With 22 years of experience and over 500 tournaments held through those years, the McLennan Ross Junior golf tour in Alberta keeps improving.
The tour adds new courses once in awhile or welcomes back other courses from a brief absence. The four charter member courses, Innisfail, Lacombe, Nanton and Ponoka remain part of the tour which speaks to its importance for junior golf.
In addition to the nuts and bolts of the tour there seems to be more interest from the young men and women who tee it up.
Not only are these kids hitting it longer and straighter, they are also becoming very well spoken ambassadors for growing the game they love to play.
Wolf Creek Golf Resort was the site of the 2017 tour launch recently and four players were on hand to speak to the media about this upcoming season and their own start on the tour.
“It was always, when you go to a tournament you’re nervous because of all the older kids there and you’re just the young guy out there playing,” said Chase Broderson from the Lacombe GCC. He’s a 16 year old grizzled veteran of four years on the tour.
Thirteen year old Brooke Brezovski plays out of the Sturgeon Valley GC and she recalls her first tournament as being very “rough” and intimidating.
“There were a lot more girls than I thought there would be,”, she said. “It was an emotional roller coaster for sure.”
She really likes the individual part of the game of golf because it’s all you, in a good way.
“When you make a mistake you can really learn from it yourself and then if you do good, you feel like you really earned it yourself.”
Broderson is fully supportive of anyone who wants to get some solid tournament playing experience to give the tour a chance. His only advice is to have fun and enjoy it.
Brezovski says she’s is proud of the fact she’s competitive with the other girls but at the same time has formed some strong bonds with those same players.
It’s a big positive for the tour which faces the same issue as private and public courses-getting more girls out playing golf.
Brooke says having these small, one day tournaments are great for drawing out girls to play as there is less pressure to play well like in a two or three day event. She also is in favour of group golf camps where you are not playing in a competitive tournament atmosphere.
“So that way, when you’re still golfing with other girls it’s just having fun and then once you feel more comfortable to get on the course you’re ready to compete.”
For Broderson , he appreciates the rules knowledge he has picked up over the years and expects it will help him as he moves up the ladder to bigger tournaments as he gets older.
He says watching some of the more experienced players play on the tour makes a person think about being that person one day and it makes you work harder.
“Jared Nichols used to play on this tour,” said Broderson. “You try to follow in his footsteps and do what he did.”
Nichols is a former Team Alberta member as a junior and won the McLennan Ross Tour championship in 2014 so he’s not a bad example to emulate.
So it appears the McLennan Ross Junior Golf Tour is in some very capable, young hands as it moves towards year 23 in Alberta.
