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What a season! We saw new champions in the Amateur, Senior, and Junior Championships with Brock Holland, Marty Holman, and Leif Skogland winning their respective championships. The 109th Canadian Men's Amateur was hosted inside the Zone as well as the Regional Qualifier for the RBC Canadian Open.

Kevin Carrigan and Jarred Callbeck, both of their respective club’s first choice exemptions, finished inside the top 10 ensuring their place in the 110th Canadian Men’s Amateur to be held in Winnipeg. Kevin Carrigan also won his second consecutive Canadian Mid-Amateur in record setting fashion, thereby securing another invitation to the RBC Canadian Open.

The Willie Park Interclub Driver Division was once again won by Victoria GC, and the Putter Division was won by Cordova Bay GC. Gorge Vale GC repeated as the Champions of the Harry Young Memorial. Gorge Vale GC also won the Senior Buttons interclub and Cordova Bay GC won the Senior Interclub and the Feathery trophy.
The tournament schedule for 2014 is now set starting with the Vancouver Island Open on Saturday, 26 April and Sunday, 27 April at Gorge Vale and Victoria GC respectively.

The Zone Amateur will be held on Saturday, 24 May and Sunday, 25 May at Royal Colwood GC. The Zone Senior Men and Junior Boys Championships will be held simultaneously on Saturday, 21 June and Sunday, 22 June at Cordova Bay GC.

Bye for now, and see you out on the golf course!

In the week that Royal Colwood and Gorge Vale are co-hosting the national amateur golf championship, 17 players from five clubs in Zone 5 made the field for the 109th Canadian Men's Amateur.

Gorge Vale and Royal Colwood Golf Clubs lead the way with each club being represented by 7 players. Brent Wilson, Jarred Callbeck, Stuart Holroyd, Bryan Toth, Blair Sabiston, Grant Maskiewich, and Zander Ritson are representing Gorge Vale GC. Royal Colwood GC is represented by Kevin Carrigan, Dylan Bell, Brad Beswick, Matt Broughton, Darren Day Jr, Dustin Pewarchuk, and Zachary Belitsky. Victoria GC is represented by Craig Doell, Uplands GC is represented by Lawren Rowe, and Olympic View GC is represented by Scott Kral.

After the cut was made there were four Zone 5 players remaining in the field at  the 109th Canadian Men's Amateur. Gorge Vale’s Jarred Callbeck, and Royal Colwood’s Kevin Carrigan, Victoria Golf Club’s Craig Doell, and Royal Colwood’s Dustin Pewarchuk.

When it was all said and done Kevin Carrigan fared the best as he finished in a tie for seventh at -1, Jared Callbeck tied for 9th at even par, Craig Doell finished in a tie for 22nd at +5, and Dustin Pewarchuk was T-41 at +10.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2013 Vancouver Island Open! In the Open Division, a team from Olympic View once again took the Championship, but it wasn’t defending champions Gordy Scutt and Scott Kral. This time Kevin Maxwell and Randy Frank took over the lead from first round leaders Isaac Weintraub and Eric Wang, shooting a great score of 6 under 64 in the wind at Victoria Golf Club to finish at 10 under for the tournament. Finishing in a tie for second place at 8 under were the teams of Brent Wilson and Steve Swonnell, and Edd Boudreau and Rob Cruise. Tied for fourth place at 7 under were the teams of Erik Swinburnson and Jonathan Parker, and Isaac Weintraub and Eric Wang.

In the Senior Division, the team of Dan Green and Tim Howard from Gorge Vale prevailed through a four-way play-off carding a birdie on the first play-off hole against the teams of Sandy Harper and Marty Holman, Allan Gossman and Len Carlow, and Steve Hambleton and Albert Cliff.

In the Net Amateur Division, the team of John Johnston and Kevin Powers won in a count-back against Don Nemeth and Brian Watson, also of Salt Spring Island Golf & Country Club. Johnston and Powers shot matching net best 65s at both of the venues while Nemeth and Watson also had a great round at Victoria shooting a remarkable net best 62.

