Kotyk back in the swing at Mid-Amateur

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/07/2009 (6227 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

FROM the Cold Case files: Two-time former Manitoba Amateur champion Kevin Kotyk has returned to the competitive golf landscape.

It seems a little unusual to be unretiring at 26, but now settled into his career as a product consultant in Brandon, Kotyk admitted after Monday’s first round of the Manitoba Mid-Amateur championship at Southwood he cannot escape the lure of the game and the feelings stirred by competition.

“Last year I had no membership at all, sort of took a year off of golf,” he said. “Gas prices were up and my head was in another place. During the winter I decided I wanted to play golf again, so I got the membership (at Shilo).

“I played the club championship two weeks ago and I got second, even though I didn’t play too well. When I was playing, I got those feelings again of being nervous and of grinding. Only in golf do you get feelings like that. Sometimes maybe, when I’m going to do a big presentation, but this is a little different.

“You’re walking out there, trying to keep your focus. This is more a mental challenge in many respects.”

So far, so good at the Mid-Amateur, where Kotyk’s opening round of three-over 73 has him in a tie with a familiar rival, Breezy Bend’s Garth Collings, in fourth spot, just one shot back of co-leaders Tyler Mancini of Pine Ridge, Mike Walker of St. Boniface and Chris Yaremkiewich of Rossmere.

Kotyk, the winner of the provincial amateur crown in 2000 and 2003 and the match play in 2002, competed in the 2007 Mid-Amateur, but little otherwise in the last five years.

“I’ve sort of been back and forth,” Kotyk said. “Some days you’d play a clean game and it’s satisfying but other days, you just throw away a lot of strokes and it can be very frustrating.

“But I think I’ll always come back because I’ve been doing it for so long.”

The former Elmhurst member said that golf, once a source of great pressure for him, can fit into his life of new priorities.

“The reasons I play now are for myself, for the mental focus, and I’m setting goals,” he said. “Shooting tremendous scores, that’s fine for other people, and making teams, that’s not as critical as it used to be for me. Before, if I didn’t make one, I had a bad summer. Now, it’s like I just want to come out and play golf and have those feelings again.

“Sure there’s pressure but it’s much different than when I was in my late teens and early 20s.”

Still, those days when he was a more regular headliner hold some good memories, the best of them when he was the surprise Amateur champ at age 17.

“I had almost no expectations coming into the amateur and I had a great opening round and steadily played along,” he recalled. “Playing with Adam Speirs and Garth Collings in that tournament (who finished third and second), it was a great battle.

“That was probably my favourite tournament ever.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Picking up the pace

Tournament: Manitoba Mid-Amateur

Site: Southwood Golf and Country Club

Time Police: Pace of play is being monitored closely for this week’s 72-hole championship, a new attempt to eradicate slow play in competition.

The Game plan: Clocks are in place at the tees on Nos. 1, 4, 9, 13 and at the 18th green. Players must keep pace for a two-hour, 10-minute nine holes or four-hour, 20-minute 18 holes; if they are out of position (an empty hole in front), they have 40 seconds to play a shot. One bad time brings a warning; a second bad time brings a penalty stroke. Another penalty stroke may be imposed and beyond that, it’s disqualification.

Monday’s update: Several early groups played in less than three hours, 40 minutes — proving it can be done and also the outrageousness of last week’s 5:45 rounds at the Amateur — and no penalties were assessed on Monday. “We came close, but everybody’s extremely aware of time today,” said Golf Manitoba competitions director Lisa Andersen.