Players gear up for beautiful Breezy

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This article was published 15/08/2022 (1463 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Charmaine Mackid wants to put an exclamation point on her already stellar summer later this month.

The 45-year-old will tee it up at the Canadian women’s mid-amateur & senior championship at Breezy Bend Country Club from Aug. 29 to Sept. 1.

Mackid, in her sixth season as a member of the host course, is the reigning women’s club champion.

“Well … it’s convenient,” she said while laughing. “It’ll be neat to see other women from around the country playing at my course that I know so well. I’m fascinated to see how they’re going to play it and what their strategies are going to be.”

The national tournament will field 100 players from across Canada and the United States (4) in a 54-hole championship at the revamped private club.

“I’m really pumped to see how I’ll play at my home course on a national stage. But, there’s some nervousness too because it’s the home course and you know that there will be lots of people who want to see how you’re going to be playing,” Mackid told the Free Press on Monday.

Mackid is well-known around these parts, thanks to an impressive resume that boasts nine city and provincial titles across a 30-year career.

She’s added four top-five finishes to her name in Manitoba tournaments this summer and is no stranger to the pressure that comes in national competitions, playing in the Canadian women’s amateur championship four times.

“(The mid-amateur championship) has a very different feel than the amateur does, mostly because the mid-am is 25 years old and up,” said Mackid, who will play in her second Canadian women’s mid-amateur championship. “When I go to the Am, I’m one of the oldest ones there. (The mid-amateur championship) is a more mature crowd … the atmosphere is a little lighter, but, I mean, it’s still very competitive.”

Ahead of the tournament, Mackid reached out to a local youngster in search of some advice when playing at a home track in a big tournament.

That kid was 15-year-old Addison Kartusch.

Kartusch ran away with the Manitoba junior women’s championship by 13 strokes at her home St. Charles Country Club last month.

“We were saying in some ways, I think there’s a small advantage in terms of specific shots and knowing some small things like certain greens might be traditionally firmer. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, if you’re really close to someone in terms of score, it might help you have that little extra advantage on certain shots. But I think overall, the players that are coming to this kind of tournament are really good players and they’re going to figure some of those things out in a couple of days on their own anyway.”

In total, six golfers will represent Breezy Bend while 24 Manitobans are expected to compete.

Mackid will be looked at as one of the favourites out of the host province for the mid-amateur championship, while fellow Manitoban Rhonda Orr, who is fresh off her ninth provincial senior’s title in 10 years and seventh in a row, will seek glory in the seniors division.

Possibly no one is more threatening to Orr’s chances than reigning seniors champion Shelly Stouffer.

Stouffer, 52, of Nanoose Bay in B.C., is enjoying one of the better summers of golf she’s ever had. After winning the PNGA’s senior women’s amateur championship by a whopping eight strokes at Suncadia Resort in Washington in June, Stouffer captured the USGA senior women’s amateur championship in Alaska earlier this month. She became just the fourth Canadian to win the event.

Her hot streak will surely be tested at Breezy Bend, which will flaunt its track on the national stage for the first time since the 2004 Canadian men’s mid-amateur championship.

The club has invested over $8 million in the past decade to replace its irrigation system, enhance the tee boxes and build more new greens.

“The best part about the course is when you’re playing here, you’re going to use every club in your bag,” said Cory Johnson, general manager and COO at Breezy Bend Country Club.

Johnson said the nine newer greens will challenge competitors a bit more than the older ones, each putt breaking more on the Prairie ground.

The par-4 12th hole is the track’s signature hole. During the tournament, it will play 390 yards with a slight dog-leg to the left. The fairway is sandwiched between trees and players will be left with a demanding second shot into a green that’s guarded by water to the left, sand traps to the right and a penalty area behind.

“Just hitting the green is a challenge, but then when you’re on the green, it’s two-tiered and it’s very undulating,” said Johnson, who is the club’s former head golf pro.

He maintained the par-4 18th is one of the most difficult finishing holes in the province, potentially leaving fans with some drama on the 54th hole.

The senior division champion will receive an exemption into the US Senior Women’s Amateur at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Arizona and the US Senior Women’s Open at Waverley Country Club in Portland, Oregon.

Both the senior and mid-amateur champions will receive exemptions into the 2023 Canadian Women’s Amateur at Ashburn Golf and Country Club in Halifax, NS.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam