YPSILANTI – Gary Yee of Farmington Hills and Bill Dietz of Livonia had the best three-hole net aggregate score in a three-team playoff and won the 11th GAM Net Chapman Championship presented by Summit Golf Brands Wednesday at Washtenaw Golf Club.
The duo shot net 66 in regulation play and were tied with the team of Jason Carpenter of Howell and Mike Kidder of Ann Arbor, and the team of Brendan Wexler of Royal Oak and Sanford Wexler of Novi.
Carpenter and Kidder ended up second in the playoff scoring to earn runner-up honors.
The team of Justin Scollin of Royal Oak and Michael Bauer of Waterford shot 67 and just missed being part of the playoff.
For both members of the winning team the win was the second in net competition. Yee won the GAM Net Match Play Championship earlier this summer, and Dietz won the Net Chapman for the second time. He previously won with Dustin Ross, who has moved to Houston, and it prompted his teaming up with Yee this year.
“It’s great,” Yee said of teaming up with Deitz. “This is my first year playing in GAM events, so it was nice to play in all these events. They are really well-run. We both play quick golf.”
Yee said he and Deitz made a good team for the day.
“Bill had some good tee shots, and I had some good tee shots,” he said. “His irons were on fire. He hit a lot of greens, and we just really played well together. We played earlier this summer in the (GAM Net Team Championship) so we’re getting used to playing together.”
Dietz said he was watching the scoreboard and had some nerves coming down the stretch.
“I choked on the last hole we played (in regulation),” he said. “I had a six-footer and missed it bad, pulled it, then Gary luckily picked us up and got us into the playoff,” he said.
Dietz was able to manage the pressure better on the final five-foot putt of the playoff that sewed up the win.
“Honestly it was just a straight putt,” he said. “Luckily, we had a read from out playing competitors right before us, so I saw exactly what it did. It was a five-foot putt, maybe, so there was nothing to it.”
The event used the unique Chapman format in which each player on the two-person teams plays from the teeing ground and then plays the teammate or partner’s ball for the second shot. After the second shot, the partners select the ball with which they wish to score and play that ball alternately to complete the hole.
