Edmonton Petroleum G&CC Set To Tee Up Canadian Women’s Amateur
- Details
- Category: Inside Golf
- Published: 2021-06-15
By GORD MONTGOMERY, Inside Golf
SPRUCE GROVE, Alberta — With COVID-19 restrictions beginning to ease and Canada beginning to open up again the Edmonton Petroleum Golf & Country Club is opening up its arms to the rest of Canada. After an unexpected decision to forgo a major championship by the selected host site in Quebec, the Edmonton-based golf course is now set to host the 2021 edition of the Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship. The tournament was originally slated to be hosted at the Royal Montreal G&CC.
According to Scott Hippe, the general manager and COO of the private facility located a chip shot outside Edmonton’s western boundary, his facility jumped at the opportunity to host such a prestigious event, even on short notice.
“It’s nice that they came after us, and we’re lucky enough to even have a chance to host it,” Hipped commented on the totally unexpected phone call from Golf Canada asking if his club would undertake the hosting honours this year. Of course, the call didn’t come as a major shock as the Petroleum Club has in the past hosted a number of high-end events, ranging from inter-national professional play to a national championship. And, of course, this also had to do with the easing of pandemic restrictions in Alberta.
“From what I understand is they looked at provinces that maybe have restrictions that are a bit easier to work with,” said Hippe when asked how or why his site was chosen. “I’m not a hundred per cent sure of that, but we do work closely with Alberta Golf so when they sit down and look across Canada and what clubs might be willing to host this, and the relationship we’ve developed with Alberta Golf and (executive director) Phil Berube, that probably had something to do with it. And maybe we’re starting to get a reputation of being a little bit more flexible. The beautiful thing about our club, I call it a boutique club, is we have a smaller membership and our tee access is generally a little more favourable than other private clubs, so maybe we don’t have the pressure other clubs have to go through four days of tee times.”
Kyle Boyd, the head professional at the club, said he and his staff are thrilled to host this major competition. And, he pointed out, they’ve had lots of experience with major competitions over the years, ranging from the PGA CANADA Mackenzie Tour last year, to PGA of Alberta cham-pionships, the Alberta Senior Ladies championship two years ago to the junior national champi-onship back in 2007. Of course, this event fits right in with all those former tournaments.
“Next to the CP Women’s Open (which has been cancelled this year) this is the biggest women’s tournament in the country!”
“Definitely,” Boyd replied when asked if those previous tournaments helped land this latest gem. “When you’ve hosted events like that in the past, they’ve (Golf Canada) obviously seen some great calibre golf played here and that our golf course is a good test for those types of events.”
So what will the players find when they put pegs in the ground on this immaculate, and eye-pleasing property? Commented Boyd: “A first-class facility. Great conditions. A practice facility with an 80,000 square-foot hitting deck. That’s got a pretty big “Wow!” factor. The tee boxes are probably the best in Western Canada. And there’s just a great variety of golf holes here. Every-thing’s fair out there.”
Speaking of variety and great golf tests, the Petroleum Club offers both. While it won’t be played from the tips for the women, it will offer up a stern test of skill, strategy, and shot-making, espe-cially over the closing three holes in each of the four rounds. In some major competitions in the past, leaders, or those closely hounding the leader, have faltered on that final stretch. It includes No. 16, a par-4, 90-degree dogleg right playing to over 400 yards that’s guarded by massive 60- to 80-foot trees on both sides of the fairway. The penultimate hole isn’t much easier, another four par, a slight dogleg left this time that will likely play to around 380 yards. Again, it’s guarded by trees on both side with a tricky green. It leads to the final test, a par-5 of around 500 yards with water from start to finish on the righthand side as well as fronting the green along with stra-tegically placed bunkers off the tee. Sounds like fun huh? It can be, but it’s a place many dreams of glory have come to a crashing halt.
Of that stretch, the pro noted, “You’ve got to manage those all four days. If you could play those even par throughout the four days, you’re probably giving yourself a really good chance to be holding the trophy come (the final) afternoon.”
About changing any of the layout for this event, Hippe said that’s up to Golf Canada but he feels it will stand this test as it now stands. He suggests the course will likely play to about 6,200 yards and is good enough to withstand what the women, or anyone else for that matter, can throw at it. And when you come right down to it, the track needs little prep work to be ready to go.
“We can pretty much turn the switch and go,” Hippe noted. “The luxury they’ll have is we have five sets of tees so they’ll have some flexibility on how they can set the course up,” before add-ing, “We’re championship ready.”
With such short notice to get things primed and ready for the best women amateur golfers in the country, roughly six weeks in all, Hippe said that’s not really a big deal to himself, his superin-tendent, or the members of the club.
“Our golf course and how Keith (superintendent Blayney) conditions it on a day to daily basis, we can pretty much turn the switch within four weeks, especially with how great of shape we’re in this year. It’s championship ready on any given day.
What also helps in the short prep time is that this likely isn't going to have the usual fanfare and hoopla surrounding such a huge tourney.
“The other side of this is it’s not, because of restrictions, as grandiose as previous years,” Hippe pointed out. “With some of the restrictions to travel and our involvement as far as our volunteer requirements is a little less, so that makes it a lot more approachable.” He then added that four days after notifying the club’s membership of this sudden opportunity to host, they’d “already exceeded our commitment on volunteers.”
By the time the tournament begins on July 26, it’s expected that Alberta will have eased pan-demic restrictions substantially. While it’s too far in the future to say for sure what will be ex-pected of players and caddies, and spectators if they’re allowed, that’s all going to be in Golf Canada’s hands, Hippe said, including the wearing of face masks and social distancing.
“As of right now, Golf Canada will treat all of their events the same,” he said on June 4. “They’ll probably have stricter protocols in place than the province they’re in. They want to go above and beyond,” which likely means certain restrictions that may have been set aside are brought to the forefront again, especially with travellers/players from other areas of the country.
One noticeable thing about the tournament this year is it will be all Canadian content. Because of international travel restrictions no foreign players will be in attendance this time around. As such, the host club may garner an exemption or two, but that’s yet to be decided.
As to hosting on such short notice and what it means to the club, Hippe said, “It’s something that’s going to be framed in the history our our club. This is not just another event — this is the premiere ladies event in Canada. We’re honoured and excited!”
The Canadian Amateur Women’s Championship runs from July 26 to 30. As the days draw closer, Inside Golf will have more on the event, the COVID-19 protocols surrounding it, and the ability for spectators to come and watch the best women golfers from across the country.