PHOTO COURTESY OF CONNAUGHT GOLF CLUB
Connaught Golf Club's hole 17 will be on full display when the Medicine Hat course hosts the Seniors Championship of Canada August 23-26.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
High-end golf is on its way to Medicine Hat this summer.
In a Twitter post Tuesday morning, PGA of Canada announced Connaught Golf Club will host the Seniors Championship of Canada from August 23-26.
It will be the first PGA event Connaught has hosted in its nearly 100 years of golf. General manager Jeffrey Roy said bringing the tournament to Connaught has been in the works since mid-March. He said he was excited when he heard PGA Canada was looking for a course to host the national tournament.
“They know I have a track record of doing major events and then I put up a presentation that was basically selling the City of Medicine Hat and why it would be a good idea because it would be the biggest thing coming to the Hat in summer 2022,” Roy said. “A little profile on the city, population density, how many hotels we have, do we have an airport, are we close to a major metropolitan area like Calgary, all that kind of stuff.”
This will be the third national championship Roy has worked on, with the first two coming in Ontario. He worked the 2011 Canadian Assistance Championship at Cherry Hills Club and was the co-chair at a 2004 LPGA women’s tournament in Niagara Falls. Roy joined Connaught in early March after coming out of retirement for the third time.
He said he didn’t think about bringing a national championship to Connaught when he took the job but said he’s looking forward to showcasing the course and the city off when 80-90 golfers arrive for the tournament.
Roy said they won’t have to make any changes to the course ahead of the tournament and said he was surprised when he arrived at how nice of a course it is.
“I was explaining to the board of directors, when I interviewed, your product is the golf course. Everything else after that is window dressing. That’s what we do,” Roy said. “We want to enhance the experience of the golf course. Once I got a chance to see the golf course, holy crap, this thing’s really good. It far exceeded my understanding of what I thought it was going to be like.”
Connaught opened its season April 1, and like the rest of the courses in Medicine Hat, had to quickly cover up with the snow that hit mid month. Roy said it was the first time in the course’s history they had to re-tarp the greens as they wouldn’t survive the cold. He said they were encouraged by the volunteer help they had from the membership that will proove useful at the tournament in August.
“We got 16 people together and we did a two-day job in three hours,” Roy said. “There’s a great sense of community amongst the membership, I’ve heard it so many times that Connauht is southern Alberta’s friendliest golf course. So that volunteer base will come in handy when you have to put together a national championship.”
Roy thinks the tournament will show off Medicine Hat and impress their visitors as much as he was when he arrived in the Gas City.
“I would like to see more of Canada be aware that Medicine Hat is truly Canada’s most sunniest city, that it really is a jewel,” Roy said. “This is really nice down here and that’s what I think of Medicine Hat, this is a great city. This is a hidden gem and if we can raise the awareness to the city, everybody’s going to win.”
