Alberta Golf (Strathmore) – By Dunc Mills

For over a quarter century, the McLennan Ross Alberta Junior Tour has been a wonderful way for thousands of junior golfers across the province to start down the exciting path of competitive junior golf.  While still providing great competition for more accomplished players, much of the joy of helping run these tournaments is seeing young players achieve personal best results as their games start to grow and mature. It seems fitting that in the middle of the Summer Olympics where world class athletes are striving to achieve their own personal bests in their sport, that many of the players today at the Strathmore Junior Open also were able to take pride in  posting a score better than they had ever done before.

For a while this afternoon at the scoring table, it seemed like at least one young player in every group was beaming about a new ‘career’ low.  Aliyah Hull with an 82. Niko Tran, only 8 years old, with a 94, his best-ever result on a full sized 18-hole course. Olivia Johnson with her first-ever venture into the 70s with a 79 at age 12 to capture the girls U13 division.  There were several others over the afternoon as well as the scores rolled in.  What a pleasure it is to see the sense of accomplishment on these kids’ faces when they proudly turn in a scorecard lower than they have ever posted before.

But the most impressive ‘best-ever’ result today had to be the sensational, jaw-dropping, ‘how many holes did you skip?’ six-under par 66 turned in by 15-year-old Connor Czirjak of The Winston GC.

Connor Czirjak

Czirjak has been prominent on many leaderboards this summer  (T3 at the Alberta Golf U19 Championships,  winner at the Tour’s stop in  Lacombe, et al) but this kid REALLY could have gone low today!  His scorecard was littered with seven birdies, two eagles, five bogies and only four pars!  Connor probably didn’t know it during his round, but he was flirting with the Tour’s all time junior boys scoring record of 63 set several years ago at Montgomery Glen GC in Wetaskiwin, as a bogey-bogey finish took away the opportunity to set a new Tour scoring record.

Other fine rounds today were turned in by Josiah Tong of Heritage Pointe with a 3-under par 69 and the 1-under par 71 from the host club’s Parker Riou.  Riou was Tuesday’s winner at Henderson Lake in Lethbridge with the same 71 that was only good for solo third today. Tessa Ion of Pinebrook GCC was the overall low junior girl today with an excellent score of 76, three shots clear of Silver Springs’ Olivia Johnson.

Olivia Johnson

FULL SCORES FROM THE STRATHMORE JUNIOR OPEN HERE 

As the Tour moves into the back half of the 2021 season, many players at each tournament have previously qualified for the season-ending Tour Championship coming up at Wolf Creek Golf Resort on Monday, August 30th.  New qualifiers today were:

Boys U13 – Ryan Johnson, Silver Springs (76)

Boys U15 – Andrew Leon,  Lakeside (75)

Boys U17 – Nicholas Newton, Willow Park (76)

Boys Wild Card #1 – Tyler Giesbrecht, Strathmore (78) – U17

Boys Wild Card #1 – Kerrick Norrie-Asquith , Lethbridge CC (79) – U17

Girls U19-15 – Tessa Ion – Pinebrook, (76)

Girls U13 – Olivia Johnson – Silver Springs (79)