Breaking down biggest games of Michigan high school district finals
Free Press reporter Jared Ramsey talks through the biggest games in the district final round of the 2025 Michigan high school football playoffs.
Grand Rapids Christian senior golfer Lillian O’Grady got a call from her coach.
The good news; O’Grady’s sister Eleanor, also a golfer at Grand Rapids Christian, was named to the Division 3 All-State team.
The better news: Lilian was one of eight players to make the statewide Michigan high school girls golf Super Team – her third consecutive time making the team.
But the best news was yet to come: O’Grady was selected as the Michigan Interscholastic Golf Coaches Association’s 2025 Miss Golf.
“I was super-excited. It almost felt like a relief to see that all my hard work paid off,” O’Grady said about learning of the award on Oct. 29. “When coach called me, I was with my family, and to find out with them, it was really exciting as well.”
This season, O’Grady won her second consecutive Division 3 state championship and had a state-best scoring average of 71.9. She was the only player in the state with a sub-72 average this season.
Her résumé also includes 2022 All-State honors, a two Ottawa-Kent Conference White Division championships and three regional medals, according to the MIGCA.
Her coach, Seth Davies, said he couldn’t think of anyone more qualified as Miss Golf.
“My assistant coach and I both just really felt that she was very deserving of it,” Davies said. “… — “Obviously nothing in life is guaranteed — but it would be a bit of a shame if after the work that she put in and the accomplishments and wins that she’d had, that would have been almost a hard thing to figure out who would have beat her.”
A life changing hole-in-one
O’Grady’s golf journey began at the age of 7 when her father signed her up for lessons at Galaxy Golf in Grand Rapids. She didn’t take to the sport right away. But that changed when she made her first hole-in-one, playing with her family about a year later.
“I remember that day, I just did not want to go out on the golf course,” she said. “It was my whole family playing together and we’re pretty competitive and everything, and I just didn’t want to do it. Thank goodness I did.”
O’Grady found success early on as she played in tournaments.
She began to tap into the family’s competitive nature.
“I have that spirit in me,” O’Grady said. “So when I didn’t do well, that motivated me a lot more to do even better.”
Consistency is key
Davies began his coaching career in 2000 and has seen many talented athletes. He knew the O’Grady family played golf, but during tryouts in O’Grady’s freshman season, Davies could see how she stood out.
“Here’s someone that obviously had been competing and was already defeating golf courses as freshman,” Davies said. “So it was pretty early on that I and the other coaches were like, ‘Yep, she’s a special talent.'”
After O’Grady locked up a spot on the roster, Davies put her in the No. 1 position, a spot she held all four years on the team.
Although O’Grady had the skills to succeed, there were challenges she had to overcome, including improving her swing distance – something college teams watch for.
“They told me, ‘Sorry we can’t look at you because you’re not hitting it as far as we need you to,'” she recalled. “And that was a bit discouraging, but it made me realize that, OK, change something in my swing, I need to be in the gym a little bit more and really work on hitting the ball harder and increase my distance, ’cause that definitely helps in the game.”
She also said that she had to overcome her nerves.
“When you step up on the first tee box, what I do, I’m so nervous, almost to the point that I’m shaking,” O’Grady said. “And I just have to remind myself: You have put in so much work. I had to remind myself that I’ve played this course more than any other girl in that field. And so there’s no reason that I should be thinking about that or getting in my head about that.”
O’Grady’s biggest strength is her consistency, Davies said.
“Everytime she’s making a swing at the ball, it’s with her best intent and with a plan and it’s almost always a fantastic shot,” he said.
Raising the bar
Next fall, O’Grady plans to attend Findlay in Ohio, where she will continue to golf.
As she reflected on her high school career, O’Grady said she regretted not making the state finals all four years and not winning a state title this season.
But she’s proud of how far she and her fellow seniors have come since their freshman seasons.
“We really realized that if we stay focused during practice, if we really know that we can shoot well, we can beat other teams,” she said.
Davies credited O’Grady for elevating the program to where it is today.
“Sometimes it takes a special person and a golfer to help get over that hump,” Davies said.
O’Grady, he said, is “definitely one of those examples of what it takes to be a very successful student athlete, and it definitely raised the level of our team to have people like her in our program, and we will greatly miss that next year.”
Nominate a high school athlete for the Detroit Free Press boys and girls athlete of the week.
Eric Guzmán covers youth sports culture at the Free Press as a corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The GroundTruth Project. Make a tax-deductible contribution to support this work.
Contact Eric Guzmán: eguzman@freepress.com; 313-222-1850.
