GAM PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Elayna Bowser of Dearborn Tops 2024 Girls’s Factors Record
FARMINGTON HILLS – Elayna Bowser (above, with the GAM Womens’ Mid-Novice Trophy) tried skilled golf after her stellar novice profession, which included profitable the 2019 Michigan Girls’s Novice Championship and being a standout golfer for Loyola College Chicago.
“I gave it a good go for four years,” she stated. “I can sit here and say I gave it my all and it led me to why I decided to switch back to amateur golf. I didn’t want to continue the route I was going and end up hating the game.”
She returned to the novice ranks in 2024 and rapidly made an influence by profitable the GAM Girls’s Mid-Novice championship, and later in the summertime reaching the spherical of 32 within the U.S. Girls’s Mid-Novice.
These accomplishments mixed with what she known as one in every of her most constant years of golf competitors put her on the prime of the Golf Affiliation of Michigan Factors Record, and she or he has been named the 2024 GAM Girls’s Participant of the Yr, Ken Hartmann, senior director of competitions and USGA providers, introduced right this moment.
Participant of the Yr level totals could be discovered on a pull down from the PLAY tab at GAM.org Carl’s Golfland is the presenting sponsor of the factors lists.
Earlier this week, McCoy Biagioli of White Lake was named the GAM Males’s Participant of the Yr, and over the subsequent few weeks the GAM will announce extra Gamers of the Yr in gender and age classes.
Bowser, 27 and a real-estate agent, earned 652.5 factors to prime the factors listing. Bridget Boczar of Canton, a Baylor College golfer and the winner of the GAM Girls’s Championship for a second consecutive 12 months, had 550 factors.
Shannon Kennedy of Beverly Hills, a Michigan State College golfer and this 12 months’s Michigan Girls’s Novice Champion, was third with 490 factors. Kimberly Dinh of Midland, the 2023 Girls’s Participant of the Yr, who had 445 factors, and Laura Bavaird of Trenton, who had 355 factors, rounded out the highest 5.
Bowser stated she beforehand thought of 2019 as her greatest 12 months in golf due to her Michigan Girls’s Novice win and her success as a school participant.
“I would have thought that would be my best shot at player of the year awards, but I realize that summer wasn’t so much about consistency as it was winning the big tournaments,” she stated. “I’m surprised how consistently I competed this year because I can’t devote the time to golf that I could before. I won my first tournament back as an amateur though and played well the rest of the summer.”
She stated an important help system has helped her. Michael Phillips, her superior at Keller-Williams Legacy in Dearborn, has performed a key function in supporting her transition from being a discouraged golf skilled right into a real-estate salesperson who maintains a aggressive golf recreation. As well as, the continued help by her father, Brett, and her brother, Evan, who’s now a PGA skilled in Florida, meant she may by no means simply give up the sport.
“Professional golf was a struggle, mentally, physically, emotionally but my dad and Evan are always there for me,” she stated. “We’re a golf family. We’re all “golfaholics.” They will take pleasure in me being participant of the 12 months as a lot or greater than I take pleasure in it.”
The summer season of 2024 began with Bowser supporting her brother and serving as his caddie within the PGA Championship at Valhalla in Louisville final Might. He had certified as a prime finisher amongst different membership professionals within the PGA Skilled Championship.
“It was so great to see Evan competing in a major championship against the best players in the world, and thriving in that moment,” she stated. “I soaked everything in. I learned so much from watching him compete and how he handled things and watching all the other players. I think that experience maybe helped me more than anything with how I think about golf and how I played.”
Hartmann stated he was happy to see Bowser return to novice golf.
“I didn’t know why she didn’t want to be a professional any longer, but I know how much golf means to that family,” he stated. “We lose a lot of women players that age for several reasons. It was great to see her out there, and I wasn’t surprised she played well. Golf and a competitive spirit run through that family.”
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