Tee 2 Green with Barry Sharpe - - January 20/09

Fourteen-year-old US golfing starlet Alexis Thompson coasted to a 13-stroke victory over Canada's Kira Meixner in the Orange Blossom Tour 2009 South Atlantic Ladies Amateur Golf Championship ("The Sally") at Oceanside Country Club in Florida, over the weekend.

Thompson finished at 5-under 283, while Meixner, the former Kent State standout and reigning British Columbia Amateur champion, finished at (73-73-77-73) 296. Scotland's Kelsey MacDonald finished at 297.

Thompson, the 2008 U.S. Girls' Junior champion, is No. 1 in the Golfweek/Titleist Junior Rankings. Two weeks earlier, she finished one shot behind Candace Schepperle to win the Dixie Amateur for the second year in a row.

Meixner easily qualified to play as a professional on the LPGA's developmental Duramed FUTURS Tour, but has elected instead to remain an amateur one more season in order to gain additional international tournament experience before going for her LPGA card at the end of this season.

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Graham DeLaet of Weyburn, Saskatchewan seems to be in a comfortable groove playing on the Sunshine Tour in South Africa and 12 is coming up his lucky number. In two events he's finished in 12th place both times and is 12th on the Order of Merit with 284,733.17. Rands or Riyals or dollars?

If you look at the Sunshine Tour web site you'll notice they use SAR for identifying the currency awarded. SAR stands for Saudi Arabian Riyals, which when converted amounts to more than $90,000 Canadian. However, that's not what DeLaet has received. BC Golf News sought clarification from Sunshine Tour Communications Manager Mike Green and got the following response:

"We use ZAR (South African rands) so it wasn't as many dollars as Graham would have liked!. I met him, and he's a great guy. Hope he makes a breakthrough soon."

We do too, Mike. And the actual tally Delaet has won in the past two weeks comes to just over $35,000 Canadian.
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One of the enjoyable ways to take a holiday in Hawaii and get to see a PGA TOUR event for free up close and personal is to be a volunteer at the Sony Open at Hawaii's Waialae Country Club. This past week Canadians from five provinces were among the hundreds who served as marshals, enjoying the good weather, the camaraderie of other snowbirds and the added privilege of being rewarded with a free round of golf this week at Waialae.

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Gold Mountain Golf Club in Bremerton, Washington has been selected by the United States Golf Association to host the 2011 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship.

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