Ace contest kicks off event
Successful participants can face top players
The most recent of Darryl James’ four holes- in- one was not even close to being his most cherished golf memory from last season.
“I made one just after the Shaw ( Charity Classic) at our ( PGA of Alberta) tour championship out at the Hamptons. A week after that I was playing at Delacour and made a two on a par 5. It was a good couple of weeks,” said the Calgary teaching professional.
But that stretch of two weeks began, most notably, when James successfully qualified to play in the Champions Tour’s Shaw Charity Classic at Canyon Meadows, putting him in the field with most of the game’s top 50- and- over players, including eventual winner Fred Couples, a former Masters champion.
James hit from a Shaw Charity Classic tee box again on Wednesday at the Calgary Golf Canada Centre to introduce the tournament’s new hole- in- one contest. Without a warmup swing, his two attempts both landed on the green of the 135- yard first hole, but neither came to rest in the cup.
The contest is a three- stage process open to individuals who register an attested ace of 85 yards or longer at a Golf Canada member club between March 1 and July 20.
Those who hit a hole- in- one will be invited — at their own expense — to Calgary Golf Canada Centre on July 24 for a closest to the pin contest. The 10 best shots there will be brought back for the Shaw Charity Classic’s media day July 29 to compete again. The best shot there wins their own full team in the tournament’s pro am, a $ 20,000 value.
James said the winner will be in for a memorable day playing with some of the game’s greats.
“The guys out there are super guys and their interaction with the amateurs, who get the opportunity to play with some of the legends of the game, is invaluable,” he said.
James made his Champions Tour debut in Calgary in 2014 and finished 80th. He then journeyed down to the tour’s extremely tough qualifying tournament in Phoenix at the end of the season and got to the final stage but couldn’t secure one of five cards.
This year James is planning to attempt to qualify for the Shaw Charity Classic again, unless he is awarded a sponsor’s exemption. He is also contemplating trying to earn a spot in the U. S. Senior Open, the British Senior Open, Champions Tour’s Boeing Classic in Seattle Aug. 27- 29 and the Quebec Championship Sept. 4- 6.
“( The Shaw Charity Classic) kind of reignited the fire in me to start playing more competitively again,” James said Wednesday.