The Golf Association of Michigan (GAM) is celebrating its Centennial Anniversary this year, highlighted by a huge celebration at Oakland Hills with special guest JACK NICKLAUS, June 17. These short pieces are a brief look at highlights of the first four decades of the GAM:
1919-1929: James D. Standish Jr., Century of Impact on Golf in Michigan
James D. Standish, Jr. was 28 in 1919, a three-time Michigan Amateur champion, a North and South Amateur Champion and even a two-time amateur champion of Austria.
Standish became an immediate member of the Detroit District Golf Association (GAM’s predecessor), through his membership at Lochmoor Club and then Country Club of Detroit.
James would become president of CC of Detroit in the 1930s, president of the Detroit District/GAM from 1937-47 and president of the USGA in 1950 and ‘51. He was also made a life member of the Royal & Ancient Club of St. Andrews in 1929. His son, James III served as the first executive director of the GAM for 14 years from 1966 to 1979.
“The game has been in our blood for a long, long time,” said his now 85-year-old son, John, the 1993-94 president of the GAM. “I never really thought about it before, but I guess at least one Standish has been an association member for 100 years.”
1930-1939: Chuck Kocsis Emerges as Michigan’s Greatest Amateur Golfer
Chuck Kocsis, who admitted he didn’t care much for match play, said in an interview just a few years before he died in 2006, that sometimes when playing in that format he would hold back with his tee shots to make sure the other player hit it past him.
“I wanted to hit it on the green first and putt pressure on,” he said. “It worked a lot.”
Everything Kocsis tried on the golf course seemingly worked – a lot. GAM named him Michigan’s Golfer of the 20th Century, and he was certainly the top amateur golfer in Michigan in the 1930s and into the 1940s – competing multiple times as an amateur in The Masters.
Golf legend Byron Nelson wrote in the forward to the book Forever Scratch by Vartan Kupelian that: “Kocsis in many ways, was the most remarkable golfer I’ve ever known.”
1940-1949: Belvedere Golf Club in Charlevoix, Favored Host of the Michigan Amateur Championship
Belevedere Clubhouse Today
Blue water, blue skies, “Big Band” music and superb golf at Belvedere Golf Club were among the reasons the tiny Northern Michigan city of Charlevoix already enjoyed an international reputation as a summer resort area by 1940.
The Belvedere course, designed by famed architect William Watson, had been around since 1925. Membership of the golf club, as it remains today, was almost completely summer visitors from southern states and big cities like St. Louis, Memphis, Nashville and Cincinnati. It remains today a lifetime favorite of Hall of Fame pro golfer Tom Watson, whose family would spend his childhood summers nearby.
Belvedere became a regular home of the Michigan Amateur, hosting it 40 times, and will host it again in 2025 during the club’s centennial.
1950-1959: Glenn Johnson Provides Color for Michigan Golf History
Glenn Johnson would roll into the Belvedere Golf Club parking lot in Charlevoix in his shiny Cadillac convertible, top down, of course.
It would be packed with golf clubs and enough clothing changes from all the choices in the rainbow to outfit himself anew for the each of the six rounds it would take to win another Michigan Amateur Championship.
The proud Grosse Ile Golf & Country Club member won the Michigan Amateur five times, second to the six for Kocsis. He won his first three consecutively in 1954, ’55 and ’56 all at Country Club of Jackson.
Johnson, who also won a GAM Championship and a GAM Senior Championship, kept steering his Cadillac to Belvedere. He made it to match play in 25 Amateurs, and in the ’50s won 23 consecutive matches before falling in the semifinals in 1957. By his count, he was 64-20 in Amateur matches.
