A thirty-minute weather delay due to early morning lightning pushed tee times back at the Senior Mens Championship today. Once the players got on course they had a singular focus as each had their eyes on making the thirty-six hole cut at days end.

John Festival of the Glencoe Golf & Country Club challenged Brian Laubman for the lead shooting a two under par score of 70 that featured two birdies. His bogey free round was impressive on day two as he was the only player to shoot under par.

Laubman shot 75 today leaving himself and Festival tied for the top spot going into the final round of the championship.

Only one stroke behind the leaders after the first two rounds, John Russell and Allan Ross will have their eyes on the prize gunning for the coveted top spot on championship Friday.

A total of 63 players made the cut for the final round at 19 over par or better.

With interprovincial team placement spots on the line tomorrow at Turner Valley Golf Club it will be an exciting final round of competition for all of the competitors.

John Russell of the Winston Golf Club shot a solid even par round to grab the Super Senior lead by a single stroke over first round leader Terry Filewich.

Final Round Draw

Leaderboard

Brian Laubman of Edmonton is leading after round one of the Alberta Senior Mens Championship at Turner Valley Golf & Country Club.

Laubman opened round one with a one-under par 71 that included four birdies. Close at his heels are Ken Griffith and Terry Filewich who both shot even par 72.

Filewich of the Glendale G&CC leads the Super Senior contest by one stroke over Earl Grey’s Howard Broun.

Those who took the first tee early this morning had cool and calm weather conditions which played favourably as the later day conditions saw gusting winds and temperatures reaching 28 degrees.

The top three competitors at weeks end will make up Alberta’s interprovincial team competing at the Canadian Men’s Senior Championship at Gowan Brae Golf & Country Club in Bathurst, New Brunswick, September 4-7th.

Round 2 Draw

Leaderboard

MEDICINE HAT, Alta. – After starting the day in a four-way tie for the lead, Brady McKinlay posted a 71 during the second round to move into solo-first at the Canadian Junior Boys Championship at Medicine Hat Golf & Country Club on Tuesday.

The Lacombe, Alta., talent carded an even-par 71, recovering from a double bogey on the back-nine with an impressive eagle fired on the 18th hole.

London’s Cam Kellett was one of four players to earn a low-round 69. The 18-year-old started the day strong with three birdies on the front-nine, recording only one bogey on his final hole to share a piece of second alongside yesterday’s co-leader Bennett Ruby of Waterloo, Ont.

Five golfers ­ — Olivier Ménard (Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que.), Cole Wilson (Kelowna, B.C.), William Duquette (Laval, Que.), Ryan McMillan (Winnipeg, Man.)  and Chandler McDowell (Springbrook, Alta.)— sit in fourth at even-par.

For the third consecutive year, McDowell led the way for Team Alberta to win the inter-provincial championship, tying for a low score of the day 2-under-par 69. McDowell and his team members Ty Steinbring and Korbin Allan shot a combined 2 under on Tuesday to pass Team Ontario by one stroke. Team British Columbia finished in third at 7 over.

In the juvenile division, 15-year-old Gerry Mei from North York, Ont., claimed top spot on the leaderboard after he recorded a 1-over-par 72. Team Canada Development Squad’s Christopher Vandette is tied for second alongside Toronto’s Luca Ferrara, one stroke behind at 2 over.

The cut was set at 8 over par and 72 golfers will advance to the final two rounds on Wednesday and Thursday.

In addition to the 2018 Canadian Junior Boys Championship title, the individual champion will earn an exemption into the 2018 Canadian Men’s Amateur Championship at Duncan Meadows and Pheasant Glen from Aug. 6-9.

For full results click here.

CALGARY – While iconic golfer Phil Mickelson is currently having a stellar season, making birdies isn’t the only thing on his mind: Mickelson is also heavily involved in creating a championship golf course of his own in Calgary, Alta.

Phil Mickelson Design has teamed up with Windmill Golf Group to build a remarkable golf course: Mickelson National Golf Club. The new course is located just west of Calgary at Harmony, a roughly 1800-acre real estate development by Qualico Communities and Bordeaux Developments.

