Kuntz fifth at Canadian Junior Golf Championship

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/08/2022 (1470 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Braxton Kuntz may have come up short, but he has no reason to hang his head.

The 18-year-old golf phenom stepped out of his backyard at Breezy Bend Country Club to head west this week for the Canadian Junior Championship in Kamloops. B.C..

Entering the day six strokes back of the pace, Kuntz fired a 4-under par 68 in Wednesday’s final round at Rivershore Golf Links to finish the tournament tied for fifth at 14-under par (274).

“I hit the ball really well. I was happy with how I played up until the greens,” Kuntz said after his round Wednesday. “The only thing that was lacking was my putter. I just found that I was hitting a lot of good putts that just weren’t going in the hole. So it’s just one of those weeks where you feel like you got everything together but just some putts weren’t going in.”

The winner by three strokes, 18-year-old Jean-Phillippe Parr of St-Célestin, Québec, captured his second-straight Canadian Junior Championship title with a 19-under par four-day total (269).

Despite coming up short, Kuntz leaves the west coast $716.67 richer for his efforts. Don’t bet on him blowing the prize money, though.

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll take my girlfriend out to dinner,” Kuntz said with a laugh.

Kuntz also returns to Winnipeg having had one of the more remarkable summers in Manitoba golf history.

Ahead of his top-five finish in Kamloops, Kuntz won the Manitoba junior men’s championship for a consecutive year at St. Charles Country Club, where he flirted with a course record in his final round. He encored the following week in the Manitoba men’s amateur at Elmhurst Golf Club, where he defended his title.

He is the province’s first player to win both the junior men’s championship and men’s amateur in consecutive years.

“It’s been great getting back from University, keeping my game sharp, being able to see all my golf friends again and play some rounds with them. It’s been a bit of a confidence booster seeing that my game has been going in the right direction and I am getting better.”

The only other Manitoban to make the cut at the national tournament, Dauphin’s Thomas Scott, finished tied-42nd with a one-over par four-day total (289).

Four other Manitobans joined Kuntz and Scott in Kamloops but failed to make the cut: Ryan Blair (Winnipeg), Jack Taylor (Winnipeg), Eric Prokopowich (Dauphin) and Grady Chuback (Headingly).

Team Manitoba finished sixth place in the inter-provincial team competition portion of the tournament.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam