Michigan Golf Journal February 2021

Game of Your Life because all the parents tell me their kid’s going to be the next Tiger Woods or Annika Sorenstam,” he added with a grin. “But she proved herself. She won every event by 10-11 strokes. She was amazing.” How it Began: After learning the game of golf from his father, Ralph, who won two Ann Arbor Amateur titles in the 1930s before dipping his toe into the PGA Tour as it was in the 1940s, Frisinger played golf at Tri-State University (now Trine) in Angola, Indiana. The pro at the local club left when Frisinger was a college junior and was asked to take over his duties, where he stayed for eight years. That led to the gig at Coldwater CC in 1984, where he quickly saw how old the membership was and needed an influx of young people for mere survival. Frisinger looked around the state, and other than the GAM Junior Championship for boys started in the 1970s and for girls in the 1980s, there were virtually no open tournaments for youth. He ran 6 events in first year of 1994, with 196 kids. The next year grew to 400 kids; next year to 700. That’s when he needed to leave the Coldwater CC head pro position to devote everything to the Foundation at end of that season. GOLF hit its membership peak in the mid-2000s with more than 1,500 member kids each summer. Due to the success and the Frisinger’s proven need to develop youth golfers, groups like the AJGA and others have added their own youth tournament options in Michigan, so GOLF is closer now to 700 members. Scholarships are the Focus: College scholarship criteria have nothing to do with golfing skills. “It’s all about character for me,” Frisinger said. “I mean we teach swings and what have you, but here it’s more about value of life, quality of life, so character is the number Continues on page 27 >>