Plum Hollow Country Club Hosting 101st GAM Championship
SOUTHFIELD – Historic Plum Hollow Country Club, fresh off renovation work of its bunkers and tees, will host the top Golf Association of Michigan male golfers Monday and Tuesday for the 101st GAM Championship presented by Carl’s Golfland.
Last year’s champion, James Piot of Canton, took the momentum from winning at Franklin Hills Country Club into the next week when he won the 2021 U.S. Amateur Championship at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania. He has since turned professional.
This year’s field of 84 golfers will play 54 holes of stroke play over two days on the classic Plum Hollow course, which has a storied history.
Plum Hollow was created by the legendary English design team of Colt & Alison. Harry Colt is best known for his work at Pine Valley Country Club in Pine Valley, N.J., one of the world’s top-ranked courses, and he did much of his work around the world in partnership with course designer Charles Alison.
Plum Hollow has hosted several top Michigan golf tournaments and GAM tournaments including the 2015 Michigan Amateur and has a rich history that includes being the site of the 1947 PGA Championship and the 1957 Western Open.
It was founded in 1921, and greets golfers with rolling hills, surprising elevation changes and five par 3 holes that impact scoring with demanding shots and small, undulating greens.
Recently, renovation and restoration of the bunkers and tees and some tree removal was completed by Toledo-based architect Drew Rogers Toledo. A community drain system project prompted and funded by Oakland County was also completed as it involved construction on part of the course.
The director of golf at the private club is Tom Rose and the superintendent is David Makulski. Learn more at plumhollowcc.com.
The GAM Championship, like Plum Hollow, has a rich history. It dates to 1919 with two years in which it wasn’t played during World War II. Past winners include Michigan golf legends like James Standish, Chuck Kocsis, Bud Stevens, Glenn Johnson, and Pete Green.
This year’s field of golfers includes a pair of two-time past champions in Jimmy Chestnut of Royal Oak (2008, 2020) and Mitchell White of Muskegon (2015, 2019) as well as the 2014 champion Ryan Johnson of Bloomfield Hills.
Other notables in the field include recent Michigan Amateur Champion Nick Krueger of Spring Lake, 2021 Michigan Open champion Bradley Smithson of Grand Rapids, 2021 GAM Mid-Amateur winner Nate Clark of DeWitt and last year’s co-runner-up with Smithson, Coalter Smith of Grosse Pointe Farms.
The field will play two rounds on Monday and a closing round on Tuesday after a 36-hole cut Monday night to the low 30 scorers and ties.
The GAM Championship traditionally boasts as strong of a field as the Michigan Amateur Championship, in large part because non-exempt players must go through sectional qualifiers to earn a spot in the final field for the championship.
INFORMATION, TEE TIMES, RESULTS: Visit GAM.org
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