I headed out to cover a major provincial amateur golf championship today, the GAO Male Mid-Amateur, and for awhile at least I thought I had accidentally stumbled upon a celebrity pro-am. That is, until I talked to the “celebs” and pretty soon I knew their appearance was about golf, and serious golf at that.
Today was the second round of the event being played at the Loyalist Country Club in Bath, Ontario and on the leaderboard I found some interesting names. No disrespect to the leaders (Dave Bunker leads at 4 under with a 66 today) but it was hard to avert your eyes from the higher profile people that I found teeing it up.
It started with Ben Doornekamp, a multiple-time Canadian National Collegiate Champion with the Carleton Ravens basketball program (and a fair stick who shot 72 on day one before faltering to 83 today). Doornekamp, who stands about 6’5″, looked almost liliputian next to his caddy however. Brother Nate, a former centre for the Boston College Eagles is easily the tallest caddy I have ever seen at 7′ tall.
As noticeable as that pair was there was plenty of attention left for two other golfers, each who had qualified to play in the championship, but both better known for their skills on other stages.
Playing alongside former professional golfer Jeff Crowe was none other than Canadian Music Hall of Fame Member Tom Cochrane. Tom was gracious enough to chat golf after the round – something I will share more of in a further story but easily his best line was, “When I have a guitar and I am on stage I know what to expect, when I you get to that first tee you never know what might happen.” Unfortunately the 1 handicapper shot himself out of the tournament on day one and a rebound round of 77 today was not enough to help him make the cut.
Just as Cochrane made his way out of the scorers tent in came comedian Gerry Dee. Dee, a member of Bayview CC in Toronto, is well known as a competitor on NBC’s Last Comic Standing, numerous commercials and some great television bits. Check out some of his material here.
I’ll be sure to post some of thoughts on the tournament and the golf in general shortly, likely in a few days (a photo gallery will also appear at www.flagstickgolfphotography.com) as I will be a little busy for the next 48 hours.
Let me explain about that…
Last year I brought you this story and once I heard that Edward and Andrew were going to golf 24 hours (walking the whole way) again for charity (they raised more than $170,000 last year) I made a vow that I would once again get involved. So tomorrow (see www.strokesforehopes.ca to see the details and find out how to donate) I will be “on the bag” for as long as possible – save a break to do some finishing work on our July issue.
I hope to be able to caddy for more than 20 hours of their 24 hour marathon, an event that has inspired so many and shown what is possible when a few people put their mind to it.
That will be the next 24 hours…the other 24 to follow might see me become very friendly with my pillow.
I will be doing live Tweets via www.twitter.com/flagstick
Follow along through the night and be sure to give generously. Every dollar donated will be matched 9 to 1 by a charity program. $10 becomes $100 and $100 becomes a $1000!!
