Blume, Rattlers host Canada college golf championship starting today

By JAMES TUBB on October 14, 2025.

jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb

The top collegiate golfers in Canada will tee off at Desert Blume today.

The Desert Blume Golf Club and Medicine Hat College Rattlers are hosting the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association golf championship starting today at the local course, with 69 athletes from Alberta, Ontario and Quebec facing off.

“We always look forward to hosting big tournaments, provincial championships, national championships, it’s good to showcase the golf course,” Desert Blume general manager/owner Trevor Ellerman said. “It’s nice to have people from across Canada coming into Medicine Hat and getting to experience and see what the city is all about as well.”

The Rattlers will have eight golfers teeing it up, with five male participants (Rylan Hodgson, Hayden King, Wyatt Bishop, Keelan Burzminski and Isaac Stehr) and three female golfers (Ava Bratvold, Zoe Hodgson and Kiara Ressor).

Rattlers’ golf coach Dillon Batsel says there is familiarity with the Blume for the local golfers, something they hope to take advantage of.

“One of the hardest things to adjust to are the greens and being able to read the greens to the point where making putts consistently, and every time that I come home being at a course that I played a bunch, I tend to putt a lot better just because I know where the breaks are going,” Batsel said. “There will be an element of that for our team this week, they are just very comfortable with the greens. They’re comfortable with the speeds, comfortable with knowing the breaks and that’s got to play to our advantage.”

The Rattlers women’s team enters the tournament ranked sixth, the men’s team eighth. Batsel has been proud of the women’s team this season, with each golfer improving on their personal bests from last season. On the men’s side, he’s seen each of them have success at different times, looking to the last tournament for all of them to hit their stride at the same time.

Hodgson finished second in the ACAC’s first tournament and Burzminski shot his personal best in the second ACAC event. On the year, the women’s team finished second at the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference championship, the men finished fourth. Their mixed team finished second, a finish Batsel says perfectly describes the year they’ve had.

“We have three guys that take two scores and two girls that take one score and with the girls being really strong this year and portions of our guys team have been good each tournament, that’s where we got that result for the mixed,” Batsel said.

Three of the Rattlers have previous nationals experience, with Hodgson, Burzminski and Reesor all playing at last year’s tournament in London, Ont. Batsel believes that experience will help ease any nerves of the tournament this year.

The Rattlers can also lean on the experience of Batsel, who has played at the pro level, and assistant coach Mike Valk who won back-to-back ACAC male golfer of the year awards the last two seasons. Batsel says they’ve leaned on Valk all season.

“Guys on the team look up to Mike and everybody respects him, including myself,” Batsel said. “Having him be part of the team with his resumé, especially with the Rattlers and just being their teammate over the last couple of years, for a lot of these people on the team this year, it’s been amazing to have him on the team.”

The first tee time of the tournament is today at 9:30 a.m., featuring Hodgson. There is a chance for a small delay due to winter-like weather projected for the start of the week. Ellerman says they’ve prepped the course the last few weeks and will hope the forecasts are a little off to start the tournament.

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