WISCONSIN STATE SENIOR OPEN
SUPPORTING PARTNERS
Write-Up provided by Gary D’Amato (garydamatogolf@gmail.com) and Wisconsin.Golf
LAKE GENEVA — Michael Crowley, one of the top players in the Wisconsin PGA Section for the better part of a decade, hadn’t been playing to his usual lofty standards for much of 2025.
His driver started playing hooky — the dreaded, hard-turning right-to-left shot that better players detest — and his wedge game lacked the precision that is the hallmark of elite golfers.
To fix the former, he sought help from fellow WPGA professional Jim Schuman. To fix the latter, he reached out to Fox Point native and three-time PGA Tour runner-up Skip Kendall, who lives in Florida but met Crowley in Chicago for a two-hour lesson.
“With Schu’s help, I got the driver figured out for the most part,” Crowley said. “And Skip got me really dialed in with my wedges and then that started spilling into my irons; I started hitting those better.”
It all paid off Wednesday, when Crowley shot a final-round 4-under-par 68 on the Player Course at Destination Geneva National to win the Wisconsin State Senior Open for the second time. He finished the 36-hole tournament at 8-under 136 and won $2,100.
Crowley made up four shots on first-round leader David Roesch of Menomonee Falls, who followed his opening 64 with a 73 and finished second, one shot back at 137.
“It’s always hard to back up such a good round when nothing goes wrong,” Roesch said. “I started out really poorly. I had a couple good opportunities and missed and then three-putted a couple. You lose momentum and then you’re fighting an uphill battle.”
At various points in the final round, played on a cool day with intermittent drizzle, four players held or shared the lead: Crowley, Roesch, Schuman and Jim Walkley of Onalaska.
Schuman, a four-time State Senior Open champion, fired a 6-under 66, the low round of the day. He had a chance to tie Crowley with an eagle on his final hole, the par-5 second — the event used a shotgun start — but could manage only a par and fell two shots short. He tied for third place with Walkley (69) and Menasha’s Ryan Helminen (70) at 6-under 138.
Crowley, 55, the head PGA professional at Morningstar Golfers Club, overcame a couple of shaky moments with superb play down the stretch.
On the short par-4 fifth hole, he lost a ball when he snap-hooked his drive into a hazard — the only time that shot surfaced Wednesday — but got up and down from in front of the green to save a bogey.
Then, on the par-5 10th, he shanked a chip shot from an awkward lie but then two-putted from 60 feet for par.
“I did shank that shot. Absolutely,” Crowley said. “It was a goofy lie and I’m trying to bump it into the hill and just really didn’t feel comfortable over the shot. I hit it and I’m like, ‘Well, you got it on the green. That’s what you were trying to do.’”
He was able to laugh it off and then made two huge birdies down the stretch. On the par-5 14th, he pulled his second shot from 143 yards into a greenside bunker — “the only shot in the last six holes that I missed” — and then nearly holed the bunker shot, tapping in from less than two feet for birdie.
At that point, Crowley was tied for the lead at 7-under with Roesch and Walkley (who moments later would make a costly bogey on the par-3 17th). Crowley moved out in front, and stayed there, with a birdie on the par-5 16th to get to 8-under.
“I hit a great drive and I had 233 yards to the pin downwind,” said Crowley, who also won the State Senior Open in 2020. “I had a little mud on my ball and I’m like, ‘I can’t lay up.’ I hit 4-iron and absolutely flushed it. It landed about middle of the green and went all the way to the back. I had 60 feet and hit my first putt and I thought I made it. It just burned the left edge and rolled four or five feet past. I rolled that one in dead center.
“I just hit quality shots down the stretch.”
Helminen and Walkley played solid golf, with Helminen shooting a 33 on the back nine and Walkley vaulting to the top of the leaderboard with birdies on Nos. 10, 11, 13 and 15.
“Then I hit a horrible chip shot (on 17),” Walkley said of the bogey that dropped him out of a share of the lead. “That’s the way it goes.”
Walkley, a Michigan native and reinstated amateur who once worked as the club professional at Hiawatha Golf Club in Tomah, was happy with his finish, especially since he had never seen the Player Course before Tuesday’s first round.
“I’m super happy,” he said. “I haven’t played well in a while.”
Helminen’s score could have been three or four shots lower if not for a couple putts that teetered on the edge of the cup but wouldn’t fall and a couple more that burned the lip.
“His round could have been completely different,” Crowley said. “He could have made two or three putts and would have been leading right out of the gate.
“Those guys (playing partners Roesch and Helminen) played well and hit some good shots but didn’t really make anything down the stretch.”
Mick Smith of Summit, the defending champion, closed with a 69 and finished sixth at 141. Derek Stendahl of Maple Grove, Minn., and Tom Halla of Colgate tied for seventh at 142. Stendahl, who finished T-2 last year, shot a 72 and Halla had a 75.
As for Crowley, it appears that his game is all the way back.
“Yeah, this is the best I’ve played in a while,” he said. “Absolutely. People keep asking me at the club, ‘How’s your game?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s trending.’”
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A great deal of gratitude goes out to our the three supporting partners of the Wisconsin State Senior Open. The Suter Ward Group at Morgan Stanley, Sentry, and TaylorMade Golf, are a key component of the Wisconsin State Open Series. They help enhance the events in many ways.
The Wisconsin PGA would also like to express our appreciation to the staff and mangement team at Destination Geneva National. The resort provided all the support that was needed to conduct a first class championship.