When the CP Women’s Open was held at Wascana Country Club in Regina in August it was an opportunity for a quartet of golfers from Yorkton to spend a dream day on the links.
Local Deer Park pro Allan Sauser was given the opportunity to take part in the Regina event’s Pro-Am.
“I was invited to bring two friends,” he said.
Those friends were Bruce Thurston and Cliff Trombley.
“Both guys have done a lot for the golf course (Deer Park),” said Sauser.
Thurston said the invite had the trio playing with two of the women involved in the major event in Regina, playing the front none with one, then the back nine with a second pro.
“It was a lottery who you were going to play with,” said Sauser.
When Thurston was asked tom participate, he passed on the experience by asking Ross Fisher to join him as his caddie.
Fisher said it was great “just to be there and join the experience.”
And it was all about the experience for all the participants.
“This would be the very best golf experience ever,” said Thurston.
“The same here,” said Trombley.
Sauser said he has been to Augusta and the Masters, but the Regina experience was still a great one.
Even Fisher as a caddie was all smiles.
“It was probably my best golf experience,” he said, adding he took in more of the event, one that would go down in history as Brooke Henderson would win, becoming the first Canadian in 45 years – after Jocelyne Bourassa in 1973 – to win the Canadian Women’s Open.
Trombley, who was a volunteer at the Regina event said, “There couldn’t have been a better win,” given it was in Regina, and he was on course when the historic win happened. “… To be inside the ropes and watch every shot; I got to watch every shot from the best vantage point … It was the whole experience.”
There were the professional golfers, and when a team was called they had to pick who they wanted to play with.
The Yorkton group picked 15th and selected Charley Hull from England and Thidapa Suwannapura from Thailand.
Thurston said the pros were not there to judge how the amateurs were hitting the ball. He said he had been told “by the second hole the pros will lose interest in your game,” and that was just the way it was, quickly becoming a very casual round allowing the amateurs to enjoy the experience without pressure.
“They were very engaging,” said Fisher. “They’re regular people who just happen to be really, really good at golf.”
The Wascana course was also in the best condition possible for the round.
“They were championship conditions and we were playing a championship course,” said Thurston, adding because the Pro-Am was ahead of the actual event it was basically a sneak peek at the course before the women started competing for the title.
“As far as conditions go the fairways were very tight,” said Sauser. “And the greens were very fast and harder (than usual).”
“They were the fastest greens I’ve played all year,” added Thurston.
Trombley said the course might not have been any more challenging than Deer Park, but added “you had to keep it straight. You had to keep it on the fairways.”
Sauser said the highlight for him was when his daughter Alek, 10, and son Connor, eight were brought inside the taped off area and allowed to caddie a hole.
“It’s probably an experience my kids will never forget,” he said, adding the players involved the pair asking them to judge the win and what sort of green was upcoming.
“The bag was almost bigger than the boy,” added Thurston with a grin.
