Del Duffield, a local golf aficionado, has taken his love for the game a step further than most – he’s golfed all 131 public courses in Manitoba over the past few decades.
Duffield, who said he first became interested in the sport in his early 20s after being introduced to it by people from his church, was actually inspired to achieve his lofty goal by an iconic 680 CJOB personality.
Duffield said he was listening to the late Red Alix over the air, talking about how he wanted to accomplish the same goal in retirement.
“I’d already golfed about 30-40 at the time,” said Duffield.
“I didn’t know how many golf courses there were in Manitoba. I looked it up, saw there were about 131 golf courses, so I thought, ‘well, I needed a goal’.”
To achieve it, Duffield settled on covering about 10 courses in the province per year, pairing his trips with camping excursions with his wife.
By last year, Duffield had only two courses remaining, in Thompson and Snow Lake, Man. He decided to cross off another item on his bucket list by visiting Churchill while he was already in northern Manitoba.
The trip was one of many unforgettable experiences, he said, that likely wouldn’t have happened without his golf goal.
Duffield said his favourite courses are Killarney, Hecla Island, and Granite Hills – primarily because of their level of difficulty, as well as being on the water.
“We not only did (golf), but we did the camping, and saw different parts of Manitoba that I probably never would have seen,” he said.
“It was a win-win situation in a lot of different ways, to do that and get to finish it up.”