Julie Massa Is GAM Senior Player Of The Year

Julie Massa Is GAM Senior Player Of The Year

Holt’s Julie Massa Tops Senior Women’s Honor Roll

FARMINGTON HILLS – Julie Massa of Holt closed her golf season with a win in the GAM Senior Tournament of Champions and a second in a playoff to Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll in the GAM Tournament of Champions.

“I finished the season strong,” she said. “Up until then I had played well at times, but I had not played my best quite often, too. It was a very competitive year. There are a lot of good players in Michigan. I look at it as the game is still a learning process for me.”

Massa is the 2018 Golf Association of Michigan Senior Women’s Player of the Year, Ken Hartmann, senior director of rules and competitions, announced today. It is the fourth consecutive year that she has earned the top honor among senior women.

GAM Players of the Year are determined by the GAM Honor Roll points system. Point totals can be found under the Championships tab at gam.org.

Over the next few weeks the GAM will announce more Players of the Year in gender and age categories. Previously, Alex Scott of Traverse City was named the Men’s Player of the Year, Kerri Parks of Flushing the Women’s Player of the Year and Mitch Wilson of Portage the Senior Men’s Player of the Year.

“Julie is the epitome of consistency with her game,” Hartmann said. “Look in the fairway and the middle of the green and you see her golf ball. She doesn’t hit it far, but farther than you think and she is as good with her hybrids as others are with irons.”

Massa, a GAM member through Forest Akers Golf Course at Michigan State University, totaled 550 Honor Roll points keyed by her win in the Michigan Women’s Senior Amateur Championship and strong finish to the season.

GAM Women’s Senior Champion Shelly Weiss of Southfield and the Michigan Women’s Golf Association finished second with 455 points.

Rounding out the top five were Audrey Akins of LaSalle and Carl’s Golfland with 325, Joan Garety of Ada and Egypt Valley Country Club with 305 and Joanne Adams of Detroit and Orchard Lake Country Club with 265.

Massa, 55 and a mother of three daughters, said being the Senior Women’s Player of the Year for a fourth consecutive year is something she would have never thought would happen.

“There are just so many good players,” she said. “Shelly Weiss had a really good year and won the (GAM Senior Championship). Kudos to her. I just keep trying to go and do my best and enjoy it. I keep working on my game and I enjoy playing and being competitive. The senior women are a great group of people and great golfers.”

The Oregon native plans to try for five award-winning years in a row next season.

“I feel like I can still learn, still improve and I really enjoy the GAM tournaments and my fellow players,” she said.

Hartmann said if Massa was bigger in stature, she might dominate even more often than she does already.

“She is little but stays in great shape, and she is not afraid to compete with the younger girls who bomb it past her.” He said. “She knows what she can do, and that the game is about the score not how far you hit it. She is always in the mix whether she is playing in a senior event or taking on the younger players, and she rarely makes mistakes.”