Kids as young as four were able to enjoy themselves at TS&M Woodlawn Golf Course for the 34th summer, with the season winding down Sunday.
The Parent-Child Tournament saw parents with their kids enjoying the game together with the help of co-ordinator Eldon Rondeau and Woodlawn staff.
“We had ten events this summer, starting out with the scramble at the end of May,” said Rondeau. “Then for 10 Wednesdays, except for one that was rained out, every Wednesday morning we had a different event.”
The nine-hole tournament used a special scoring system wit an age-based handicap. All players received a trophy at the end of the day.
The tournaments with kids were all based on fun, Rondeau said, with this year was more successful than the year before. That fun will hopefully translate into a life-long interest in the sport.
“All through the year, we had 81 kids participate in least one event,” he said. “We figure that's pretty good.”
There is a difference between the top young golfers like Jayden Dudas, Jace Carlisle and Jean-Luc Dupuis and the golfers in these events, but there are times during the summer when those players would help out and mentor their even younger counterparts.
“That's an important aspect too,” Rondeau said. “Leadership golf is based on honesty, integrity and all of those things. (Sunday) is something special.”
Bringing them into the game is a continual reminder that the game can be fun. One day they were given a couple of feet of string and told they could count anything within that string as a 'gimme', with the remainder of the string to be used for a future hole. Another day was something he called 'monkey golf', which allowed the kids only three clubs from their bag of their choice to use for a whole round.
“They just think it's so much fun,” Rondeau said. “Same thing with the string. They have to make decisions as a group. 'Can we use it here,' 'should we use it here?' And then you get group at the end that still has some string left...
“We think it's fun. And we do give prizes, like theatre passes, Dairy Queen passes, McDonalds passes. Balls, things of that sort. We just draw those. It's not based on skill. We kind of downplay the competition.”
They were organized into divisions named after contemporary Canadian golfers like Graham DeLaet, Brooke Henderson and Adam Hadwin. The smallest of them need to be taken to their own tee boxes about 100 yards from the greens. Sometimes it's a bit of a challenge to get them there but there's a good understanding between kids, parents and staff.
“I think mad things like that, goofy things, make it seem like 'this is hilarious',” Rondeau said.
In the mother-daughter junior division, Kaylin Wilhelm won with a score of 54. Maia Flamen was in second with 64. Cruz Shauf was the winner of the mother-son junior division with 60 and Ryder Dyer was in second with 79. Father-daughter junior was won by Summer Peterson (age 5) with a score of 43 and Anna Biggs (also 5) was second at 44. The father-son junior division was taken by Merek Wilhelm with a score of 40, with Jayden Chernoff and Wyatt Simpson tying for second at 42.
Jacey Farr was first in the mother-daughter senior division with a 49 and Bailey Farr was in second place at 52. The top mother-son senior was Hudson Chernoff at 45, and his brother Logan Chernoff was second at 47. Father-daughter senior winner was Grace Larson with a score of 53 and Kennedy Dowhaniuk was in second at 54. Father-son senior winner was a tie between Ryan Chernoff and Connor Spencer with scores of 34 each.
Late Sunday afternoon, four-year-old Jake Hockey – who would not have remembered the huge flood of 2011 that destroyed the course for the year as he was not yet born – got up to accept a trophy that was nearly as big as he was for being the youngest player in the event. Even after 34 years, it's truly still an event for the next generation of Woodlawn golfers.
