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CANADIANS ON TOUR July 28, 2003
“This is by far the biggest thing I have ever won, and I look forward to sharing it with him,” said Damron Sunday. “Everyone knows he is my brother, but no one can really understand how close we are. We talked on the phone (Saturday) night, just the normal stuff brothers talk about. He has obviously proved himself, but hopefully when I am 30 we’ll have a lot of things in common that way. I can’t tell you how great that would be.” Brother Robert, meanwhile, who won the Verizon Byron Nelson in 2001, had quite a weekend himself, finishing T7 in the Greater Hartford Open and collecting $124,666. Zokol, who has been plagued with various injuries the past couple of seasons, may have had an opportunity for victory had it not been for his tee shot at 18. Zokol began the final round five shots back and after a birdie at 17 was 10 under and one behind. But his drive on the par-4 18th went astray and he had to sink a 10-footer to prevent loosing a stroke. At the 72nd hole Hamilton came within inches of sinking a 50-foot birdie attempt. Damron meanwhile, two-putted from 12 feet for the victory. He also moved into sixth on the Tour’s Order of Merit list with three events remaining on the schedule including this week’s Greater Vancouver Classic at Swan-e-set Bay. Five Canadians cracked the top 10 in Victoria, including Wes Martin of Calgary who finished (71-65-69-68—273) alone in eighth, and Ben Ferguson, Ancaster, ON (68-71-68-68—275) and David Hearn, from Brampton, ON who (72-66-71-66—275) T9 with two others. Nine Canucks made the top 20 and a total of 18 made the cut. From the field of 156 players who started there were 68 Canadian professionals and amateurs entered.
When the Greater Hartford Open began much of the focus seemed to be on Suzy Whaley, the teaching professional/homemaker who had qualified regionally to play in the event. But Whaley, like LPGA superstar Annika Sorenstam at Coplonial earlier this summer, missed the 36-hole cut (75-78—153). Glen Hnatiuk of Selkirk, Manitoba, although not exactly having a banner season, showed some definite signs of turning a mediocre campaign around with a strong weekend finish that put him into a tie for 11th at (70-69-67-67—273) 8-under and garnered a cheque for $79,428 ($301,290, 129th)
U.S. JUNIOR AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
“This tournament was won by the juniors, I was just along for the ride,” said Danis, whose golfing career began years earlier as a competitor in this very same event. With 32 teams in the field Victoria compiled a team score of 116, 28-under par in the two-ball format and two shots ahead of the team from Pitt Meadows Golf Club. The margin of victory came down to the closing two holes and the heroics of young Mr. Swinburnson. On his second last hole he nailed a three-wood over trees to cut the dogleg on a 490-yard par five, put his 5-iron on the green, then drained the putt for a natural eagle. On the final hole Swinburnson made up for some earlier miscues by scoring a birdie that sealed the team victory. The event also served as an early 16th birthday present for Jonathon, the son of longtime Victoria Head Professional Mike Parker and no doubt two-time BC Ladies Amateur and Senior Champion Dorothy De Girolamo was delighted for her granddaughter, Kristin. COMING UP . . .
“However, we just feel it is time to bring this Vancouver tournament back closer to the city and the downtown area. While the Swan-e-set facility is quite capable of accommodating a large tournament, Pitt Meadows is a bit far for some spectators to come for more than one round at a time. At Mayfair in Richmond, spectators may have a better opportunity to get out to the course and see more of the players and more of the tournament.” Mansfield became the Canadian Tour’s fourth Commissioner in March 2002 and has been called upon to put all of his management and boardroom experience from the business world and the sports community to work each day to ensure the continued growth of this tour. Although the Tour is now two years into a 10-year agreement with the U.S cable favorite, The Golf Channel, one of Mansfield’s priorities is to develop a closer relationship with a Canadian broadcast media partner.
GREATER VANCOUVER – A YEAR FOR THE AMATEURS SEEKING A FINE LINE TO STARDOM ALSO THIS WEEK . . . July 26 – July 28 July 28 – 29 July 30 – August 1 BEST NEW GOLF COURSE Welcome to Bear Mountain Golf & Country Club BEST ONE DAY GOLFING EVENT BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum |
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(see 'This Week's News' for more BC Golf News) - - Providing World Wide Coverage - - WORLD GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS, PGA TOUR, CHAMPIONS TOUR, NATIONWIDE TOUR, PGA EUROPEAN INTERNATIONAL TOUR, EUROPEAN CHALLENGE TOUR, EUROPEAN SENIOR TOUR, CANADIAN TOUR, ASIAN PGA TOUR, JAPAN GOLF TOUR, PGA TOUR OF AUSTRALASIA, LPGA TOUR, FUTURES GOLF TOUR and BMO CANADIAN WOMEN'S TOUR. |
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Copyright 2003 BCGOLFNEWS
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Hosted and Designed by Living Productions Inc.
