A golfer tees off on the opening day of the 2023 Junior Northern Championships in Prince Albert. (Derek Craddock/paNOW Staff)

By Derek Craddock

JUNIOR NATIONALS

Junior program grows at Cooke golf course as Junior Northern tournament begins

Jul 6, 2023 | 4:00 PM

The best junior golfers in northern Saskatchewan have teed off for the 2023 Junior Northern Championships.

Cooke Municipal Golf Course in Prince Albert is the host course for this event with about 20 golfers participating this year from Prince Albert, Birch Hills, Kinistino, and Saskatoon.

While that number is a drop from last year’s competition due to other tournaments taking place, Drew Ryhorchuk, an apprentice professional with Cooke Golf Course said their junior program has seen amazing growth through the year.

“This year we actually have had 108 kids join us throughout May until now,” he said. “We started Junior Up 36, which is a program that you try and beat par of 36 every week and the spring session we saw 22 kids in that, 144 for this summer that just started yesterday and then with our clinics and everything, we saw another 58 kids there. So, the program is growing.”

Compare that to last year when Ryhorchuk said there were only 50 junior golfers total in those programs and clinics, adding it’s not just the boys that are coming in.

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“Another (program) that we started was Girls in the Game and we had 17, where we only had one girl last year join us for our junior programs.”

The Junior Northern teed off on Thursday afternoon and will run until Friday with the champions being crowned at 5:30 p.m.

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derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @princealbertnow