State Golf Finals: Brother Rice And Cranbrook-Kingswood Place In Top 5

ROCHESTER – The way Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central played on Saturday in the Division 1 state golf finals at Katke-Cousins it didn’t seem possible that a team could catch it. 

Someone nearly did, but it just wasn’t Brother Rice.

Davison High School shot a single-day tournament best four under-par 284 as a team on Saturday to shake up the standings. They started the day 15 strokes back of the lead and finished only 3 shots behind Forest Hills, who won with a team score of 593.

Brother Rice fell from third to fourth in the standings despite playing another solid round of golf. Its Saturday score was a 308, 3 strokes off Friday's score for a total of 613 on the weekend.

“I thought they played fairly well, we needed to come out extremely well and probably even doing that we needed help from Forest Hills,” Brother Rice coach Dan Bumpus said. “It’s hard to get on a roll out here. Seems like we would take two steps forward and one step back.”

For a second consecutive day Brother Rice’s top individual score came from senior Nick Dennis. Dennis was in contention for an individual state title with a two over par 74 on Saturday. He finished with a 146 and tied for fourth with Max Rispler from Forest Hills and Otto Black from Pickney.

Dennis was up-and-down on the front nine. He had three bogeys and two birdies on the first six holes. He then found a real nice rhythm and scored 11 consecutive pars. During the run he missed four birdie putts and was thinking about that after walking off the course.  

“I made more birdies in the beginning, the putts were falling,” Dennis said. “In the back nine I hit a lot of greens, but you got to make putts to make birdies. And I didn’t make any.”

The senior ended up 2 strokes back of North Farmington’s Max Kollin and Davison's Kyle Kenkel, who finished tied at 144. Kollin won the title by beating Kenkel in a one-hole playoff.   

It was the second consecutive year Dennis finished in the top 10. It was also the second straight year Brother Rice finished in the top five as a team. Dennis is graduating, but the Warriors will bring back most of team that qualified for the state finals.  

“We’ll bring back probably three or four,” Bumpus said. “It’s (the tournament) a learning experience. Hopefully it will be beneficial for us in the future.”

Juniors Sean Friel and Lucas Belanger, sophomore Jeremy Ball and freshman Kyle Gaines should be playing again in the finals. If Friel and Belanger make it next year it would be their third appearance at the Division 1 tournament.  

Dennis is excited too see how the team does next year.

“I made a lot of good friends on the team,” Dennis said. “It was a fun four years playing with them. I want to see them do well.”

Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood Golfer Wins Division 2 Individual Title

Griffin Smith's steady play earned him a Division 2 individual state title on Saturday at Forest Akers East on the Michigan State University campus.

He shot  2 under par 70 on Friday and came right back with a one under par 71 performance Saturday. Chris Noble from Niles went into Saturday with a two stroke lead, but fell back on the second day of the tournament with a 75.

Smith ended up winning with an overall score of 141, two strokes ahead of Richland Gull Lake’s Bryan Vandenberg.

Cranbrook-Kingswood finished in second place as a team. It shot a 303 on Friday and 300 on Saturday for a total team score of 603. DeWitt won the team championship with a 586, boasting the best scores on both days of the finals with a 292 and 294.