Junior player’s latest award ‘icing on the cake’

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This article was published 19/10/2010 (5761 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

AARON Cockerill added consistency to a winning resumé in 2010 and it earned him Manitoba Golfer of the Year honours, it was announced at Golf Manitoba’s annual meeting Monday night at Breezy Bend Country Club.

The 18-year-old from Stony Mountain, who took up golf seriously only three years ago, won the Manitoba Junior, the Western Future Links Championship in Alberta and finished 10th at the Canadian Junior in Richmond, B.C.

As well, he’s ranked in the top 10 in the national junior order of merit.

“I did not expect this,” Cockerill said last night after winning the award. “In 2010, I think I was very consistent and this award is just icing on the cake.”

Cockerill’s golf season is continuing this fall. He’s one of five freshmen on the golf team at Texas A&M Commerce, near Dallas, and he’s already shown progress with results.

“This year, I couldn’t have asked for too much more, got the junior, that was top priority, and played really well at the Canadian Junior and didn’t expect that,” Cockerill said. “The Future Links, that was a big win, and I just seemed to play well in everything else.”

After shooting under par on the final day and finishing in the top 15 at a college tournament two weeks ago, Cockerill took a very short break from school and spent this past weekend at home.

“It was great to come home for a couple of days and school is going great,” the business administration student said. “I like my classes, I’m living on campus and it’s been really busy between school, workouts and golf.”

Cockerill, who is the first junior to win the Manitoba golfer of the year award since Mike Keast in 2002, was also the medallist at the Manitoba match play qualifying rounds and won a Maple Leaf Junior Tour event.

He edged finalists Garth Collings and Peter More of Breezy Bend for the golfer of the year title.

Collings has won the award five times and is a 16-time nominee as well as a member of the Manitoba Golf Hall of Fame and Museum.

In 2010, he won the Manitoba mid-amateur for the sixth time and finished second in the Nott Autocorp Manitoba Amateur, a title he has won three times.

Collings finished 13th at the Canadian mid-amateur and was fourth in the national mid-masters category.

More, the golfer of the year in 2001, won his first Manitoba Amateur this year, as well as the provincial match play championship.

Golf Manitoba also handed out its distinguished service award on Monday to Brian Gilhuly of the Selkirk Golf and Country Club.

Gilhuly has been a volunteer with the association since 1976 and aside from all his provincial contributions as a course rater, board member, finance chair, starter and scorer, his contributions at his home club saw him honoured as a lifetime member in 2004.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca