Brandon Chai and Ryan Vest of Vernon posted wins in the Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour stop at the Okanagan Golf Club in Kelowna.
Despite the players from Australia, Chile, Washington State, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. battling tricky conditions of high temperatures and wind, four of the seven division winners finished under par for the two days ending last Friday.
MJT Peewee Boys 12U: Top finisher in the MJT Peewee Boys division was Ryan Vest, 12, took the Pee Wee Boys 12U division title 3 under after shooting impressive scores of 69-72-141.
Vest’s tournament highlight was on the eighth hole in the opening round, where, he explained: “I hit my tee shot to three feet, then made the putt for eagle.”
Runner-up in the division was Ryan Burns, 12, of Abbotsford, who finished strong, shooting 79-73.
Chai, 17, shot 71-72-143 to win the Junior Boys 17-18 crown by three shots over Justin Towill, 17, of Kelowna. Chai, who knew where he stood going into the final hole, said: “I just wanted to play it safe and take out any big numbers. So I hit hybrid off the tee and played the hole safe which led to a two-putt par and the win. It feels great winning at my home course and I am proud to have won with so many good competitors, friends and family in attendance.”
Cooper Humphreys, 13, of Kelowna, finished with back-to-back eagles on the eighth and ninth holes to secure the MJT Bantam Boys 13-14 Hoselton trophy. His rounds of 72-70-142 were good enough for a three-shot victory over Danny Im, 14, of Langley.
BC. Humphreys, a member of the Okanagan Golf Performance Team, was ecstatic about winning on his home course.
“I’ve been putting in a lot of work because this event meant a lot to me,” he said.
The Okanagan Golf Performance Team continued their dominance in the MJT Juvenile Boys division as 15-year-old, Kyle Mayner, of Kelowna, won with scores of 73-77-150.
Mayner ended up winning by six strokes over Kristian Isa, 16, also of Kelowna.
However, there wasn’t always that much disparity as at almost the three-quarter point during the second round, Mayner and Isa were neck and neck. Mayner then recounts: “I blocked a seven iron left into a buried lie on hole number four (our 13th hole as we started off hole 10). I whacked it out to 15 feet and made the slider, right in the heart. This gave me the momentum going into the last stretch of holes.”
The MJT Collegiate 19-24 title went to Gold Coast, Australia’s 22-year-old Drew Herbert, who finished 14 shots ahead of both Jared Larsen, 20, of Vernon and Davide Kaiser, 19, of Kelowna.
Herbert is in Canada to caddy for a long-time friend at Golf Canada’s Canadian Women’s Amateur coming up in Vancouver.
The MJT Ford Series Okanagan Swing closes today with more than 90 competitors at Predator Ridge Golf Resort in Vernon.
The major-ranked MJT Odlum Brown Classic – PGA of BC Junior Championship goes Aug. 7-9 at Northview Golf and Country Club in Surrey.
RELATED: Chai, Steinke shooting for top-20
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