A second-round rally wasn’t enough for Katie Lu to stick around for the weekend.
The Michigan State junior fired a 3-under-par 69 on Friday but missed the cut in the Meijer LPGA Classic at Blythefield Country Club in Belmont. Her 36-hole total of 1-over 145 fell short of the cut line of 2-under to play the final two rounds.
Ally Ewing and Grace Kim are tied for the lead at 11-under with seven other players within three shots.
This week marked Lu’s second LPGA event after missing the cut in the Cognizant Founders Cup last year in her home state of New Jersey.
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Lu had a standout junior year for the Spartans by leading the team with a scoring average of 71.54, which is the second-lowest total for a season in program history. She was named first team All-Big Ten and tied for 45th at the NCAA Championships last month as Michigan State tied for 17th as a team.
That performance landed Lu a sponsor exemption to the Meijer Classic and she was the lone amateur in the field. She opened the tournament with a double bogey on the first hole and shot a 4-over 76 on Thursday.
Beginning her second round on the back nine, Lu had three birdies, an eagle and a bogey to make the turn with a 4-under 32. She was within striking distance of the cut line but closed with a 1-over 37 on the front nine to fall short.
First-place finish
While Lu was making her second LPGA appearance, her teammate Shannon Kennedy was securing a trophy.
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The Michigan State junior won the Michigan Women’s Amateur on Friday. Kennedy won 2-up in the match play final against Elise Fennell at Plum Hollow Country Club in Southfield.
“There were definitely a lot of emotions coming off 18,” Kennedy said in a Michigan State press release. “I had nerves pretty much all day but was able to keep control and execute the way that I needed to. When she conceded that putt to me, I kind of let loose, hugging my dad and looking over to see all my family and friends here. It was pretty surreal for me.”
With the victory, Kennedy automatically qualified for the U.S. Women’s Amateur, which will be Aug. 5-11 at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.
Kennedy, from Bloomfield Hills, tied for 10th after two rounds of stroke play with a 12-over-par 152 total (78-74) on Monday and Tuesday. She followed by winning five matches over the last three days.
During her junior season, Kennedy posted a scoring average of 75.7 over 13 events. She tied for 128th in the NCAA Championships as the Spartans tied for 17th as a team.
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Major opportunity
Michigan State men’s golfer Ashton McCulloch missed the cut at the U.S. Open on Friday. The junior from Canada shot 75-75 for a two-round total of 10-over 150 at Pinehurst No. 2 as the cut came at 5-over.
McCulloch posted an eagle and five bogeys during Thursday’s first round after teeing off in the morning. He played in the afternoon Friday and had two birdies, three bogeys and a double.
Ludvig Aberg leads the field at 5-under while Thomas Detry, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay are tied for second a shot behind.
McCulloch, a second team All-Big Ten selection this season, posted a 70.89 average per round, which set a program record. He earned a spot as an amateur in the RBC Canadian Open and missed the cut two weeks ago after posting a 36-hole total of 5-over.
A 58-year-old woman is accused of driving a vehicle at the bottom of a ski hill near skiers and snowboarders in White Lake Township, Michigan, the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office said Saturday.
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Prosecutors allege the Bingham Farms, Michigan, woman drove near guests of Alpine Valley Ski Area, including children, on Tuesday.
According to the prosecutor’s office, witnesses said they saw the woman smoking what appeared to be marijuana before the incident and wearing ski boots while driving. Officers attempting to perform sobriety tests reported that she “exhibited poor balance, slurred speech, and open hostility.”
Online court records show the woman is charged with operating while impaired for the third time. If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison, a maximum fine of $5,000 and “mandatory vehicle immobilization” for one to three years, the prosecutor’s office said.
“This defendant endangered children with her irresponsible actions,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in a written statement. “There is no excuse to drive impaired, even once. If you’ve had too much to drink or are under the influence of marijuana or other drugs, call a friend, call an Uber, just don’t drive.”
The woman is scheduled to appear at a probable cause conference on March 12.
A long-lost silent film that’s believed to be the first depiction of a robot in motion pictures was rediscovered in Michigan. And it’s a great reminder for film history fans that you shouldn’t give up hope just because a film has been deemed lost.
The film, titled “Gugusse and the Automaton,” is just 45 seconds long and was created in 1897 by French film pioneer Georges Méliès. It shows a magician named Gugusse turning a large crank to control Pierrot Automate, a child-sized robot. The robot grows bigger and bigger until it’s an adult.
