Battling Berney gets trophy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/08/2010 (5759 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let the record show that at 4:59 p.m. Thursday, August 5, 2010, the perseverance and patience of popular Transcona member Mike Berney was at long last rewarded.

"It was 25 years of golf frustration gone right out the window," Berney said, moments after getting his hands on the Manitoba Senior Men’s Championship trophy.

In keeping with his wait for a provincial title, Berney went an extra long way on the final walk at Glendale Golf and Country Club.

He had to battle through a third round of five-over 77 Thursday to arrive at his 10-over 226 total for the 54 holes.

That was the same as Larry Poleschuk of Larters at St. Andrews, who shot a tournament-best 70 Thursday, so off the pair went for eight more playoff holes.

"I’m exhausted. It was just a blur," the new champion said.

Berney, always decked out in fashionable plus-fours — he was sporting a winning flame red on Thursday — has always entered every Manitoba competition he can for as long as anyone can remember.

Until now, he’s never won any, though he has claimed five Transcona club championships and a Portage Open crown.

"I’ve been so close," Berney said. "I always had to work. I was always running from a golf tournament to work or from work to golf. I’d play well three rounds or two rounds, but have nothing left."

This year is different. He has retired after 36 years at CN, and golf is now a focus.

Signs he might have been ready for a breakout week were his tied-for-26th finish at the Amateur and finishing 11th at last week’s Mid-Amateur.

"I said I’d give myself one year of golf to see what would happen," Berney smiled. "I wanted to make this team (finish top-four), but I didn’t expect to play as well as I did."

Berney said he never got discouraged competing in provincial events.

"It’s what most of the competitive players play for," he said. "There’s a certain number of elite players here who win most of the tournaments. But you’re playing for a team spot, like at the Mid-Am."

Thursday’s epic extra holes, looping through Glendale’s par-5 17th and par-4 18th four times, saw both players scramble from jams and have near-misses on the greens that might have ended the one-hour 45-minute marathon just a little earlier.

In the end, it was Berney’s safe bogey five at the 18th that won the day when Poleschuk’s poor drive to the right left him with no option to the green and a double bogey.

Poleschuk, whose son Brad is the associate pro at Bel Acres, masked his disappointment well.

"I’ve been in playoffs, but not that long," Poleschuk said. "It went by in a blur. It was fun. I was just trying to hang in there."

He said that in the end, he surprised himself, because at the start of the day, though he was seven shots off the lead, he was really looking at fourth place.

"I was a couple of shots behind it," he said. "That was the goal."

Things changed quickly with that round of two-under 70.

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Three-time defending champ Don Jackson of Portage was one shot away from joining the playoff, finishing third at 227. Niakwa’s Ken Warwick, in a tie for fourth, will be the fourth team member for Manitoba at the Canadian Senior later this month in St. Thomas, Ont.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca