In recent years, there has been much opportunity for the youth in our community to gain exposure to the game of golf with the assistance of an instructional program for those who wish to learn the game from professionals. Additionally, a competitive void has evolved to challenge the skill sets of already established junior players through tournament play.
Competitively speaking, families navigate through the GAO Junior Pathway system in the attempt to piecemeal summer tournament schedules together. Up until now, this could only be accomplished by registering with junior tours elsewhere beyond the borders of Lambton County. Parents of children committed to tournament golf essentially need to travel to Windsor-Essex, London-Middlesex or the GTA and Golden Horseshoe area to compete.
Recognizing this and to address these shortcomings, a group of local stakeholders have become keenly interested in revamping the Sarnia-Lambton junior golf landscape through the creation of the Lambton Junior Golf Tour.
A group of like minded people who wanted to change this scenario convened and we met for our first organizational meeting to promote the development of a local junior golf series. Present at that meeting were Dr. Michael Rocca, Head Golf Professional at Huron Oaks Cameron Rankin, Manager of the St.Clair Parkway Golf Course Karen Grant and CEO and GM of Indian Hills Golf Club Ken Hoare. A consensus was reached that we would strive to establish a local junior tour that would address the deficiencies of our local junior golf scene.
We had the great fortune of forging a partnership with the SMAA and in the process had the great pleasure of adding SMAA President Lynn LeFaive to our planning committee with the intention of reintroducing golf as an SMAA offering. The SMAA is no stranger to golf and has both an established and storied history locally with junior golf. We have corresponded and gained valuable insight from other established junior tours and look to incorporate their structure to ensure our events operate successfully and provide participants with fun and positive experiences.
We received the most welcome news from CFP, Christopher Rocca of IG Wealth Management confirming the Investor’s Group’s intention to support our initiative as a corporate sponsor. With consideration of their financial commitment towards this endeavour, we are proud to announce the genesis of the Lambton Junior Golf Tour (LJGT) presented by IG Wealth Management for the 2023 season!
The registration portal is now open on the S.M.A.A. website and closes on April 16, 2024.
Registration will be limited to the first 80 registrants!
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Dear Lambton Junior Golf Tour Alumni and NEW 2024 Participants,
We hope this newsletter finds you well and you are having a safe offseason! Spring is around the corner and with much excitement we can't wait to launch the 2024 junior golf season!
There have been some exciting developments with our tour that we would like to share with all of you at this time.
First, the Lambton Junior Golf Tour WAS transitioning to a new tour name: BluewaterJuniorGolfTour.ca to better reflect the region where we conduct our events and to allow us to expand our appeal to potential future host sites that are beyond the borders of Lambton County. However, to avoid confusion between our tour and our cross border neighbour's Blue Golf's Blue Water Junior Golf Tour, we are returning back to our original name in 2024. We apologize for any confusion this may have created!
Second, this upcoming season we are also aligning our age categories to be consistent with the Golf Association of Ontario (GAO) categories of U19, U17, U15 and U13 which uses the August 1st birthday cutoff date to determine category eligibility. Irrespective of the actual tournament dates, each participant will be assigned a category to compete in with the appropriate cohorts based on their effective age based on that date only. For example, a participant born on or before July 31st in the year of 2007 will be playing in the U19 cohort all season long while someone born the same year but with a birthday from August 1st or onwards will play in the U17 category. As a result, players born before August 1st; 2005, unfortunately, will not be eligible to play in the BJGT this year even though they are 18 years of age at the beginning of the Tour season.
The Lambton Junior Golf Tour is now an accredited Junior Pathway Golf Ontario tour and as such participants in our tour are eligible to receive ranking points in each tournament they play. Furthermore, most recently we received great news from the GAO that 2 of our junior golfers have been granted an exemption to play in the Ontario Bantam (U15) Boy's and Girl's Championships at Chedoke Golf Club in Hamilton, Ontario on August 8th and 9th. Representing our Tour will be last season's winners of the former boy's and girl's intermediate divisions, Noah Olver and Sofia Rocca. This is an amazing opportunity for the Tour moving forward as these exemptions will carry into the future and will be available to the U19, U17 and U15 divisions. Our Tour at season's end and with careful consideration can select one male and one female Tour participant from any division that will automatically qualify to play in their respective GAO provincial championships the following season. Having said this, our Tour was really well represented in the male divisions but very much under represented in terms of female participation.
Please, spread the word to friends or families and as such help us reverse this trend with the hope of strengthening the depth of instructional membership and our competitive female fields. To address this issue and participation as a whole, grassroots endeavours have been put on the table for 2024. Stay tuned for those information pieces. We have gained access to a limited amount of junior equipment that will allow those initiatives to take place, especially for those without the financial resources to purchase golf equipment or those who may be sitting on the fence on whether to make the necessary investment for their child to enter the game without knowing if that child has a genuine interest in playing golf.
