Kerri Parks Is GAM Player of The Year – 2018

Kerri Parks Is GAM Player of The Year – 2018

FARMINGTON HILLS – Kerri Parks of Flushing finished her summer golf schedule by winning the Michigan Women’s Amateur Championship at Western Golf & Country Club in Redford.

“I don’t think summers can end better than that,” she said. “That was a great accomplishment for me. I’m proud of the way I worked through the year. I ended the summer with a bang.”

Parks, a sophomore at Marshall University in Huntington, West. Va., is the 2018 Golf Association of Michigan Women’s Player of the Year, Ken Hartmann, senior director of rules and competitions, announced today.

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. Earlier this week it was announced that Alex Scott of Traverse City is the Men’s Player of the Year.

“She is a great grinder who is very consistent,” Hartmann said of Parks. “She won’t blow you away with a ton of birdies, but she will make some and then make par after par until she wins. That’s how she won the Michigan Amateur. She never lets herself be out of a hole. She has a great short game, and even when she gets down in a match, she just keeps coming and gets back in it.”

Parks, a GAM member through Flushing Valley Golf & Country Club, totaled 555 Honor Roll points keyed by the Michigan Amateur win.

Elayna Bowser of Dearborn Country Club and Loyola University of Chicago, who Parks topped 1-up in the championship match of the Women’s Amateur, was second with 535.

Rounding out the top five were GAM Champion Allyson Geer of East Lansing, Michigan State University and Forest Akers Golf Club with 450, Aya Johnson of Muskegon Country Club and the University of Wisconsin with 285 and Sarah Shipley of Hastings, Gull Lake View Club & Resort and the University of Kentucky with 275.

Parks said her 2018 year kept building as she improved her game.

“I started out in the spring and played well at school and in the (Conference USA) tournament (T11 as freshman, tops on her team) and then through the summer practiced every day and continued to improve,” she said. “I shot two rounds in the 60s this summer, won the Women’s Am and got my first college win when I went back to school. The success I had shows how much I’ve improved, and it has fueled my fire to keep working at it.”

A driver switch at the start of 2018 proved helpful to her success.

“I added distance and was able to keep it in the fairway,” she said. “That gave me more confidence and it started to show in the way I played on the course. Confidence makes your whole game better.”

Hartmann expects Parks, who won the 2017 GAM Championship, to continue her success.

“You can see she works at it, and she is determined and competitive,” he said. “She’s also a nice person, friendly, and everybody enjoys playing with her. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her win another GAM Championship and perhaps another Michigan Amateur before her college career is finished. She is a very good golfer and continues to improve.”