ANN ARBOR, Mich. (May 7, 2014) -- Golf Association of Michigan 2013 Player of the Year Brad Bastion of Clinton Township had his hand in two points for the GAM team, but it wasn’t enough to thwart the Michigan PGA team in the 42nd Fuller Cup Matches sponsored by Bobby Jones Tuesday at Country Club of Lansing. “The PGA has a lot of great golfers,” Bastion said. “It was great to get to know some of them better. The camaraderie is the cool part of this.”
The PGA’s Lee Houtteman of Manitou Passage Golf Club in Cedar secured the win with a 5 and 3 besting of Greg Davies of West Bloomfield in the second-to-last singles match of the day. The PGA’s Brian Cairns of Fox Hills in Plymouth then held off the GAM’s Anthony Sorentino of Rochester Hills 1-up to make the final score 10 ½ - 7 ½.
The PGA, which dominated the competition prior to 2001, now leads the series 34-7-1. The GAM, a winner in three of the last seven meetings, fell behind 4-2 following the six morning four-ball matches.
Houtteman and Cairns won the swing match of the morning 1-up with a dramatic rally from 2-down with three holes to go against Sorentino and Davies. The PGA duo won the last three holes. Houtteman birdied the 17th hole with a 5-iron shot to eight-feet, and Cairns rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole.
“It felt great to just get that match back to even this morning,” Houtteman said. “It was all bonus after that. We really felt like we had lost that match.”
Houtteman, Cairns, Josh Fryer of Franklin Hills Country Club and Dave Kendall of Kendall Golf Academy in Ypsilanti each were part of winning four-ball teams and won in singles in the afternoon for the PGA.
Kentwood’s Tom Werkmeister beat the PGA’s Scott Hebert of Grand Traverse Resort and Spa 4 and 3 in the marquee singles match of the day. Werkmeister was the first amateur since 1975 to win the Michigan Open Championship last summer, and Hebert is a six-time Open champion.
The GAM’s Bastion, Werkmeister, Scott Strickland of Birmingham and Andrew Chapman of Traverse City were winners in four of the first six singles matches of the afternoon to tie the score six points apiece, but John Seltzer of Oak Pointe Country Club in Brighton, Fryer, Houtteman and Cairns won four of the next six matches for the PGA.
ABOUT THE
Fuller Cup
Twenty four of Michigan’s top golfers, comprised
of
twelve Michigan PGA Professionals and twelve
amateurs
from the Golf Association of Michigan will be
competing in the Fuller Cup team matches.
Format features four-ball matches in the am
beginning and singles matches in the
afternoon.
The
GAM team is selected through the use of the
GAM
Honor
Roll.
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