Six Elite Players Named to Michigan Golf Hall of Fame

Six Elite Players Named to Michigan Golf Hall of Fame

BIG RAPIDS – Six golfers with championship credentials – PGA Master Professional Bob Ackerman of West Bloomfield, PGA Professional Brian Cairns of Walled Lake, PGA Tour veteran Tom Gillis of Lake Orion, former LPGA Tour player Suzy Green-Roebuck of Ann Arbor, the late Alex Ross of Detroit who was a U.S. Open winner 110 years ago, and Michigan State University women’s golf coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll of Haslett – have been elected to the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame (MGHOF).

They will be inducted Saturday, June 3, in ceremonies at Ferris State University’s Katke Golf Club, and bring the number of inductees to 119, the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame announced today. The six-member 2017 class ties for the largest class in history with the induction group of 1990.

Ackerman, 63, owner of Bob Ackerman Golf in West Bloomfield, won his first Michigan Open title in 1975 as an amateur and added a second in 2003 while also winning the Michigan Senior Open that year and being named Michigan PGA Player of the Year. He is a former Big Ten Conference individual champion from 1975 while playing for Indiana University, a former Illinois Open winner and four-time Illinois PGA Section Player of the Year.

Cairns, 52 and a teaching professional at Fox Hills Learning Center in Plymouth, was named to the Michigan PGA Section’s Hall of Fame last year. His credentials include being a three-time Michigan PGA Professional Champion, playing in the 2016 U.S. Senior Open and playing in the PGA Championship three times. He was named Senior PGA Professional Player of the Year in 2015, the first Michigan PGA Section member to be named a national player of the year in any division. Cairns has been the Michigan PGA Section Player of the Year five times and he also had Champions Tour status in 2014.

Gillis, 48, has played nine seasons on the PGA Tour including 2016, and recently took a high school boys golf coaching job at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep. He has been a touring professional since 1993, including stints on the European Tour, the Web.com Tour and has played competitive golf in 26 countries. He plans to play the Champions Tour when he turns 50. He has been a runner-up twice on the PGA Tour with over $6 million in earnings, won on the Web.com Tour and won two Michigan Open titles.

Green-Roebuck, who will be 50 in April, won her third Michigan Women’s Open title last summer at age 49. She played for seven years on the LPGA Tour in the 1990s, and was a four-time winner on what is now the LPGA’s Symetra Tour. As an amateur she won the Michigan Women’s Amateur, the Golf Association of Michigan Junior Amateur twice and was a two-time individual high school state champion. She is the daughter of Pete Green, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986.

Ross, who died in 1952 at age 72 is the brother of famed golf course architect Donald Ross, and is credited with having won seven of golf’s major championships because of his 1907 U.S. Open win at the Philadelphia Cricket Club and six North and South Opens at Pinehurst Resort (considered a major in the early 1900s). The native of Dornoch, Scotland, was the head professional for 31 years at Detroit Golf Club starting in 1914 and was the first president of the Michigan PGA Section in 1922.

Slobodnik-Stoll, 45 and a Grand Rapids native is the successful head women’s golf coach at Michigan State University with five Big Ten titles and 10 trips to the NCAA Championships, and as a player is the winningest golfer in Golf Association of Michigan history with 15 titles, including two Michigan Women’s Amateur Championships and an unprecedented eight GAM Mid-Amateur wins. She was named the GAM Women’s Player of the Decade in 2010 and is a four-time GAM Player of the Year.

The Michigan Golf Hall of Fame is a heralded collection of portraits, plaques and memorabilia that currently commemorates 113 members, including Walter Hagen, Chuck Kocsis, Horton Smith and more current notables Dave and Mike Hill, Dan Pohl, Meg Mallon and Kelly Robbins. The collection will soon be housed and displayed in the new Professional Golf Management Learning Center planned by Ferris State University at its Katke facility. A $4 million fundraising effort is nearing completion.

The MGHOF is administered by the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame Committee, which is funded through the non-profit Michigan Golf Foundation (501(c) (3) since 1996) and includes 18 members representing a cross-section of the state’s golf associations as well as the golf media. The MGHOF committee conducts an annual election to recognize the achievements of competitive Michigan golfers, but also those of individuals who have contributed to the growth of the game.

via Greg Johnson