Michigan State Women’s Golf
Senior Sarah Burnham of Maple Grove, Minn., is the undisputed leader of the Spartan squad this year. She is the defending Big Ten Player of the Year, the 5th different Spartan to win that honor, and she placed 24th at the NCAA Championships last spring. MSU won the 2017 Big Ten Championship as a team for the 4th time in the last seven seasons. Can we say dominance?
Burnham holds the school record for season scoring average at 72.42, set her sophomore year, but has averaged 70.21 this past fall. If she maintains anything close to that pace she’ll hold first with a new record, plus second and third (junior year 72.57) on that career list.
In the summer, Burnham won the Trans Amateur Team Championship (with MSU teammate Katie Sharp) at the Mid Pines Inn and Golf Club in Southern Pines, NC, shooting 7-under-par and tying for first-place individually.
Other Highlights:
- The Spartan team won the Mary Fossum Invitational at Forest Akers, Sept. 23-24 (and Burnham won medalist); took second at the Minnesota Invitational; and third at both the Windy City Collegiate Championship and The Landfall Tradition.
- In addition to Burnham, sophomore Paz Marfa Sans of Barcelona, Spain, scored under par (70.93 avg.) for the fall season.
- Head coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll was inducted into the Women’s Golf Coaches Association Hall of Fame in December.
- The spring schedule will begin with the Seminole Match Up in Tallahassee, FL, Feb. 9-11. After a year off from the event, MSU will return to the Allstate Sugar Bowl, Feb. 18-20, in New Orleans, to get the spring season rolling.
- The 2018 Big Ten Championships returns to the TPC River’s Bend in Maineville, Ohio, April 20-22. The Spartans captured last year’s league title at the same course by rallying from eight strokes back on the final day.
Michigan State Men’s Golf
The final round of the 2017 Fall Season could be exactly what MSU needed heading into a 2018 Spring season that starts with the Big Ten Match Play Championship in Florida, Feb. 9-10. In that final Fall round at the Quail Valley Intercollegiate, MSU began the day in 6th place but rocketed up the leaderboard with a team score 276, led by Kaleb Johnson’s 65 and Andrew Walker’s 66, to record the Spartan’s second consecutive tournament runner-up finish.
Johnson (Naples, FL native) led the Spartans in the fall with a 71.12 average and earned Big Ten Player of the Week, September 20. He tied for first place at the Inverness Intercollegiate and had three top-five finishes in the fall.
Other Highlights:
- As a team, MSU posted a 288-scoring average for the fall, with three top-five finishes.
- Johnson, senior Michael Sharp (Kendallville, Ind.) and freshman James Piot (Canton, Mich.) were the three Spartans to take part in all six fall tournaments. Sharp’s low round was 67. Piot fired a low 70 while averaging 72.95.
- Freshman Zach Rosendale (St. Johns), the 2017 Mr. Golf in high school, shot a low of 68.
- After the Big Ten Match Play, MSU heads to Houston, Texas, Feb. 24 for the Challenge at Champions, then to Bluffton, SC, for the Colleton River Collegiate, March 12-13. Other invitationals include trips to Wilmington, NC, Iowa City and Columbus, Ohio.
- The 2018 Big Ten Championships will take place at the Baltimore Country Club for the second straight year, April 27-29.
- Looking ahead, MSU and the Greater Lansing Sports Authority will host the 2020 NCAA Div. 1 Men’s Golf Regional at Eagle Eye Golf Club in Bath – a huge honor and great theater for fans.