Seeding at Mickelson National Golf Club began in August 2017 and the course’s construction will be completed by the end of August this year. After construction is complete, the course will mature for a period-of-time, so it can be in world class condition when it opens. Some of the first holes, however, are nearly ready to play.

Barry Ehlert, President of Mickelson National Golf Club and Managing Partner, commented, “The community of Harmony is outstanding, and the golf course is looking fantastic. People ask all the time when it will open. Our opening-date goal remains the same as it has always been: to open the course for some golf in 2019 with an official grand opening in 2020. Additionally, construction on the clubhouse will begin in 2019. There’s a lot of progress and work ongoing.”

Because the Mickelson National Golf Club will be a completely private club, many people will have limited opportunities to actually play the course. To allow more people the chance to get out on this unique course, Ehlert and his team have decided to open four holes to anyone who tours this one-of-a-kind course between August 1 and September 19. People can visit tourandplaymickelsonnational.com to register. Then in September they’ll get to play it with the chance to win some great prizes too.

Ehlert continues, “Because of the overwhelmingly-positive responses of people touring the golf course to-date, we have decided to do something that I don’t believe a private course of this magnitude has ever done before: give the public the chance to play a few holes of the course well before the grand opening.”

The opportunity to participate in this exclusive event is limited and is a unique chance for golf enthusiasts to sample this amazing course before opens.

TURNER VALLEY– The 2018 Alberta Senior Mens Championship is set to begin Wednesday with one hundred and twenty players competing for the provincial senior crown. The 54-hole stroke play tournament field is made up of competitors who are over the age of 55 as of the first day of the Canadian Senior Mens Championship.

John Burns, Alberta Golf’s Field Manager of Membership & Competitions is this week’s Tournament Director for the Alberta Senior. Burns says that “competitors can look forward to a championship course in fantastic condition. Turner Valley will welcome Alberta’s best seniors from across the province and we are confident that the course will provide a strong test of playing ability.”

KEY INFO

Dates: August 1-3, 2018

Course: Turner Valley Golf Club

Maximum Yardage/Par: 6,794 yards/72

Field: 120

2017 Champion: Frank Van Dornick

2017 Super Senior Champion: Frank Van Dornick

Format: 54 holes of stroke play

Social: #absrmens

LOOKING BACK

With a heat warning in effect and temperatures hovering in the mid-30 degrees at the Henderson Lake GC, the final round of the 2017 Guardian Capital Alberta Senior Men’s Championship needed two extra holes to name a champion. Frank Van Dornick of the Camrose GC outlasted Brian Laubman and Ken Griffith over the course of two playoff holes to capture his fourth Alberta senior crown.

Frank Van Dornick captured his 4th ???? #ABSrMens crown in a playoff over friend & senior-rookie Laubman❗️

?: https://t.co/RYlGVH2JQR pic.twitter.com/qp5DnAgUy3

— Alberta Golf (@Alberta_Golf) July 28, 2017

HISTORY

The Alberta Senior Mens Championship was first contested in 1946.

2010 – Tom Skinner

2011 – Jim Russell

2012 – Frank Van Dornick

2013 – Floyd Kilgore

2014 – Frank Van Dornick

2015 – Floyd Kilgore

2016 – David Schultz

2017 – Frank Van Dornick

Past Champions

NOTABLES

• David Schultz – 2016 champion
• Frank Van Dornick – Four time champion (2009, 2012, 2014 and 2017)
• Brian Laubman – 2017 Runner-up
• Jim Russell – 2011 champion; Ten time Bearspaw Club Champion
• Floyd Kilgore – Two time champion (2013 and 2015)

FAST FACTS

• There are multiple contests up for grabs this week. The Senior Championship for those aged 55 & over, the Super Senior for those aged 65 & over and an overall contests for age groups (55-59, 60-64 and 65+)
• The top three competitors at weeks end will make up Team Alberta at the Canadian Men’s Senior Championship at Gowan Brae Golf & Country Club in Bathurst, New Brunswick, September 4-7th.
• Alberta has 23 senior quota position available for the national championship along with 2 super senior quota positions.

