Local Sports Journal
SPRING LAKE — Rain washed out the semifinal round of the 93rd running of the Spring Lake Women’s Invitational Golf Tournament Wednesday.
The course conditions forced Spring Lake Country Club officials into two options for Thursday.
If Thursday morning’s conditions allow for a morning round of golf, the semifinals in each flight will be played followed by a break for lunch. Then the championship match in each flight will be played in the afternoon of the match play tournament.
If playing conditions do not allow for an early morning start, play will be scheduled for mid-morning with an 18-hole match for the championship and first flights. The other six flights will play nine-hole matches.
After a lunch break, the championship and first flights will play another 18-hole match while the remaining flight matches will be nine or 18 holes, depending on available time left in the day.
Semifinal round matches in the championship flight have defending champion Britni Gielow, of Muskegon, playing Susan Campbell, of Milham Park Golf Course in Kalamazoo, in the first match.
The other will have Michigan State University golfer Jenny Sritragul playing Maureen Whitehead, of Charlevoix. Whitehead won the Spring Lake tournament in 2010.
Tentative starting times are 7:54 a.m. for the Gielow-Campbell match and 8 a.m. for the Sritragul-Whitehead pairing.
The favorites in both matches are expected to be Gielow, now a Hope College student, and Sritragul, who lettered twice at MSU on the women’s golf team before being sidelined by injuries for all but one match this past season.
The consolation matches in the championship flight would have Michele Yasenak, of host Spring Lake Country Club, playing Donna Benford, of Linden, at 8:06 a.m. while Chris Zeigler, of the Moors Golf Course, taking on Karel Bailey, of White Lake Golf Club, at 8:12 a.m.
The SL Women’s Invitational dates back to 1919. It has been played every year except for three years during World War II — 1943, 1944 and 1945.