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Canadian Tour rookie Patrick Damron of Florida now has one more thing in common with his big brother Robert who plays on the PGA TOUR. They’ve both won professional tournaments. Patrick, in just his sixth start on the Canadian Tour, went wire-to-wire at Royal Colwood GC to score a nail-biting (63-67-71-68—269) 11-under par one shot victory in the Victoria Open (Sunday, July 27) and earned a cheque for $28,000. Tied for second were former PGA winner and Canadian PGA champion Richard Zokol of White Rock, BC (65-68-72-65—270) and Robert Hamilton of California (67-69-67-67—270), one of only three in the field to shoot four rounds in the 60’s.
Portland, Oregon’s favorite son, Peter Jacobson, won his first PGA tournament in eight years at the same event he won 19 years ago and has become the PGA TOUR’s 45th millionaire of the season. The 49-year-old Jacobson tamed the wind and seemed buoyed by a final-day crowd of 70,000 as he stroked his way to a (63-67-69-67—266) 14-under par two shot victory in the final Greater Hartford Open. When he returns to Cromwell, Connecticut to defend his title in 2004, Jacobson will come as a member of the Champions Senior Tour and the event will be known as the Buick championship. Coming into this year’s tournament Jacobsen was 121st on the money list. Now he’s 43rd with $1,030,495 after collecting 10 times what he won in 1984 and becoming eligible now for some of the biggest paying tournaments in golf. Despite the pressure of being pursued by younger players and playing before such a huge gallery, Jacobsen maintained his popular habit of bantering with the crowds, shaking hands as he walked to the tees. At one point he waited for a butterfly to flit off his line, explaining to the crowd, "I don't want to hurt the butterfly." 
After winning the British Open five times it was only natural to assume that Tom Watson night someday capture the Senior British Open. Mission accomplished. Although for the 53-year-old Watson, bogeying the 72nd hole at Turnberry, Scotland and having to go into a playoff is not the easy way to do it. Watson rallied from three shots off the pace and finished at a tournament record (64-67-66-64—263) 17-under par and tied with English journeyman Carl Mason (67-64-65-67—263), who himself had squandered a two stroke advantage with a double bogey on the last hole. Then on the second playoff hole Mason miss-hit his third shot allowing Watson to tap in for a par and the Championship worth $255,730 USD. Watson has now won two Senior Majors, five British Opens, two Masters and one US Open. That adds up to five Champions Tour victories and 39 on the regular PGA TOUR. Americans dominated the top five positions with Bruce Summerhays finishing alone in 3rd, one shot out of the playoff. Tom Kite was another stroke back in 4th and D.A. Weibring was 5th. Jack Nicklaus tied for 14th with five players at 5-under 275, one shot ahead of Craig Stadler, alone in 19th. Canada’s Bill Hardwick was (68-72-74-75—289) 9-over and earned 2,357 euro dollars. John Irwin was cut.
Julie Inkster, as savvy a veteran as there is on the LPGA Tour, may have learned something at Point Grey when Beth Daniel birdied the last two holes to win the BMO Canadian Women’s Open. In France Sunday, at the $2.1 million Evian Masters, Inkster left nothing to chance and coasted home with a record breaking (66-67-64-65—267) 21-under par six shot victory over Hee-Won Han to record her 30th career championship and the winners share of $315,000. Lorie Kane of Charlottetown, PEI got off to a horrendous start but hung in there to eventually finish T9 at (75-68-68-68—279) 9-under par, worth $47,985. Annika Sorenstam was 7-under and T17. This week it’s the British Open, the only Grand Slam tournament Inkster has yet to win. Although she won the 1984 du Maurier Classic when it was considered an LPGA Major, a victory this week would give Inkster a super career Grand Slam. The du Maurier was replaced in the major roster by the Women's British Open in 2001.
Even when he won the inaugural Greater Vancouver Open on the PGA TOUR for his first professional victory in 1996 Guy Boros (right) had a habit of shooting his highest scores during the final round. Same thing happened last month when won The Lake Erie Charity Classic for his second Nationwide victory. But this time winning the Dayton Open in Centerville, Ohio Sunday Boros changed that pattern despite three consecutive bogeys with six holes to play. The 38-year-old veteran posted his finest four-day total ever, an impressive (64-64-70-67—265) 23-under par for a 3-shot triumph over Zach Johnson and an $81,000 payday that puts Boros into 7th (175,867) on the Nationwide money list. North Bay’s David Morland IV got caught in the wind of the final round and finished T14th at (69-65-68-73—275) 13-under, collecting $7,200 ($179,484). 
