Cooke Municipal Golf Course in Prince Albert will be hosting three Golf Saskatchewan championship tournaments this summer. (submitted photo/Cooke Municipal Golf Course)

By Trevor Redden

Championship Course

Cooke cleared to host championship events

Jun 18, 2020 | 2:00 PM

The provincial government has given the go ahead for Golf Saskatchewan to hold eight championship events this summer, and three of them will be held at Cooke Municipal Golf Course.

Guidelines for the sport laid out in the Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan indicate “tournaments and shotgun starts are prohibited” but the governing body has come to an agreement to see that certain events can take place.

“Our staff with Golf Saskatchewan, we’ve put a plan together to operate under phase one of the guidelines set out by the Government of Saskatchewan. We’ve sent that to the business task force,” Steven Ryde, manager of tournaments for Golf Saskatchewan, said. “They’ve reviewed it for a number of weeks and we finally got an email confirmation yesterday that we did get the go ahead to run an event or championship in Prince Albert.”

Cooke will be a hub of physically distant activity on the weekend of July 28-30, as the club will host the Men’s and Women’s Senior Championships [55+] as well as the Mid-Master’s Championship [40+]. The events will look a little different with safety measures including no touching of the pin and no rakes in bunkers. The required 12-minute gap between tee times will make the days run longer than they would normally.

In accordance with government requirements, all competitors will start from the first tee, as shotgun starts are not allowed.

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“Currently it’s at 12-minute intervals, but us and the golf courses are hoping it gets bumped to 10 minutes per hours,” Ryde said.

“We’re looking at all options if we do threesomes or foursomes in a group. We’ll be teeing off at 7 a.m. and hoping that it will be a full tee sheet. In the past we’ve had close to 120 golfers because you’re looking at senior women’s, senior men’s, and also the mid-masters men so it’s kind of three championships within the championship.”

Cooke is one of four courses in the province chosen to hold championships this year, along with the Willows in Saskatoon, Elmwood in Swift Current, and The Legends in Warman. Ryde expressed excitement at the opportunity to hold competition in Prince Albert.

“It’s a fabulous golf course and a lot of golfers across the province really love playing there. When it was officially announced that we’re going to Cooke, there was some big excitement around the province, not just in Prince Albert.”

Registration for the championships opens Friday, June 19 on the Golf Saskatchewan website.

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trevor.redden@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Trevor_Redden