Patrick Wilkes-Krier Wins Michigan PGA Professional Championship
By Greg Johnson
SOUTH LYON – Patrick Wilkes-Krier, the proprietor of Kendall Golf Academy in Ypsilanti, birdied the par 5 final hole with a 76-yard pitch shot approach and two-foot tap-in to win the 104th Michigan PGA Professional Championship at Walnut Creek Country Club.
It was the 41-year-old teaching professional’s first major state professional title after a series of near misses, edging past defending champion Ben Cook of Caledonia by one shot with a final even-par 72 and a 4-under 212 tournament total.
It was the first individual professional win for Wilkes-Krier, an Ann Arbor native and resident, since 2012 during his eight years of mini-tour golf following college golf at Ball State University.
He took home the $7,500 first-place check. In addition, he will be awarded an exemption into the PGA Tour’s Rocket Classic next summer at Detroit Golf Club, and he secured a spot in the PGA Professional National Championship at Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon next spring.
Jay Jurecic’s ‘Miracle Finish’ Wins Tournament of Champions at Boyne Mountain
BOYNE FALLS – First, Jay Jurecic of Crystal Falls erased a two-shot deficit on the par-5 No. 18 hole of the Alpine course with a 260-yard 3-wood shot that bounced off the flagstick to inside one foot, resulting in a tap-in eagle-3.
Then in a sudden-death playoff with Grant Haefner of Bloomfield Hills, Jurecic’s third shot, a 45-yard pitch shot from the rough right of the green rolled to within five inches, and with the tap-in birdie he won the 33rd Tournament of Champions at Boyne Mountain Resort.
“I kept thinking all day, even when I was struggling there in the middle of the round a bit, that I still have a chance, I can still eagle 18,” he said. “I wasn’t banking on it hitting the flag and sticking it to a foot. But that was my hope, the miracle finish.”
Jurecic, 55 and a former school teacher chasing the PGA Tour Champions dream, shot a final round 5-under 67 for a 13-under 203 total.