ABOUT THE COURSE

The Turner Valley Golf Club dates back to 1930, when it was created by the employees of Royalite Oil, the company that was responsible for the development of local oil reserves. Originally a 9-hole course with sand greens, the Turner Valley Golf Club now boasts an 18-hole layout that spans between 4227 and 6856 yards, depending on which of the 6 tee options you choose to fit your game.

The course is characterized by its challenging and tree-lined fairways with small, well protected greens, all amongst breathtaking views in the shadows of the Rocky Mountains. Turner Valley Golf Club is a semi-private facility which caters to members and public players alike.

More information on the Turner Valley Golf Club can be found here.

MEDIA

• First Round Pairings

• Championship Information

• Flickr Albums

In advance of the modernization initiative to the Rules of Golf which will take effect in 2019, Golf Canada, in conjunction with the R&A and the United States Golf Association (USGA), recently announced a new Local Rule effective January 1, 2018. The new Local Rule will eliminate the additional two-stroke penalty for failing to include a penalty on the score card when the player was unaware of the penalty.

In addition to this Local Rule, new protocols have been put in place to review video when applying the Rules of Golf at broadcasted events. For Golf Canada specifically, this will only impact our two professional opens and not have any impact on our amateur competitions.

For some time, it has been a point of contention with many enthusiasts of the game that viewer call-ins should not be permitted in our sport. Advances in technology and the use of high definition television and slow motion replay have added a level of complexity that has caused undesirable outcomes to many competitions in recent years.

Golf’s governing bodies felt this needed to be closely looked at and a group of experts from the PGA Tour, LPGA, PGA European Tour, Ladies European Tour and The PGA of America, as well as the governing bodies, was tasked with discussing the role of video footage when applying the Rules.

As a result of these discussions over the last year, the protocol moving forward will be to assign one or more officials to monitor the video broadcast of a competition to help identify and resolve Rules issues as they arise. Committees will also discontinue any steps to facilitate or consider viewer call-ins as part of the Rules decision process.

All of the organizations represented on the working group will introduce the Local Rule for 2018, and this score card penalty will be permanently removed when the modernized Rules of Golf take effect on January 1, 2019.

As golf’s governing body, Golf Canada will be implementing this new Local Rule as part of their Standard Local Rules and Conditions of Competition for competitions in 2018.

If a committee wishes to introduce this Local Rule to modify the score card penalty, the following wording for the exception to Rule 6-6d is modified as follows:

“Exception: if a competitor returns a score for any hole lower than actually taken due to failure to include one or more penalty strokes that, before returning his score card, he did not know he had incurred, he is not disqualified. In such circumstances, the competitor incurs the penalty prescribed by the applicable rule, but there is no additional penalty for a breach of rule 6-6d. This exception does not apply when the applicable penalty is disqualification from the competition.”

For more information on the Rules of Golf, or to send a rules question to our ‘Ask an Expert’ tool, please visit golfcanada.ca/rules-of-golf/

Rules Update for 2018

This article was originally published in the 2018 edition of The Alberta Golfer Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.

Like all businesses, golf has found “millennial” easy to define but a challenge to embrace, much less engage.

From the definition standpoint, here’s a concise demographic summary.

A “millennial”, also known generically as a member of “Generation Y” or an “Echo Boomer,” (because they are the offspring of Baby Boomers), is generally considered to be someone born in the early 1980s up to the late 1990s and early 2000s. At this point, most range between 18 and 34 years of age.

In the U.S., millennials now slightly outnumber Baby Boomers, who were born between 1946 and 1964. That statistic is reflected in Canada, where we identify Boomers being born between 1947 and 1966. In any case, millennials now represent the largest workforce cohort in North America as Boomers reach retirement age.