Our 2024 schedule welcomes 2 new host sites. We are pleased to announce that Dave MaKinlay of Kingswell Glen Golf Club and Rob MacGregor of Sawmill Creek Golf Resort and Spa have agreed to bolster our 2024 schedule and each course will be hosting a tournament this season! We would like to thank Cameron Rankin of Huron Oaks Golf Course, Karen Grant of St. Clair Parkway Golf Course and Ken Hoare of Indian Hills Golf Club for their continued support of the Tour and they will also return as 2024 host sites.
The 2024 Lambton Junior Golf Tour schedule will be as follows:
June 2nd, 2024 @ Sawmill Creek Golf Resort
June 23rd, 2024 @ Indian Hills Golf Club
July 14th, 2024 @ Huron Oaks Golf Course
July 21st, 2024 @ Kingswell Glen Golf Club
August 25th, 2024 @ St. Clair Parkway Golf Course
Registration for the 2024 season will begin February 27,2024 and will close on April 16, 2024.
We are restricting our Tour participants to 80 players this season, so don't hesitate in registering early to avoid being placed on our waitlist!
The all inclusive 2024 Tour Registration fee will be $275.00 for all 5 events.
As a special bonus, PGA of Canada professionals have generously offered to be on hand at the indoor golf facility at Huron Oaks on March 19th and March 26th for a complimentary one hour lesson and practice session to kickstart our season! When registering for the 2024 season you will be given the opportunity to reserve your preferred one hour session on a first come and first serve basis. Sessions to be offered will be from 5:00 Pm to 6:00 Pm, from 6:00 Pm to 7:00 Pm and from 7:00 Pm to 8:00 Pm on those two dates, A maximum of 27 participants will be hosted per hourly session.
Lastly, with much excitement we are pleased to announce the creation of an annual $500 bursary to graduating members of our Tour who will be attending post secondary school studies beginning this fall. The recipient of this bursary will be voted on by the board and based on criteria that will be outlined in a separate newsletter at a later date. The only prerequisite in being eligible to apply for this bursary is 3 consecutive seasons of participation in our Tour including the application year. There is an exemption to this rule; however, with the only stipulation being those due to eligibility reasons that could only participate in the 2023 season and in back to back 2023/2024 seasons will be still be given the opportunity to apply in 2024 and 2025 respectively Please carefully note: Starting in 2025, that exemption will expire and the 3 consecutive season rule comes into full effect. Stay tuned to future newsletters for the grant application link and when the intake of those applications will begin and the associated application deadline .
Thanks again and we look forward to seeing the many familiar faces of last year's inaugural 2023 LJGT season again and hopefully many new ones in 2024!
The Commissioner
Mike Rocca
2023 SMAA LJGT presented by IG Wealth Management season division champions and 2nd place division winners sponsored by Eclypses:
Senior Boys: 1st place: Tyler Coene with 63 pts (winner by 0.5 pts!!!)
2nd place: Adam Valiquette with 62.5 pts
Intermediate Boys: 1st place: Noah Olver with 140 pts
2nd place: Cole Grant with 134 pts
Intermediate Girls: 1st place: Sofia Rocca with 16 pts
2nd place: Ameleilia Yacks with 10 pts
Junior Boys: 1st place: Isaac Kennette with 38 pts
2nd place: Jackson Girling with 36 pts
Junior Girls: 1st place: Vivian Callander with 6 pts
2nd place: Claire Thomson with 5 pts
N.B. points were based on the number of participants in each division
Special thanks to the participating host sites Huron Oaks Golf Course, Indian Hills Golf Club, St. Clair Parkway Golf Course, Kingwell Glen Golf Golf Club and Sawmill Creek Golf Resort that have generously subsidized the tour with greatly discounted tee times!
Thanks to the following organizing commitee members for their tremendous efforts and dedication to see the launch of the 2024 S.M.A.A .LJGT !
Christopher Rocca of IG Wealth Mangement
Lynn LeFaive of the S.M.A.A.
Cameron Rankin of Huron Oaks Golf Course
Karen Grant of St. Clair Parkway Golf Course
Ken Hoare of Indian Hills Golf Club
Dave McKinlay of Kingswell Glen Golf Club
Rob MacGregor of Sawmill Creek Golf Resort
Special thanks to our volunteers and they know who they are! What an incredible effort on their part to make these events enjoyable for the participants and Joanie McKinley for furnishing all of the photos for our website!
On the behalf of all of the participants, we would like to thank the following CPGA Professionals for volunteering their personal free time to assist with the instructional component of our tour free of charge.
Cameron Rankin of Huron Oaks Golf Course
Craig Hottot of Huron Oaks Golf Course
Kyle Gibson of St. Clair Parkway Golf Course
Jamie Reitknecht of Indian Hills Golf Club
Also, thanks to our GAO on-site official Jason Rawson for assistance with rulings.
Sincerely,
The Commissioner Mike Rocca
Copyright © 2024 Lambton Junior Golf Tour - All Rights Reserved.
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