NEWS PHOTO SEAN ROONEY Mitchell Kurtz hits a chip shot from behind the 17th green at the Victoria Day Classic at the Medicine Hat Golf and Country Club on Monday, May 20, 2019.
srooney@medicinehatnews.com@MHNRooney
Missing one of his front teeth and using a putter he got out of a bargain bin, Mitchell Kurtz threw caution to the wind and won his second Victoria Day Classic Monday.
The 28-year-old posted a weekend-best 3-under par 69 in the final round, overcoming a four-shot deficit to start the day.
Just like Brooks Koepka did after winning the PGA Championship a day earlier, Kurtz pumped his fist as he finished with a birdie on the 18th hole.
“That was the stab in the heart of the victory,” said Kurtz, who also won the Medicine Hat Golf and Country Club’s signature event in 2014. “I knew I won at that point. I figured I could two-putt, but I don’t want to two-putt, I want this to go in the hole.”
Redcliff’s Ryan Werre finished second, three shots back. Local television reporter Mitch Bach, who had the lead through 36 holes, suffered an injury and wound up sixth.
A week after his induction into the Medicine Hat Sports Wall of Fame, Kelly Risling won the senior men’s event, with rounds of 77, 73 and 73. Gary Kavanaugh was 10 shots back.
In the women’s event, Becky Martin won her eighth Vic Day trophy in the last nine years, posting rounds of 75, 79 and 76 to wind up 23 shots ahead of Pat Hall.
“It was a good start,” said Martin, who hopes to compete in the Canadian Women’s Amateur later this summer in Red Deer. “I found out what I needed to clean up, so it’s nice there’s a tournament that’s really (early in the season).”
Risling and Martin are pretty much golf legends in the Gas City by this point. Kurtz is far from a nobody in the local scene, having played for Medicine Hat College for years and winning both the Victoria Day and Southeastern Open titles back-to-back five years ago.
But he fancies himself something of an underdog, just like Koepka, and drew inspiration from the burgeoning star’s story.
“I watched the Feherty episode with Brooks Koepka… I was always a secondary, overlooked a little bit, and I can kind of relate to this guy,” said Kurtz. “Obviously I’m nowhere near his calibre, but a lot of what he does, he just walks on the course, never seems really bothered by anything, so I tried that today and it made a huge difference.”
Unlike Koepka, however, Kurtz didn’t have the lead to start the final day. He’d shot 73 Saturday and 77 Sunday. So he took chances Monday, like massively hooking a ball around trouble on the second hole, aiming straight at the pin on others and winding up birdieing the final two holes to take the win.
As for going with a raggedy-looking, $35 blade putter he found at Desert Blume? It worked on the practice green, and trailing by four shots he figured he didn’t have much to lose. It turned out to be a good hunch.
“I was putting with a Spider the first two days, I was 35 and 38 putts,” he said. “This one, I would look at the hole and knock it in. It felt like a totally different game.”
And his tooth? It’s in pieces, originally knocked out in a lacrosse game, then the replacement ripped out as he tried to rip Gorilla tape with it, then stepped on at a ball hockey game.
It may be a goofy look between that and the putter, but it was a winning one.
