PHOTO COURTESY Michael VALK
Medicine Hat College Rattlers golfer Michael Valk sizes up a putt during the ACAC championship tournament held last weekend at Alberta Springs Golf Course in Red Deer.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Michael Valk is looking to continue what has been a hot year of golf.
The 25-year-old Medicine Hat College Rattler is coming off his second straight ACAC championship, winning gold at the ACAC finals Tuesday at Red Deer’s Alberta Springs Golf Course.
Valk won the three-day event by six strokes, finishing 12 under par for the tournament win.
“Last year was obviously nice to go out there and play as well as I could, and then this year as well,” Valk said. “That course fits my game very well, so to be able to play up to what I can is really nice, and obviously to win again is really cool.”
Valk says the Red Deer course is fairly short allowing him to hit his driver well on the par fours and a few of the par fives.
The win Tuesday is another tally in what has been a strong two-year stretch for Valk, having won all three ACAC tournaments this season. He was the ACAC’s 2023 male golfer of the year, winning the championship and finishing second at the national tournament that fall. He was the top amateur at the Alberta Open at Desert Blume Golf Club in mid-August.
Valk is looking to make good of his second-place finish at nationals last season.
“I’m looking forward to hopefully bringing home the gold at nationals, my goal posts have moved towards that,” Valk said.
He says he’s taken a step over the last couple of years and he’s looking to continue his momentum.
“I’ve been a late bloomer all through life, so it’s kind of fitting that it’s starting to come up a little bit later now, but it’s been great,” Valk said. “It’s obviously a lot more fun playing in tournaments and different competitions when your game is good. So it’s been a ton of fun the last two years and hopefully I can continue that for more years to come.”
Rattlers golf coach Dillon Batsel has known Valk a long time, sharing a friendship long before he become the MHC coach. He says he and Valk hold each other to a high golfing standard and he’s looking for the young golfer to turn it up even more.
“Going into nationals, there’ll be a few things that we work on and hopefully we can get a little better in those areas where he feels that he wants to improve on before we leave there,” Batsel said.
“All we can ask for the men’s team, for him and for the ladies is to have a chance to win. But especially for Mike, I know that’s a goal of his, so if we can just have a chance there on that last day, that’s what we’re going to be striving for.”
Valk will head to the CCAA national tournament held at Humber College, from Oct. 14-18, in Etobicoke, Ont. He’ll be joined by the other four members of the Rattlers men’s team who qualified and two members of the women’s team, Taryn Sanderson and Kiara Reesor who made it on individual scores.
The Rattlers men’s team is Rylan Montgomery, Rylan Hodgson, Valk, Keelan Burzminski and Jace Shannon. Batsel says he always tries to get players to the nationals level, and is proud of how his group has played this season. He is looking forward to more of the same at nationals.
“The first two days didn’t go as well as everyone expected to and the fact that they just had the character to come out that last day and really have by far the best day of our tournament says a lot about them,” Batsel said.
“I’m so just very proud of how they responded on that third day and how happy they were on the bus ride home that they had clinched that birth to nationals. That was something that was really, really cool for me.”