We would like to thank all of our sponsors and players for making this Vancouver Island Open the best one in recent history. Well done, we hope to see you all again next year!

Well has spring arrived yet or not? Wow, this weather has been crazy. I’ve been travelling around to the various golf courses in Victoria and it must be close because many of the parking lots are full! That’s great news for our beleaguered sport/industry!

So what’s new in the Zone for this year? Well, the Vancouver Island Open is starting the year off and with over a week before the tournament tees off, the tee sheet is full! The tournament’s first round will be held on Saturday, 27 April at Gorge Vale and the final round will be held on Sunday, 28 April at Victoria Golf Club. The Zone Amateur will be held at Royal Colwood on Saturday, 25 May and Sunday, 26 May, the Zone Senior will be held at Cordova Bay on Saturday, 8 June and Sunday, 9 June, and the Zone Junior will be held at Cedar Hill on Saturday, 8 June and at Gorge Vale on Sunday, 9 June.

Many clubs have been feeling the pinch by members either retiring from golf or leaving the ranks of member clubs to join the BC Player’s Club. To counter these drops in membership there have been many “specials” at the clubs around town to entice new membership. And courses are realizing that they need to get younger golfers into the game and opening their doors to the “Birdie” or Junior Junior age group – 8 – 12 year olds. When I first came on to the Zone Executive there were over 500 junior golfers in the Capital region, now we’re under 400!

To help in providing golf training to these youngsters, the Zone has partnered with the University of Victoria – who has already been supporting the Vikes Jr Tour for those 12 and above – and created the Lil’ Vikes for 6 – 12 year olds. These youngsters get a hat, shirt, and book written for kids that tells them about the game. They get a bit of training from a PGA of BC professional at each of the facilities that host them and then are taken out on to that course to play about four holes with a UVic Vikes Golf Team member. The kids have a great time and learn to enjoy the game and socialize with kids their own age. It’s great watching them out on the course and hopefully we’ll get more kids and their parents or brothers and sisters taking up this game of a lifetime.

You’re going along entering your score after a round and all of a sudden you realize, hey, I just entered a score that should have driven my handicap up, what gives! Your handicap is based on your best 10 differentials from your last 20 rounds. This is different than your best 10 scores from your last 20 rounds.

Your differential is determined by taking your score, subtracting the course rating of the course/tee you played and multiplying that result by 113 and then dividing by the course slope. So if you were to play a par 72 course/tee combination that had a course rating of 66.0, and a slope of 113 and you shot 75 then your differential would be (74-66.0) x 113/113 or 8.0; now if you played the same course from a different tee where the course rating was 71.9 and the slope rating was 133 and shot 80 then your differential would be 8.6, almost the same differential but 6 strokes more! The constant in this equation is 113, which is the slope rating of an average course.

Once you have the requisite number of differentials your handicap factor is determined by taking the average of the best and multiplying that by 0.96 and deleting any decimal places. So don’t let a good score at a relatively easy course fool you into thinking a so-so score at a relatively difficult course will drive your handicap up, it may do nothing or it may even lower it.

Remember, your handicap is designed to show your potential, not your ability.

Welcome to the British Columbia Golf Zone 5 Men's blog! Our Committee's mission is to promote the game of golf on Southern Vancouver Island and to preserve the rich traditions this area has produced over the last 100 years.

The focus of this blog is to let you know what changes have taken place with British Columbia Golf. As most of you know the British Columbia Golf Association (BCGA) merged with the British Columbia Ladies Golf Association (BCLGA) in 2004. Since the merger, the Executive Committee of the BCGA has been looking at the Governance model of the merged association. This was mostly because the Board of Directors of the newly formed BCGA was too large and for the most part ineffective; there were a man and a woman representing each of the 10 Zones in British Columbia, plus there were 5 Vice-Presidents, the First-Vice-President, the President, and Immediate-Past-President serving on the Executive Committee, twenty-nine in all. All of these people are volunteers that were nominated and elected to serve from their respective Zones, and may or may not have experience in Human Resources, Finance, and Governance etc.

