St. Boniface Golfer
he tall glass of wine and the smile as wide as a fairway said everything about Tammy Gibson’s opinion on birth certificates.
The St. Boniface member was celebrating her second Manitoba match play title in three years on the patio at Niakwa Country Club after a 5-and-4 victory over Kathryn McKenzie in Saturday’s 36-hole final.
“I’m 50 next year and I feel like I can still compete with some of the younger golfers,” Gibson said.
“I made the (provincial amateur) team last year (finishing fourth in the amateur). I just do the best I can and I’m trying not to take it too seriously. I think I’ve matured that way. I’m not doing it for a living, so why let it bother you?”
The second match play title felt just as good as the first.
“I cherish them both,” Gibson said. “I’ve always liked match play. When you have a bad hole, you can just forget about it. In stroke play, you’re always thinking about your score all day.”
After a tight morning that gave her a 1-up lead, Gibson put a virtual lock on the trophy by winning the first seven holes of the afternoon.
McKenzie, of the Manitoba public players’ club, cut into the margin by winning Nos. 9, 10, 11 and 13, but the deficit was too large and Gibson closed her out with a two-putt par from about eight feet at the par-3 14th.
On the men’s side, it’s becoming clear that Brad Kirton may have to change his phone number.
The 26-year-old Pine Ridge member is going to have to do something to keep all the trophy-cabinet makers away.
Kirton is in an enviable place right now as the holder of three of Manitoba’s top amateur golf trophies. As well as the Jack Blair Memorial trophy for Saturday’s 3-and-2 final win over Elmhurst’s Peter More, Kirton is the reigning provincial amateur and mid-amateur champ.
“It’s a real feeling of satisfaction, a reward,” Kirton said “It’s about seeing all the hard work pay off and having patience and finding out the effort was worth it.”
He figures to be the target in the balance of the summer’s amateur competitions.
“It’s nice to be at the top but it’s harder to stay there,” he said. “I’m taking one day off, well, OK, another one, too, this week for Iron Maiden, and then it’s back to the course to work on things.”
After an all-square morning, Kirton won Nos. 7, 8 and 9 in the afternoon to go from 2-down to 1-up.
“It was the first time I’ve been down two the whole tournament but I started to hit some quality shots and that put some pressure on him,” said Kirton, who lost last year’s match play final in a blowout against Ben Bandura. “Last year, I got overzealous. This year, I just breathed and let it out, got the tension out of my upper body.”
In hitting good shots most of the rest of the way, Kirton denied More a third match play title.
More had previously won in 2006 and 2001 and was bidding to equal Terry Hashimoto’s trio of Jack Blair trophies.
“He’s had my number lots of times — I read that and I already knew that — and I used that for some motivation today,” Kirton added. “I figured eventually the ball had to go the other way.”
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