By Derryl Trujillo
— Golf is a funny and crazy game and anyone who has played it at any level can attest to that.
After a top 10 in Ireland last year in her fourth event back on tour Sydnee Michaels failed to make a single cut the rest of the year and also failed to improve her status at LPGA Q-Series Final Stage.
Playing out of the lifetime veteran category for a second straight year, Michaels missed cuts in her first two starts on the LPGA Tour (separated by nearly two months) and an EPSON Tour start in New York last week.
But Michaels’ fortunes changed this week in the Dow Great Lakes Bay Invitational team event in Michigan where teams played two rounds of alternate shot and two rounds of best ball.
Paired with partner Mariah Stackhouse, the 2006 graduate of Linfield Christian made her first cut of the season and recorded a 39th place finish with rounds of 72-62-76-68=278 (-2) on the Midland Country Club course (Par 70 @ 6,256 yds). Michaels made 10 birdies in the two best ball rounds where the duo shot par or better.
Just last week in New York on the EPSON Tour she missed the cut with rounds of 76-73=149 (+7). She made six birdies in two rounds but also seven bogeys and two triple bogeys.
The EPSON Tour returns to action in two weeks with the FireKeepers Hotel & Casino Championship, also in Michigan, while the LPGA Tour embarks on a stretch of five straight international events starting with the Amundi Evian Masters.
Derryl Trujillo has been a sportswriter in the area since 2018 and is a 2019 winner of the IEBCA Supporter of the Year award. He can be reached by email at socaltrekkie@gmail.com.
