You know how parking can be at a premium around town during the day?
At the Yellowknife Golf Club, there are four people who won’t have to worry about that problem as they will have their own personal spot for the 2022 season.
The Yellowknife Golf Club Championships wrapped up on Sunday — a two-day, 36-hole tournament with four divisional titles on the line, along with bonus prizes of personalized parking spots right in front of the pro shop for next year.
The format for the tournament varied, with day one on Saturday being a shotgun start, where everyone teed off from a pre-determined hole and played their round. Day two saw tee-off times with the groupings based on the scores from the previous day. The lower your score, the later you started.
Your women’s champion this year is Winter Bailey. She managed to hold off the challenge of Grace Lau-a. Both ladies finished 36 holes with the same score of 205 — along with identical scorecards on each day: 102 and 103 — and that meant a playoff to determine the champion.
“We were unclear as to how we would break the tie,” said Bailey. “There are two ways to do it: a countback, where they go to scores on holes, or a sudden-death playoff.”
Once it was decided that the playoff would be the method, it was back to the 18th hole to begin, where it would be Bailey who would emerge with the better score and she claimed victory.
“It was a good, tight race between us,” said Bailey. “Great weekend of golf, and I think everyone who played had a real good time out there.”
As evenly matched as the two competitors were, Bailey said it was hard to get a sense of how other players were faring, particularly outside of her group.
“Golf is an individual game and you just remind yourself to go out and play to your best,” she said. “You’re always challenging yourself to get the best score possible but you understand it’s all about you.”
On the senior women’s side, Colleen Pura was the star of the show as she put together two solid rounds of 78 and 83 to win her reserved parking spot.
The senior men’s champion this year is Andy Couvrette. He shot 158 over 36 holes to win the title and one of the parking stalls.
The men’s champion for 2021 is Jony Bembridge. He claimed victory in style, firing a 69 — three-under-par — on day two for a total of 153 and a win by three shots over Carson Roche, who carded 156.
“It’s my best round ever,” said Bembridge, who had never broken 70 until Sunday. “Good that I got to do it in a tournament.”
John Nahanni had the overnight lead after shooting 77 on Saturday. Bembridge went into Sunday five shots back but gradually gained ground on the leaders the entire round.
Bembridge said he just kept giving himself chances to score well.
“I never put myself in any sort of trouble,” he said. “I had lots of opportunities for birdies and I was able to follow up if I had a bad shot to minimize the damage.”
Having that parking spot is a nice thing to have for next year, he added.
“It’s one of those good perks the champions get,” he said.