So that’s the definition, which reflects the reality that every industry must address to succeed. Undeniably, golf is struggling with that challenge, perhaps more than most because of its unique status. Is it a game? A sport? An industry?

For many years, it has been opined that “golf business” is an oxymoron. Perhaps it is because “golf” has relied on its 500-year legacy to expect its ongoing survival, rather than approach the sport for what it is: a consumer-based product. One that’s under siege from some formidable competition for the entertainment dollar as never before.

That’s just a cold hard fact.

And that fact is reflected in the challenges that the sport faces, with well-documented declining or flat-lining participation statistics.

Golf must evolve.

Today, millennials, a significant market segment with a huge upside, represent that evolutionary prerogative.

The challenge for golf is multi-faceted and difficult, perhaps more so than other industries. In a great demographic divide, golf is controlled, for the most part, by Baby Boomers who, as owners, operators and club members, seem perversely, inextricably tied to the traditional business model. They don’t (or won’t) understand the expectations of millennials.

That’s a whiff, in golf terms.

“Successful modern brands understand that the demand for their product(s) comes from unique customer segments,” according to the Golf and the Millennial Generation study by Golf 20/20, an industry-wide coalition of U.S. golf organizations.

“Each has a personality, a set of needs and a certain willingness to spend… In order to deepen the engagement level of our current millennial golfers, and attract and retain the millions of prospects who tell us they want ‘in,’ golf needs to take a close look at itself… We must modernize our brand.”

Kris Hart is the founder and CEO of www.nextgengolf.com and co-chair of Golf 20/20’s Millennial Task Force. He says in order to address the needs and wants of millennials, golf courses must reorient themselves to become “experiential entertainment facilities.”

Not “reinvent.” “Reorient.”

He doesn’t mean courses must employ gimmicks such as 15-inch holes, golf boards and bikes, and other passing fads. The integrity of the game must be preserved.  Instead, he emphasizes that millennials want action, technology, updated food and beverage options, high customer service standards, and an overt element of excitement. They want to “golf.” And have fun doing it.

“These are educated, connected and value-oriented young people who are evaluating golf against their myriad other entertainment options,” says Hart. “When they go through that process, how do we ensure golf has a seat at the table?”

TopGolf combines golf and entertainment off the course. With more than 30 venues, largely in the U.S., TopGolf, in partnership with Cineplex, plans to open its first Canadian venue in 2019.

“Each venue features fun and competitive golf games for all ages, climate-controlled playing bays similar to a bowling lane, an impressive food and drink menu, private spaces for groups of any size, HDTVs to watch the big game and a music selection that will make every visit feel like a party,” according to its web site.

TopGolf entertained, and the emphasis is on “entertained,” more than 13 million customers in 2017, half of whom were non-golfers. Its winning formula, according to Director Jeehae Lee, is “an interactive play experience, great food, music, and a community atmosphere.”

Exactly what everyone wants from golf, right? Where did we go off track? More importantly, how do we get back on the demographic train?

To assume the TopGolf experience will translate into more on-course golfers is akin to assuming every millennial who takes part in other currently popular entertainment activities among that demographic such as axe-throwing or paintball will become a lumberjack or a sniper.

So where does this leave course operators?

Don MacKay has a unique perspective. As a Golf Canada Director at Large and past-president of the National Golf Course Owners Association Canada, he has been battling golf’s challenges for many years on several fronts. Not only is he the co-owner of Muskoka Highlands Golf Links in Bracebridge, Ont., but he also chairs Golf Canada’s Membership Committee, among other association duties.

MacKay says progressive golf facilities will adapt the successful aspects of the TopGolf experience to their courses.

“You have to push the right buttons, no matter who your customer is and to do that, you may have to change the way you run things without alienating any one group. If younger golfers want to hoot and holler and play music, so be it, as long as it’s not compromising the game. Who cares what the dress code is, as long as you’re respectful of other players and the course? Do it right, and they may evolve into core golfers in the years to come.”

