The Sturgeon Valley Golf and Country Club held its annual Club Championship event over the July 22-24 weekend.
Trophy winners this year include some unsurprising names, such as Sandra Fisher, who was crowned the Ladies' champion for the 28th time. The Club's resident golf pro, Gary Christenson, described Fisher in an interview as "a phenom."
"It’s just amazing the longevity of how well she’s played,” Christenson said, adding that Fisher won this year's championship by 15 strokes.
Fisher shot 153 over two rounds, nine over par, to earn the trophy.
A surprising winner in this year's club championship was 18-year-old Rhees Moss, who, as the club's junior champion heading into the championships, came out on top in the men's division.
Moss shot 222 over three rounds for a tournament-best six over par. Christenson said Moss was the only competitor this year to finish a round under par.
“He’s an unassuming kid," Christenson said of Moss. "Apparently he’s just a good athlete and good at all sports."
Christenson said Moss only started golfing a couple of years ago. "He picked up golf and found his stride with it pretty quickly,” he said.
"When you’re a new golfer you don’t typically have a lot of tournament experience but it didn’t seem to matter to him, he seemed pretty even-keeled overall.”
In the other Club Championship action, Linda Mitchell was crowned the senior ladies' winner as she scored 168 over two rounds of play. The "super senior" winner was Karen Morris, who shot 174 over two rounds.
In the "low-net" divisions, Charlene Howard was the senior winner with a score of 143, and overall low-net winner was Terry Chervinski, who also shot 143.
"The weather was absolutely perfect," Christenson said of the weekend. "The course was in fantastic shape. It was ripe for scoring, and surprisingly enough the scores weren’t very low — typically we have a few guys under par."
There were 105 competitors in total at this year's championships, Christenson said, adding the annual tournament is always the club's premier event.
“Our Club Championship is kind of our purest form of golf. It’s just you playing golf against the field," he said.
'Mother nature rules'
When asked how the Club fared during the historically rain-heavy month of June, Christenson said parts of the course were wet and saturated for some time.
"We were fortunate we never closed," he said. "I know there were some courses in the Edmonton and St. Albert area that ended up closing because they were too wet.
"Overall the course drains pretty well, we just have a couple of holes along the river that water [drains towards] and eventually the water has nowhere to go."
Christenson said a few of the holes on the course also had some ice damage from last winter, but nothing devastating.
"You never know year-to-year what kind of winter you’re going to get, and we try to prepare the best we can every fall to combat any kind of ice formations.”
Well before Christenson and the club's groundskeepers will need to start preparing the course for next winter, the club is set to host men's and women's member-guest tournaments, as well as the club's annual Fall Classic tournament in September.