1997) and this year’s Michigan PGA Professional champion and the 2012 Match Play champion Lee Houtteman of Manitou Passage in Cedar are among the six former Match Play champions in the final 16.
That group also includes Seltzer, the head pro at Blythefield in Grand Rapids who won in 2009, 1998 champion Ron Beurmann of Country Club of Jackson and 2015 champion Kyle Martin of the Lochmoor Club in Grosse Pointe Woods.
In addition to Hebert, the other three golfers advancing from the Northern Chapter are Ian Ziska of Katke at Ferris State University, Kyle Wittenbach, also of Katke and Ferris, as well as Harry Dixon of Walloon Lake Country Club.
In addition to Martin, the others advancing from the Eastern Chapter are Cody Haughton of Red Run in Royal Oak, Josh Fryer of Franklin Hills and Brent Goulding of Prestwick Village in Highland.
Seltzer and Beurmann of the Western Chapter are joined by Scott Cook of Thornapple Point in Grand Rapids, and Luke Emrich of Sunnybrook in Grandville.
Cairns and Houtteman are coming out of the Senior Organization bracket. They are joined by Kevin Muir of The Wyndgate in Rochester and Frank McAuliffe of Meadowbrook in Northville.
Round of 16 matches and the quarterfinal round will be played on Monday, with the semifinals and championship match on Tuesday.
Eagle Eye, a previous host for the Michigan PGA Professional Championship, was designed by Chris Lutzke in collaboration with Pete Dye. It is a rolling “links” style design with multiple tee options. It has consistently won awards and received top ratings since it was founded in 2003.
Among its most notable holes is No. 17, a 146-yard par 3 that Lutzke designed as a replica of the famous Dye-designed island hole 17th at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla. Dye’s testy par 3 has beguiled the best golfers in the world, and the replica at Eagle Eye has the same effect.
Bracket and tournament information can be found at michiganpgagolf.com, and more information on Eagle Eye can be found at hawkhollow.com.
Gallery is welcome free of charge.
via Greg Johnson
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