VICTORIA JUNIORS VICTORIOUS
And now it is on to Swan-e-set Bay Resort & Country Club in Pitt Meadows for this week’s Canandian Tour $175,000 Greater Vancouver Classic presented by TELUS. The defending champion is Iain Steel of Malaysia who sank a 30-foot greenside bunker shot at 18 in a one-hole playoff in the rain to defeat Ken Duke. So far this season Steel has only played two Canadian Tour events, both in Texas. This past weekend Steel and Duke tied again, this time in the Greater Hartford Open, missing the cut by one stroke each.
This is the final year for the Canadian Tour at Swan-e-set Bay. Next season the Tour returns to Caleb Chan’s Mayfair Lakes Golf Course in Richmond. Swan-e-set Bay, one of the many outstanding properties belonging to recreation and resort giant Intrawest, welcomed the Canadian Tour with open arms and provided many generous benefits during a time when the Tour was less stable than it is right now. From first hand experience, Swan-e-set Bay offered one of the most comfortable media centres of all tournaments held in Greater Vancouver. The club turned the members’ lounge over to the Fifth Estate and with the media room adjoining the lounge this made eating, drinking and reporting something that could be done with table service and a laptop computer. 
According to Tour Commissioner Ian Mansfield (left), until recently one of the original members at luxurious Swan-e-set Bay, the Canadian Tour is eternally grateful to the owners and members of the Pitt Meadows complex and plans to return at some point in the future. 
After their visit to Swan-e-set Bay the Canadian Tour takes a week off before reconvening August 14-17 in Wintergreen VA for the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial Championship, August 14-17. Then comes the last official event that counts on the Tour’s Order of Merit money list, the much anticipated Bay Mills Open Players Championship August 21-24 in Brimley MI. On a special invitation from The Golf Channel, 13-year-old Hawaiian sensation Michelle Wie (right) has accepted a sponsor’s exemption to play the Bay Mills Open, hoping to become the first member of the opposite sex to make a cut in a professional tournament against men. Wie, a happy-go-lucky six footer, scored a 1-up victory last month in the U.S Women’s Amateur Public Links, the youngest player to win a U.S. Golf Association title for grown ups. She’s already proven she can play on the LPGA TOUR, although she’s still five years away from being eligible as a regular member. And just to make this season interesting Michelle will take time off her freshman year at Ponahau School in Hawaii to play one event on the Nationwide PGA Tour in late September.
One of the hottest favorites coming into the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship August 5-8 at West Vancouver’s Capilano Golf Club has to be 21-year-old John Merrick of Long Beach, CA. Already this season Merrick has won the Pac-10 Individual championship and in doing so set a course record of 63 at Oakmont CC in Glendale. Just prior to that Merrick T6th in the NCAA Division 1 Regional and set a course record of 67 at Washington National GC in the third round. Brock Mackenzie from Yakimaw, WA will be back to defend the title he won in San Diego last year. Also on hand will be Craig Reasoner from Casper, WY. who just recently won his second consecutive Wyoming State Match Play Championship; 2002 Washington State Amateur Champion Alex Stamey; 2002 California and Nevada Amateur Champion Eddie Heinen and 2003 Nevada winner Bady Exber. A strong contingent of Canadian amateurs will be led by two-time BC Amateur Champion James Lepp, Craig Doell of Victoria and U.S. Amateur contender Chris Baryla of Vernon who will all use this outstanding PNGA tournament as a warm-up for the RCGA’s 99th Canadian Amateur Championship the following week at Shaughnessy GC in Vancouver. In the 36 previous years of this Pacific tournament a Canadian has yet to claim the title. If a Canadian can win the Masters, can the Pacific Coast Amateur be far behind.
The BMO Canadian Women’s Open at Point Grey was certainly monumental for champion Beth Daniel, an LPGA Hall of Fame member nearing the end of her illustrious career. But the tournament this month also served as a vital learning platform and an opportunity to showcase the talent of 18-year-old Vancouver high school student Eom-Ji Park. Park had to qualify ahead of some established professionals to get into the Canadian Women’s Open and eventually finished behind Dawn Coe-Jones as second top Canadian among the four who made the cut from the 14 that started the first round. Behind Park during four grueling rounds at Point Grey was her coach and mentor, Australian teaching guru Brett Saunders. “Eom-Ji has tremendous talent and a will to win and as long as she continues to work on her game she can only get better and better.” says Saunders of his star pupil. A week ago Park finished first in qualifying for next week’s U.S. Women’s Amateur in Gladwyne, Pennsylvainia. Unfortunately for her, that’s the same week as the Canadian Junior in Quebec where she might have been considered the favorite in her last year of eligibility. However, immediately following the U.S Amateur Park will go to Chemin du Blainvillier, QC to play in the 90th Canadian Women’s Amateur August 11-15. Saunders has been busy lately developing a quite an impressive list of up and coming young golfing prospects. He’ll have at least three students from his Northview Accademy in Surrey entered in the Canadian Amateur, which will prevent him from being with Park when she’s playing the Canadian Ladies Amateur. 