Once full size, the robot does a little dance before hitting Gugusse over the head with a stick. Gugusse brings the robot down from his pedestal and then shows him what’s what.
Gugusse hits the robot over the head with a gigantic mallet, each swing making the mechanical man a little smaller until he’s back to his child-like size. Another swing makes the robot a small doll and then it’s just one more mallet slap before the robot disappears completely.
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With that, the film is over.
It’s a short film with a goofy, slapstick premise. But it’s also an artifact that can be interpreted similarly to so much robot-focused media that would come later in the 20th century. The robot harms a human, the human needs to destroy the robot.
We see anti-robot stories pop up especially during difficult economic times, like the 1930s and 1970s, something I’ve written about before at length. And if you’re wondering whether there were hard economic times in France during the 1890s, there certainly were—in the form of a double dip recession, no less.
But putting aside the potential message of the film (and the risk of taking it too seriously as a sign of broader social frustrations), the story of how this film was rediscovered is fascinating.
Bill McFarland of Grand Rapids, Michigan, drove a box of films that belonged to his great-grandfather to the Library of Congress’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia so that experts could take a look at what he had.
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McFarland’s great-grandfather was a man named William Delisle Frisbee who had worked jobs as a school teacher and a potato farmer in Pennsylvania, according to a blog post from the Library of Congress. But he also worked nights as a “traveling showman,” according to the Library.
“He drove his horse and buggy from town to town to dazzle the locals with a projector and some of the world’s first moving pictures,” the Library explains. “He set up shop in a local schoolroom, church, lodge or civic auditorium and showed magic lantern slides and short films with music from a newfangled phonograph. It was shocking.”
Frisbee died in 1937 and two trunks of his possessions were passed on through generations until they made their way to McFarland, who was unable to screen the movies from himself because of their condition.
The Library posted a video to Instagram talking about their acquisition of the film and how remarkable it is that such an old film was found. It’s estimated that as much as 90% of films made before 1930 are lost to history.
Other films in the trunks included another Méliès film from 1900 titled “The Fat and Lean Wrestling Match,” fragments of a Thomas Edison movie called “The Burning Stable.” Library technicians scanned the films in 4K to preserve them for future generations.
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The word “robot” wasn’t coined until 1920 for the Czech play R.U.R. by Karel Capek. But visions of artificial men date back centuries. And it’s incredible to see a robot from the 1890s depicted on film for the first time. Even if it’s just 45 seconds long.
Don’t give up hope if you’re longing to watch some movie that’s believed to be completely lost. You never know what someone may have in a dusty old trunk in Michigan.
Kylan Boswell (4) scored 15 points for the Illini but Yaxel Lendeborg (23) scored 16 in Michigan’s win. Geoff Stellfox / Getty Images
Michigan has left no doubt about Big Ten superiority — the No. 3 Wolverines’ 84-70 romp Friday at No. 10 Illinois gives them an outright conference championship with two regular-season games remaining.
The win gives Michigan its first outright title since 2021, and it’s another top-shelf win that gives Michigan (27-2, 17-1 Big Ten) a boost in its pursuit of the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 seed. This matters for the Wolverines because they would be lined up for a potential Final Four matchup with the No. 4 seed rather than either of the two teams that are also in contention for No. 1 — Duke, which beat Michigan last week to gain the inside track, and Arizona.
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Friday’s lone meeting of the regular season between two purported national contenders left Michigan looking much the part, and Illinois looking a tier lower. This was domination, a comfortable second half for a Michigan team that led by as many as 21.
Michigan sophomore big man Morez Johnson Jr., who transferred from Illinois in the offseason, heard a lot of jeers from fans at State Farm Center and responded with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Big man Aday Mara also scored 19. Yaxel Lendeborg, the star of Michigan’s jumbo frontcourt, had 16 points and seven rebounds.
That interior helped the Wolverines to a 42-32 edge in points in the paint and 22 second-chance points. Keaton Wagler had 23 points to lead Illinois (22-7, 13-5), which projected as a No. 2 seed in Tuesday’s Bracket Watch but has lost two straight games and four of six. The Illini are trending in the wrong direction and potentially heading to the three-line.
The No. 1 seed also gets to choose its tournament path, and Michigan has requested Philadelphia as its first-weekend site. Otherwise, the Wolverines will likely be placed in Buffalo, which is closer to Ann Arbor.