With the change in Governance model that just elected in at the Extra-Ordinary General Meeting held in Richmond at the end of October, the Board of Directors has been reduced to 6 Directors at Large, the President, and the Immediate-Past-President. The people that the Nominating Committee is looking for to fill these 6 Directors are people that both passionate about golf, but also have experience in the 6 facets that our Board needs to have demonstrable experience in the following skill sets: Human Resource Management, Governance, Finance, Marketing and/or Communications expertise, Senior Management or Volunteer Leadership in the golf industry. The Directors that were elected by their Zone will now act as a Zone Council. The Zone Council will elect a man and a woman to sit on the Board of Directors, one voting and the other non-voting.

Keep on swinging down the line!

I would like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Zone 5 Executive Committee and all golfers in
Zone 5, including men, women and juniors, to thank Barry Anderson for his many years of volunteer service to golf in Victoria, Vancouver Island, and British Columbia. After more than 2 decades of being the senior rules official for Zone 5 Barry has decided to “retire”.

I am sure that any golfer that has played any kind of competitive golf, be it a Club Championship, a Zone Tournament of Excellence or a Provincial or National tournament, has met Barry. He has, over the years, committed to thousands of hours of officiating at these various tournaments. In addition, Barry served as the Vice-Chair and Rules Chair for the Zone 5 Men’s Committee and took on the responsibility for managing a team of fifteen Rules Officials who collectively spend over 100 days each year officiating at various golf tournaments within Zone 5.

In addition Barry has trained and mentored many, many other Rules Officials over the years, both “on the job” education and by putting on various rules workshops around the Zone. Barry has also been a Director-at-Large of British Columbia Golf for the past 4 years, sitting on the Player Development and Discipline Committees, providing both committees with sound advice.

One of the things that impressed me most about Barry was not just the number of days he spent doing “the rules” it was the manner in which he went about his business. I have seen some of the best golfers in British Columbia interact with Barry both on and off the golf course and it is apparent the high respect in which Barry is held. Barry is both knowledgeable and decisive but is able to perform his duties in a manner that is both helpful and educational, especially to the junior golfers playing in their first tournaments.

Welcome to the British Columbia Golf Zone 5 Men’s blog! Our Committee’s mission is to promote the game of golf on Southern Vancouver Island and to preserve the rich traditions this area has produced over the last 100 years.
Our Zone has many championship caliber golf courses and has hosted many championships over the recent months, with next year being the centenary of Royal Colwood! Part of its celebrations will include hosting the 2013 Canadian Amateur, co-hosted by Gorge Vale. The organizing committee will be looking for many volunteers to make the event a classic.

To help promote the game of golf in Zone 5 our Junior Chair has partnered with Jim Goddard of Cordova Bay and UVic Vikes Golf Team and created a Jr Vikes Spring Tour, that is open to boys and girls from 9 – 18 years of age. He has also used the services of other professionals to help the junior and their parents learn what requirements are to be met in order for their child to progress their game to the level where colleges/universities would offer scholarships.

The Men’s Committee runs Tournaments of Excellence for the Amateur, Senior, and Junior Boys, and Interclubs for scratch, handicap, and seniors amongst the 18-hole clubs in the Zone. The Vancouver Island Open has been revamped to be a fun team tournament playing Best Ball with three flights – Open, Net Amateur, and Gross Senior Amateur. 2012 was the first year for this format and it was a huge success!

The Zone has hosted various seminars this year from Handicap to Course Rating. Next year we are hoping to host a Level 3 Rules Seminar to ensure the continuity of our large pool of rules officials.
As these various events come up watch this blog for more information.