Spartans Host Annual Mary Fossum Invitational This Weekend
9/23/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
EAST LANSING - The Michigan State women's golf program will welcome 11 teams to East Lansing this weekend as the Spartans host the 33rd annual Mary Fossum Invitational at Forest Akers West, Sept. 24-25. Akron, Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan, Georgia Southern, Indiana, Miami, Northern Illinois, Ohio, Princeton, Western Michigan and Xavier will join MSU in this year's event.
The tournament begins with a shotgun start at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday with 54 holes and wraps up on Sunday with the final round beginning at 9 a.m. The format will be five players in the starting lineup for each team, with the top-four scores counting toward the team total. Live scoring for the tournament will be available at BirdieFire.com .
MARY FOSSUM INVITATIONAL HISTORY
Named after Michigan State's longtime head coach from 1973-97, the Mary Fossum Invitational began in 1978 and is held annually at Michigan State's Forest Akers West Golf Course in September. Michigan State has won the event 11 times, including seven times since 2005 and most recently in 2013. The last Spartan to win medalist honors was Liz Nagel in 2013.
Last season, Sarah Burnham set a school record with a 6-under par 66 in the opening round. The Spartans finished in second place behind Notre Dame.
Complete tournament history can be found here.
THE SPARTAN LINEUP
Sarah Burnham, Paz Marfa Sans, Sybil Robinson, Katie Sharp and Carolyn Markley will start for the Spartans, while Jacqueline Setas, Catherine McEvoy, Logan Otter, Greer Clausen and Caroline Harding will be competing individually.
THE LAST TIME OUT: THE MASON RUDOLPH CHAMPIONSHIP
The Spartans finished 13th at the Mason Rudolph Championship in Franklin, Tennessee, in their first tournament of the fall last weekend. Junior Sarah Burnham went into the final round in second place, but was forced to withdraw due to injury. Freshman Paz Marfa Sans was the Spartans' top finisher in the tournament, placing 44th with a 9-over 225 (75-74-76).
The Spartans' best round of the tournament came on Saturday when they shot an 11-over par 299. Burnham recorded the team's low round of the tournament on day one with a 3-under 69.
ABOUT MARY FOSSUM
Mary Fossum was the first and only head coach in the history of Spartan women's golf prior to 1997, coaching from 1973 until her retirement. For 17 of those years, Fossum was part of a unique coaching pair as her husband, Bruce, coached the MSU men's team for 25 seasons before his retirement in 1989. Bruce passed away in March 2014 at the age of 86.
Under Fossum's guidance, the Spartans won an unprecedented five straight Big Ten titles from 1974-78 and played in six consecutive AIAW National Championships (1973-78). The Spartans regained the conference crown in 1982 and played in the 1982 and 1984 NCAA Championships. MSU claimed its third conference runner-up spot under Fossum at the 1987 Big Ten Championship.
Those accomplishments led to recognition of Fossum as one of the country's best collegiate golf coaches. She was honored as the first-ever NCAA Midwest Region Coach of the Year in 1984 and was inducted into the Golf Coaches Hall of Fame in 1988. In 1999, Michigan State's annual fall women's golf tournament was renamed the Mary Fossum Invitational. In January of 1998, Fossum was honored by the College Golf Foundation with the Rolex/Gladys Palmer Meritorious Service Award for outstanding service and contributions to collegiate women's golf. She was inducted into the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame on Sept. 27, 2003. In 2007, the Big Ten named its award for the women's golfer with the lowest stroke-average to par in a season the Mary Fossum Award.
A native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, Fossum won the Wisconsin women's golf championship in 1945, 1946 and 1947. One of the many highlights of her career was her match-play victory over Mildred (Babe) Didrikson-Zaharias in the 1946 Women's Western Amateur semifinals. Fossum was inducted in 1990 into the Wisconsin Golf Hall of Fame, making her only the fifth woman to achieve that distinction. Fossum also was involved at the national level, serving as a member of the NCAA golf committee which guides the national development and administration of women's collegiate golf.
She earned the Michigan Women's Golf Association Lifetime Achievement Award in May 2014.
Players Mentioned
