Brycen Ko rolled to an impressive victory at the Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour’s Prodigy Whistler Junior Championship last week.
The 14-year-old from Richmond finished at 5-under — with rounds of 70-69 at the Arnold Palmer-designed Whistler Golf Club — to capture the Bantam Boys title and earn a spot in the MJT Boston Pizza National Championship, presented by TaylorMade-Adidas, to be played at Reunion Resort in Orlando, FLA, Nov. 10-12.
“Staying calm was key to the victory because if I didn’t, things could easily have gotten out of hand for me,” said Ko, who was nine strokes better than runner-up Riley Lai. “My highlight was making a 20-foot putt on number nine after double bogeying hole six and bogeying seven.”
Other Richmond results included Tina Jiang finishing second in the U15 Girls Division with rounds of 81-77. Elsie Liu was sixth (85-84) and Cadenc Ko (88-88) was seventh.
Meanwhile, the Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour also held its Mini Tour National Championship last week at Tsawwassen Springs for players 12 and under.
This event offered excemptions into the U.S. Kids Golf Australian Open in Sydney next January and the World Junior Golf Championships at Wigwam Golf Resort in Phoenix in November.
Daniel Xu, 11, just missed capturing the Pee Wee Boys honours, losing in a playoff to Surrey’s Justin Bjornson.
Both players had finished the 36 holes tied at 143 total score with 73-70 from Bjornson and 72-71 from Xu. On the first playoff hole, Bjornson hit the flag with his approach shot, and when Xu narrowly missed his 25-foot birdie attempt, it was Bjornson who calmly knocked in his six-foot birdie putt to capture the title and trophy.
Tina Jiang, 12, was third in the Pee Wee Girls Division with rounds of 73-77 to finish just two strokes behind the winner.
