Senior Players of the Year
Lori Schlicher Tops 2025 Senior Women’s Points List
By Greg Johnson
Lori Schlicher of Lewiston gets her winter workouts not at some indoor golf facility, but from chopping wood.
She has a wood stove for home heat, in addition to a furnace if needed, but she prefers to chop and burn for warmth in the winter.
“I keep the home fires burning,” she said and laughed.
The 64-year-old Garland Lodge & Golf Resort member burned up the competition in 2025 winning the Michigan Women’s Senior Amateur for a third consecutive year, the GAM Women’s Senior Championship and the GAM Senior Tournament of Champions.
Those performances powered her to the top of the Golf Association of Michigan Points List for the second consecutive year, and excited about trying to do it three times in a row in 2026. Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll of Haslett, who won the GAM Women’s Mid-Amateur Senior Division title and made match play at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur, was second with 395 points. Schlicher’s three wins this season helped her earn 817.5 points.
“I learned this year that you get points from (U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur) qualifying, so now I feel like I should try for everything,” she said. “I’m not getting any younger, so I’m trying to get it while I still got it.”
Schlicher was medalist in the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Qualifier at Spring Meadows early in the golf season. She said her 1-over 73 was the highlight performance of the season.
“I had other good rounds, but that one stands out.”
The mother of four and grandmother of seven called her golf season one of fewer cringe moments.
“I was pretty consistent this year,” she said. “I still have things to work on. I could have played better when I got to the (U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur in Virginia), and I know I feel things in my muscles I didn’t used to feel. I’m working on that to be ready for next season. And I’ll chop wood and maybe go to Florida for a few weeks like I did last year.”
Mike Anderson Earns Senior Player of the Year
Mike Anderson of Novi wondered why, without a victory during the season, he was invited to the season-ending GAM Tournament of Champions, and promptly asked Ken Hartmann, senior director of competitions and USGA services for the GAM.
Hartmann said it was because he was leading the GAM Senior Men’s Points List for the season. Anderson, who turned 56 in September, then took advantage of the opportunity and won the final tournament of the year.
That win, coupled with the points he earned for reaching the quarterfinal round in the U.S. Senior Amateur Championship earlier in the summer and top finishes in other tournaments, resulted in him being named the 2025 GAM Senior Men’s Player of the Year.
“I didn’t realize that the USGA national championships had such an impact on the points, but I’m obviously thrilled it was recognized,” Anderson said. “A lot of great players have been player of the year and to be mentioned and included in that group is a great honor.”
Anderson, the managing director of investments at Stifel Financial, said the honor is a great ending to his first full year as a senior golfer.
“I would say as a first-year senior I was more attentive to competition than I have been in recent years,” he said. “Being a senior afforded be so many more opportunities to play in events, too, and at great venues, and I tried to play in at least one a month.”
Anderson said his play in the U.S. Senior Amateur at Oak Hills Country Club in San Antonio, Texas, was his best week of the summer. He won matches in the rounds of 64, 32 and 16 before falling 1-up to the eventual champion, Michael McCoy of Des Moines, Iowa.
“That was the best I’ve played in a while, it was a good week,” he said. “I played against some great players and was fortunate to beat them before I lost to the eventual winner, who is just an incredible player, a former Walker Cup guy, an elite senior. It was a great, new experience.”
