Despite a pandemic that resulted in all kinds of first-time COVID-19 protocols and playing on empty courses, the 2020 golf season went off without a hitch in Manitoba. And the players who delivered many of the standout performances are among the finalists for Female and Male Golfer of the Year honours.
The quartet of female finalists includes three-time winner Rhonda Orr of Southwood, who is gunning for a third consecutive award and fourth in the last five years. Orr won her seventh provincial senior women’s title in the last eight years by a whopping nine-stroke margin in late July at Carman. She also tied for fifth place in the Women’s City & District Championship in late June at Portage.
A three-peat for Orr will be anything but a done deal with Bobbi Uhl of Shilo, Kingswood’s Veronica Vetesnik and Crystal Zamzow of Swan River also vying for the honour.
Uhl, who is a member of the women’s golf team at Longwood University in Farmville, Va., kicked off the competitive summer season schedule in late June by winning the Golf Manitoba Women’s Match Play Championship at St. Charles with a 5 and 4 victory over the defending champ, Hannah Diamond of the host club.
Uhl came very close to adding a second trophy to her collection just a couple of weeks later with a runner-up finish — by a single stroke — in the Diamond Athletic Women’s Amateur Championship at Bel Acres.
It was Vetesnik who won that epic final-round showdown versus Uhl, which came right down to the 54th and final hole, for her first provincial women’s amateur title.
And Zamzow, who is just 14 years old, won the Provincial Junior Women’s Championship in mid-July in Selkirk, recorded a second-place finish at the Junior Women’s Bantam Championship and a top-10 showing in the women’s amateur, and won two Maple Leaf Junior Tour events.
Golf Manitoba public player Cala Korman, Charmaine Mackid of Breezy Bend and Marissa Naylor of Pineridge received honourable mentions for their performances in 2020.
The future of men’s golf in Manitoba would also seem to be very bright based on the youthful foursome of finalists for the 2020 Male Golfer of the Year Award. That group includes Manitoba match play champion Austin Dobrescu of Shilo, who also had a top-five finish in the Nott Autocorp Manitoba Men’s Amateur Championship.
Braxton Kuntz of Breezy Bend was a second-place finisher in the Provincial Junior Men’s Championship, finishing just a single stroke away from forcing a playoff. He led the Manitoba men’s amateur after 54 holes before winding up fourth, and also made it to the quarterfinals of the Manitoba Men’s Match Play Championship at St. Charles.
A pair of wins on the Maple Leaf Junior Tour, coupled with his outstanding 2020 season, earned Kuntz an invite to the Golf Canada National Junior Squad Selection Camp that just wrapped up earlier this month at the Bear Mountain Golf Resort in Victoria, B.C.
Neel Soni of St. Charles Country Club ended his junior competitive career with a bang by leading the provincial championship at Selkirk from start to finish for his first title. And less than a week later, Soni played his way to a second-place showing in the Manitoba men’s amateur, finishing just three shots out of top spot.
Soni would have qualified to represent Manitoba on the junior men’s and men’s amateur interprovincial teams had the 2020 national season not been cancelled due to the pandemic.
Marco Trstenjak of the Elmhurst Golf & Country Club had a great start to the competitive season by playing his way to medallist honours at the match play qualifier in Winkler and earning the No. 1 seed for the Manitoba Men’s Match Play Championship at St. Charles, where he advanced to the round of 16.
But Trstenjak saved his best for later in the summer by finishing at 2 under, 286 for a three-stroke victory in the Nott Autocorp Manitoba Men’s Amateur at Minnewasta in Morden and Glendale. He capped off the year by winning the 36-hole Elmhurst Invitational on his home course with an even-par score of 141.
Four golfers merited the distinction of honourable mention status in the male category. That group included 2019 winner Colwyn Abgrall of Southwood and the Breezy Bend trio of Eric Johnson, Allan McDonald and Justin McDonald.
As a result of the ongoing spread of the coronavirus in Manitoba, the 2020 awards reception has been cancelled and the winners, as well as the recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, will be announced via all Golf Manitoba social media platforms on Wednesday, Nov. 4.