Michigan Golf Journal May 2020

Michigan Golf Journal On Tour in Arizona Pro Sarah Burnham Making the Best of Being Stranded By Tom Lang Former MSU women’s golfer and two-time Big Ten Player of the Year Sarah Burnham went to Arizona in early January to do some winter training for the LPGA Tour. She was in position to play in the LPGA Tour’s Founders Cup in Phoenix, March 19-22, when the Tour announced it was canceled, so she called the Cactus Tour director and asked if LPGA-status players are allowed to play on his tour. “He said we were all welcome to play and the first week there were a bunch of us out there already,” Burnham said. Anna Nordqvist won the mid-March event at Moon Valley, where Burnham finished T4 with LPGA Tour pro Amy Olsen. Then Stay in Place orders started being announced, and most LPGA Tour players disappeared from the Cactus Tour. “There are a lot of sponsors that don’t want their golfers to play because they think it looks bad, which I can understand from a branding perspective; but my sponsors have been pretty cool about everything and they enjoy watching me compete and play,” she said. Burnham won two of the next three events. She said the vast majority of remaining competitors are pro and amateur residents of Arizona. “All the golf courses in Arizona are open and we’re not doing anything different than what the guidelines are recommending for social distancing,” she said. “We leave the pin