Amateurs stoked to fuel inner fire at home
Competitive circuit produces ‘PGA-like’ highs, measuring sticks for social big leagues
Tim Ferris and Mike Bleackley won’t be mistaken for Adam Hadwin or Nick Taylor.
But they do have something in common with the two Abbotsford pros, who are both rookies this year on the PGA Tour.
Just like Hadwin and Taylor, Ferris and Bleackley have used the Vancouver Golf Tour to keep their games sharp and fuel their competitive fire.
OK, maybe that’s where the similarities end.
Ferris and Bleackley certainly won’t be joining Hadwin and Taylor in golf’s promised land. The two are lifelong amateurs with no pro aspirations. But they love to golf while competing against their peers and the Vancouver Golf Tour gives them an opportunity to do just that.
The VGT, run by hard-working commissioner Fraser Mulholland, is perhaps best known for giving top local pros a place to play.
Hadwin and Taylor both won multiple VGT titles en route to the PGA Tour. But there is also a significant amateur component to the tour, which guys like Ferris and Bleackley appreciate.
This is as close as they are going to get to the big leagues. In a way, the VGT is their PGA Tour.
“It takes it to beyond playing with our pals for skins and stuff like that,” says Bleackley, a 41-year-old partner in a Vancouver creative agency. “You are standing over an 18-inch putt and no one is shouting out ‘that’s good.’ So you feel it.
“It’s like a tour experience for an amateur in a way. You get to feel a bit what the pros would feel like in our sport. It has helped me push my game to another level. So when I practise now, I’m a little more intense. There’s a real competitive spirit out here and it’s a good group of guys.”
Ferris, a 51-year-old Vancouver investment adviser, agrees.
“Fraser puts on just a fabulous production,” says Ferris. “It doesn’t matter who you are playing with, as soon as you get out there it’s like ‘I am playing real golf.’ Everything counts out here. If I take a quad, I take a quad. It just makes you really focus and bear down.”
Ferris, a six handicap, didn’t have any quads earlier this week at the VGT’s Pitt Meadows Open. But he had to weather a triplebogey and some doubles before rebounding with a couple of birdies late in his round.
One of those birdies came on the par-5 18th hole, when he made a near-impossible up and down from left of the green. He shot an 84, or a net 78, which did not get him to the prize table.
Ferris has been playing the VGT for the past five or six years and plays a half-dozen or so events each year. He’s had a tough start to this year, but does have a couple of wins and a pair of second-place finishes on his resume.
He won one event with a birdie on the 18th hole and the other with an up-and-down for par on the final hole.
“When you come in like that and have a putt to win it, it’s just outstanding,” Ferris says. “And the high that you get off that is just ridiculous.”
Ferris and his employer, Haywood Securities, are now one of the VGT’s many corporate sponsors.
Bleackley, a seven handicap, rarely misses a VGT event and tees it up in 20 or 25 events a year. He, too, struggled at this week’s Pitt Meadows Open, where he shot an 86, or net 79. But like Ferris, he has tasted victory on the VGT.
“I have won three times over the seven or eight years I have been trying,” he says. “It hasn’t come easy, but I have had some success. It feels great to win.”
Amateurs are slotted into flights based on their Golf Canada handicap factor. Anyone with a handicap of 18 or less is welcome to join the tour, which runs virtually year-round. There is a separate flight for women.
“We sort of fill a void for a lot of the amateur players that maybe don’t have a membership at a private club,” says Mulholland. “They utilize us as a place to play and have a tee time as well as a fun, social competition. We have a lot of guys that have joined right from the get-go in 2007. They just love it.”
Amateurs compete for prizes at each event and there’s also a season-long points race à la the FedEx Cup.
Annual memberships cost between $155 and $180 and include a number of perks, such as Srixon golf balls and discounted green fees. For information, visit vancouvergolftour.com.