Victoria teen Sihota continues rapid climb up Canadian junior golf ladder

Victoria golf prodigy Jeevan Sihota won the Future Links Pacific Championship on Sunday at Chilliwack Golf & Country Club. The 13-year-old Grade 7 student continued his uncanny climb in the game by taking the U-17 tournament.

Sihota is already a three-time world champion in the age six, eight and 12 classes in the U.S. Kids World Championship and Junior World competitions in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and San Diego.

“I’ve been in these situations lots of times,” Sihota said in a statement.

He carded a final-round 67 to win by one shot. Sihota finished the 54-hole tournament at 10-under par, one shot better than B.C. Junior Boys champion and fellow-Islander Tristan Mandur of Mill Bay and also Langley’s Khan Lee.

Sihota, who turned 13 in March, is believed to be the youngest winner of a Future Links event. He is the latest Vancouver Island youngster to shine on a big stage. Last summer, Victoria’s Nolan Thoroughgood, then 15, became the youngest winner in the 114year history of the B.C. Men’s Amateur Championship.

Sihota was introduced to golf by his dad, Jas, when he was four years old.

Mandur, who is off to the University of Utah on an NCAA Div. 1 golf scholarship this fall, made it close when he birdied his final two holes. But Sihota, playing in the final group with Mandur and second-round leader Chandler McDowell of Springbrook, Alta., calmly two-putted for his par on the 18th green to seal the win.

The top six finishers earned exemptions into this summer’s Canadian Junior Boys Championship in Kingston, Ont. Keaton Gudz of Victoria, who was fifth at 7-under par, and Carter Graf of Red Deer, Alta., who finished tied for sixth at 5-under, earned the final two exemptions. Graf won his spot by beating Aidan Goodfellow of Parksville in a playoff.

Thoroughgood and national development team member A.J. Ewart of Coquitlam both closed with four-under 68s to finish at three-under and tied for eighth place.

Seventeen-year-old Mary Parsons from Delta won her second consecutive Future Links Pacific women’s championship Sunday.