COLDHAM ENVIES CAREFREE KIDS
Ottawa’s Mark Coldham finished as the leading national capital region player in the Canadian Amateur men’s golf championship.
Coldham, 29, fashioned a 1-underpar 69 at Royal Ottawa on Thursday to give himself a total of 285 and a share of 26th place in the 112th edition of the competition. He finished 12 shots back of the winner, but described it as a great week and said he had a blast playing with and against the likes of 21-year-old champion Hugo Bernard of Mont St-Hilaire, Que.
“I love watching them,” Coldham said following his round. “You can tell that they’re playing every day, you can tell that they’re practising every day. They’re like 19 to 22. They’re playing so carefree because they don’t have a mortgage, they don’t have all those things that kind of bog us down. It’s nice to see them just kind of enjoy themselves (on the course). “I’m kind of envious.” Three other capital-region residents played all rounds of the Amateur. Stittsville’s Ryan Sevigny (69–285) tied for 26th, Kanata’s Nicholas Brisebois (76–298) tied for 73rd and Renfrew’s Dwight Reinhart (82–304) was 77th.
NUMBERS AND NOTES
Jimmy Jones (69–284) of Tampa, Fla., tied for 23rd, matching the finish of his mother, Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member Dawn Coe-Jones, in the du Maurier Classic LPGA Tour event at Royal Ottawa in August 2000.
Brothers J.D. and Ryan Dornes of Lancaster, Pa., played the final round in the same group with Calgary’s Scott Secord. J.D. Dornes had the best score, a 1-over 71, to finish tied for 13th at 281. Secord (73–283) tied for 20th, and Ryan Dornes (78–289) tied for 41st.
The four-round scoring average at Royal Ottawa was 74.55, slightly more than 4.5 strokes over par for the 6,662-yard Canadian Amateur layout, although it was 71.38 on Thursday. The most difficult hole was No.1 (4.59), which is a par-5 for member play, but was a 466-yard par-4 in the tournament. Easiest was the par-5 14th (4.86).
The other course used for the first two rounds, Eagle Creek, produced a scoring average of 75.67 on a par-72 layout of 7,039 yards. The 428-yard 13th hole played most difficult at 4.60, while the 501-yard seventh hole was easiest at 4.80.