By Greg Johnson
EAST LANSING – As Caleb Bond was making the choice between turning professional at the end of his collegiate career or playing one more summer as an amateur, defending his Michigan Amateur Championship victory of a year ago was a consideration.
The 2025 Golf Association of Michigan (GAM) Player of the Year opted to play another year as an amateur and he will head the field in the 115th Michigan Amateur Championship presented by Carl’s Golfland, June 29 – July 3 at Eagle Eye Golf & Banquet Center.
“I can’t wait to defend, especially on my home course,” he said. “I worked at Hawk Hollow growing up and have been playing at Eagle Eye since high school.”
Eagle Eye and Hawk Hollow, which was the host course for the Michigan Amateur in 2022, are two of the six golf courses owned and operated by the same ownership group in the Lansing area. This year’s championship is the fourth major Golf Association of Michigan tournament hosted by the group. Eagle Eye hosted the 2016 Michigan Amateur and the Michigan Women’s Amateur a year ago.
“Eagle Eye is a great course for the Michigan Amateur, absolutely,” Bond said. “It has some length and it can be set up differently because of the big greens and tees which will be exciting. And it’s usually windy out there, and that makes it a really strong test.”
Bond, who is from nearby Williamston, has played the Eagle Eye course so many times he feels like his game has been molded by it in some ways.
“I’m a decent driver of the ball, which you need to be, and it demands strong approach shots, which I feel is the strong part of my game,” he said.
Bond, who started his collegiate career at Ferris State University, transferred to Michigan State for his last two years of eligibility. After completing some summer courses, he will have a degree in economics. Along the way his golf game has improved, and even in the last year he has concentrated on putting and his short game.
“I needed to become a more consistent putter, and I feel like I have done that, and my short game is better than a year ago,” he said. “I’m a better player overall.”
He feels amateur golf and college golf combined has prepared him to turn professional in the fall and attempt PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Qualifying School. Meanwhile, he has scheduled a busy summer schedule playing in the Elite Amateur Golf Series, which for him will include the Northeast Amateur, Trans-Mississippi Amateur, Southern Amateur and Western Amateur.
Bond, 22, also hopes to return to the U.S. Amateur. He played in it last summer via the exemption awarded by the USGA for his win in the Michigan Amateur. For the third consecutive year the Michigan Amateur winner will receive an exemption into the U.S. Amateur Championship later in the summer.
Part of last year’s story at the Amateur was Bond’s sister Cara serving as his caddie. He said she will once again caddie for him and be on the bag for his summer schedule as her summer job.
She won’t be the only familiar face.
MSU teammate McCoy Biagioli, the 2024 Michigan Amateur champion is in the field, as is last year’s runner-up, PJ Maybank, a University of Oklahoma golfer from Cheboygan, as well as the other semifinalists from a year ago, Zach Koerner of Laingsburg, who was Bond’s former roommate at Ferris State, and Adam Burghardt of Clinton Township.
The starting field of 156 golfers will play two rounds of stroke play Monday and Tuesday, June 29 and 30 to determine the match-play field of 64. Two rounds of matches on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, July 1-3, will determine the champion.
Eagle Eye will also help determine a champion. The award-winning course was designed by Pete Dye protégé Chris Lutzke with the legendary Dye consulting. It had its grand opening in August of 2003, and features some generous fairways framed by grassy penal mounds, and dramatic and challenging holes around a large pond (holes 9 and 18).
Then there is the par 3 17th hole where tournament drama unfolds multiple times each round. No. 17 is a 146-yard par 3 that Chris Lutzke designed as a replica of the famous Dye-designed island hole 17th at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla.
