90-year-old golf tourney overcomes challenges
It was rather fitting that the two players who squared off in the championship match of the 90th annual Essex-Kent Junior Golf Tournament Wednesday at Roseland made it a true Essex-Kent final.
James Hill, an Essex County resident, took on Garret Day, of Kent County, in an 18-hole match-play final won by Hill on the 18th green.
So Hill joins a storied list of past champions that includes the tournament’s first winner, Joe Bialkowski in 1929, along with Canadian icons Rudy Horvath and Bob Panasik.
“It’s really special because of the history,” said the 16-year-old junior member at both Essex Golf and Country Club and Beach Grove Golf and Country Club. “It’s a unique tournament and a tough format.”
Widely considered the longestrunning junior tournament in Canada, the Essex-Kent has survived the Great Depression, a world war and the contentious inclusion of girls into the field in the late 1980s and with it an accompanying name change from the Essex-Kent Boys Tournament. More recently, the three-day tournament, which continues to be free for all players, has struggled to survive in the face of a shrinking base of volunteer organizers, sponsors and participants.
“It’s slowly climbing back,” said Roseland pro Randy McQueen, who won the coveted E-K trophy 25 years ago and proudly watched his eight-year-old son James play in this year’s event.
The 90th anniversary will be remembered for two significant milestones.
First, Vanessa Ardovini made tournament history when she shot a 37 Monday to become the first female golfer to earn medallist honours in the novice division for 11- and 12-year-olds.
Second, the 2017 event became the first to offer a field for eightto 10-year-olds on the beginnerfriendly “shorty” course at Roseland.
At 16, Hill will only get his name etched on the trophy once. He turns 17 Thursday.
The tournament is restricted to those 16 years and under and only twice in nine decades has a talented young teenager placed his name on the trophy three times.
Panasik, who went on at 15 to set a record at the time as the youngest player ever to participate in a PGA event, won it in 1956, 1957 and 1958.
Calvin Kupeyan, who went on to play nine holes with then-sitting U.S. president Bill Clinton while attending college at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, matched Panasik with a triple crown in 1995, 1996 and 1997.
Panasik, 75, was at Roseland to see Hill clinch victory with a short par putt at 18 for a 2-up final score.
“This tournament prepares you for tournament golf,” Panasik said. “Anybody who came out of Windsor that was any good played in the Essex-Kent. It’s a major part of how you start your career. “
Horvath, who learned the game at the knee of Bialkowski, only won the title once but he, too, went on to play on the PGA Tour and held a tour record that lasted 36 years when he shot a 61 at the 1954 Texas Open, representing the lowest round by a foreign player.
“It’s priceless to this community,” Panasik said of the event.
He remembers receiving a Rideau watch from Birks jewellers for his first E-K victory.
“I was a kid and I went to school with a Birks Rideau watch,” he said. “I was a star.”