The Sturgeon Valley Golf & Country Club is rolling out the red carpet for two major events this month featuring male and female players from the region.
The Edmonton Ladies Amateur, Senior and Super-Senior Championship is June 15-16 and the Alberta Golf Association’s Senior Men’s Northern Qualifier is June 22.
“There will be a lot of quality players here for sure,” said head pro Tyler Willner.
He is confident the 18-hole track will prove to be an excellent test of golf for all the players.
“Our golf course is pretty fair. It’s not like we’ve got a million bushes or really thick brush around here, we’re pretty old school in the country club side of things,” said Willner of the layout bordering the Sturgeon River on the northwest and Sturgeon Road on the southeast.
“To be honest with you we’ve had a tougher start to the season than we would’ve liked. We had to re-sod eight greens so we’ve still got a couple of greens that are starting to fill in and probably have taken a little bit longer than we would’ve liked. The re-sodded greens that we did easily are our best greens right now. We did one last year as well that we re-sodded and that green is in fantastic shape so those (re-sodded) greens are awesome.
“The other ones, now that we have finally got some rain, they’re starting to fill in and they’re going to be ready to go for sure for the championship.”
The 36-hole ladies’ competition will showcase 80 of the area’s top players.
“It’s going to be a wide range of ages. Some of these girls have had some success throughout their junior golf careers and even into provincial events,” Willner said. “A lot of these ladies probably will play in the Alberta ladies’ amateur so that is probably the next step up. That is kind of the provincial side of things. That’s the one that will kind of carry forward into a national event if they play well.”
Only the best of the best will tackle the challenging Sturgeon course.
“On the ladies side we’ve always been a little bit longer for length and I think that’s why the ladies like to come out here for some of their championships,” Willner said. “This event would probably not be for, I would say your 25-plus or your 20-plus handicap. You might still see some ladies that maybe might be in the 18s or 17s but for the most part it’s going to be your low handicap ladies, as low as twelve or less, and some of these ladies might be down in single digits. The ones I guess that have a true chance of winning the entire thing are probably going to be very much low single digits for sure.”
Willner expects a number of St. Albert golfers will tee it up and among the favourites is Kylie Barros of the Glendale and UBC Thunderbirds who won last year’s Edmonton Ladies Golf Association Amateur Championship in a playoff at the Broadmoor.
“I would think she would be a frontrunner for sure.”
The field size for the senior men’s northern qualifier for amateurs 55 and over as of Sept. 1, 2015 is 120 and the deadline to register is June 16. The handicap factor limit is 20.
The top finishers advance to provincials, July 28 to 30 at the Red Deer.
“There will definitely be some really good golfers from the northern Alberta region here that day,” said Willner, Sturgeon Valley’s second-year golf guru who was the associate pro for four years.
TEE SHOTS: The Twin Willows Golf Club is hosting the Alberta (Edmonton) junior qualifier for U18 males on Tuesday. The field is capped at 35 players and the handicap factor limit is 15.
Friday the Alberta men’s amateur qualifier is slated for the Sandpiper Golf & Country Club. The field size is 120 players the handicap factor limit is eight.
