Corrins saluted with Elmwood life membership
An accomplished 50 year plus amateur golf career has been recognized with the awarding of a Lifetime Elwmood Golf Course membership to Ron Corrins.
Corrins has been a Elmwood member since 1957 and was handed the special recognition during a Family Day long weekend 90th birthday party.
Corrins earned six Elmwood club championships over the years, and topped the field at numerous tournaments in Swift Current over the years. He briefly held the Elmwood course record in 1995 after shooting a round of 65 at the age of 66. He still recalls the round, noting he had eight birdies and even that his two bogies occurred on #3 and #11.
He remain an avid golfer, although he admits his competitive playing days are behind him.
“I can still shoot under 90. I can shoot under my age,” he chuckled during an interview at his 90th birthday party on February 16.
Fittingly, the family celebration was hosted at the Elmwood Clubhouse which overlooks the course where he golfed so many rounds.
“This time of the year you kind of get cabin fever and you start looking out there, and it would be nice to get out there.”
The crowning achievement in Corrins’ amateur career was leading Team Saskatchewan to a championship victory at the 1992 Canadian Senior Golf Championship in Kamloops.
As the only rookie member on the Saskatchewan foursome golfing at the national event, Corrins carded the low score during that championship in helping Saskatchewan claim the national title.
“The guys I’m playing with, they’d all been on the team before. And they said we’ll probably finish about the middle of the pack. Ontario’s going to beat us. British Columbia’s going to beat us. Maybe Quebec,” he recalls. “And it just worked out so nice.”
Corrins shot an opening round 81 and Saskatchewan had a team score of 242 after day one, trailing Ontario by four shots.
In the second round Corrins shot an event best 70 to give Saskatchewan a surprising 230 score and a winning two day total of 472, four shots better than runner-up Ontario.
Corrins also boasted an event low two round total of 151.
The 1992 Saskatchewan Men’s Golf Team of Fred Clark, Ray Marsh, Ron Corrins, Ron Whiteside were inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in 2002. They are one of just two golf teams inducted into the provincial sports hall of fame.
He also earned a spot on Team Saskatchewan in both 1995 and 1996, but the team was unable to equal their championship form.
Corrins also boasts the unfathomable achievement of carding nine holes in one along with a pair of double eagles.
His first hole in one dates back to his second year as a member at
Elmwood.
“When I came here it was a sand green golf course. My first hole in one I had was on a sand green,” he recalls.“
In those days there was a cup to hold the flag which was placed inside the hole.
“If you got a hole in one, there wasn’t a heck of a lot of room to get in there. It just kind of has to be perfect, other wise it’ll bounce off of that poll. And I was lucky.”
He recalled that when playing on sand green you swept a track for your putt, and someone in a previous group had left their putting track on the sand green.
“And my ball went on the green, hit the side of that track, and ran along there and went in the hole. And there it was, just leaning against that stick. You couldn’t do that again if you shot the rest of your life.”
He has also collected a hole in one while playing in Hawaii, and on one course in Arizona he has played only 20 times he boasts two hole in ones there.
His most recent hole in one stands out as his favourite. On April 18, 2003 he was playing the Cranbrook Golf Club while waiting to surprise his daughter Marj on her 40th birthday.
Corrins was the founder of Swift Litho Printing in 1957, and he and Ken Leitch launched the Southwest Booster on May 8, 1969.
He said golf was a much needed break from the long hours of running a start-up business.
“When we started Swift Litho Printing we were just hanging on starting a business and not much money,” he said. “I could come out here and forget all about work. So that’s what a lot of it was. I mean you went in early and you worked nights and do everything you can. So I could just forget about work.”