From a Golf Canada perspective, MacKay also notes that a reluctance to embrace the non-traditional expectations of younger golfers is impacting club and association membership levels. Of our country’s six-million “golfers,” only about 300,000 belong to a provincial association and, by extension, Golf Canada, and only about two-thirds of those have a current handicap factor.

In a stark departure from the traditional approach, MacKay says, “for the good of golf, we have to be relevant not only to those people who already play the game but to those who might want to play the game.” He suggests, and with good reason, that a new benefit-laden and entertainment-based incentive would attract those 5.7-million or so Canadians interested in the game to become part of the golf culture.

The Northern California Golf Association owns both Poppy Hills and Poppy Ridge. PGA of America professional Cole Handley leads the NCGA’s Millennial program, one that has been adopted in some fashion by at least 19 other state golf associations.

He says millennials have an insatiable appetite for entertainment options and, for golf, that means they’re ever-aware of the alternatives for their time and money.  To paraphrase his key message, golf facilities have to give them an experience that, when they pick up their phone, you’ve given them something worth sharing with their friends. “You have to keep them engaged, even when they are not at your course.”

Glenn Gray co-chairs the Golf 20/20 Millennial Task Force with Kris Hart. A vice-president of Buffalo Agency, a global golf and sport marketing agency, he is very aware of the urgency of attracting an affluent and acquisitive millennial market share to golf.

Even with his expertise, he admits it is a formidable challenge. “Putting all ‘millennials’ into one bucket is impossible. What are their various expectations? What is their budget? What is their time commitment? They are savvy, value-oriented and social. “

Overall, (oxymoron alert) “golf” as a “business” has been late to the social media world, to its detriment. One negative review on social media is one too many, yet most courses do not have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, not only to defend themselves but to promote their product.

In short, millennials represent a paradigm shift for golf. How best to approach this tectonic movement, not only to address the current demographic bubble but to anticipate future changes?

Hart and Gray co-authored a blog on www.wearegolf.org, titled “Are You Ready? How the Golf Industry Can Help Prepare You.” The article cites a checklist for ensuring golf facilities are “millennial ready.”

The site’s stated mandate is to “ensure those interacting with millennials, whether on site or managing digital channels, are set up for success.”

Or, as Hart, says, to advertise that the “grand old game” is “hot, young and cool.”

Not to overstate it, but to paraphrase Charles Darwin (historical footnote: he was the grandfather of renowned golf writer Bernard Darwin), golf must continue to evolve.

Or…

Writer credit: Chief among John Gordon’s accomplishments covering Canadian golf for more than 30 years are his three millennial offspring, two of whom are avid golfers. He’s working on the third and he has high hopes for his new grandson.

Millennials and Golfs Changing Landscape

This article was originally published in the 2018 edition of The Alberta Golfer Magazine. To view the full magazine, click here.

OAKVILLE, Ont. – Dustin Johnson pulled away from the field after a nearly two-hour rain delay to win the RBC Canadian Open for the first time.

Johnson shot a 6-under 66 to finish the only Canadian stop on the PGA TOUR at 23-under par.

The world No. 1 tied for second in the RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey Golf Club in 2013 and 2016.

Byeong Hun An (69) and Whee Kim (69) finished as runners up at 20-under in the US$6.2 million event, with Keegan Bradley (64) placing fourth at 19-under.

Mackenzie Hughes (68) of nearby Dundas, Ont., was the low Canadian, tying for eighth at 15 under overall to claim the Rivermead Cup.

A Canadian has not won the national title since Victoria’s Pat Fletcher accomplished the feat in 1954.

Johnson entered the day in a four-way tie for the lead with Kim, Hun An and Kevin Tway but had seven birdies and a bogey to pull away from the group.

A nearby lightning storm delayed play for an hour and 45 minutes and shrunk the massive crowd that usually trails Johnson from hole to hole.

Hamilton Golf and Country Club will host the 2019 RBC Canadian Open. It is also shifting forward in the PGA TOUR’s schedule, moving to early June in the week before the U.S. Open.