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Hoping to regain the form that earned him a stunning fourth-place finish at the B.C. Amateur Men’s Golf Championship and a tournament win on his own course in July, Kelowna’s Cooper Humphreys will represent Western Canada at the prestigious Maple Leaf Junior Tour National Team Challenge in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. beginning on Friday.
Humphreys, 14, was selected for Team West on the strength of his first-place finish in the MJT Ford Series tournament at the Okanagan Golf Club where he led a field of 24 bantam-aged golfers with rounds of 66 and 72 for a 138 total. His 6-under score was also the best among 69 boys.
He and his Team West teammates will compete in Niagara against 14 other teams from throughout Canada, United States, Mexico and Australia while Humphreys will be among 90 golfers bidding for the individual medal stroke title.
The 54-hole event begins on Friday at the Royal Niagara Golf Club and winds up on Sunday. It is both a World Amateur Golf Ranking event and a Golf Canada Junior Order of Merit qualifying tournament.
Humphreys’ appearance at the international competition this weekend caps a remarkable 2019 for the Aberdeen Hall Preparatory School student who won’t turn 15 until January.
He warmed up for what would be a sizzling summer by winning four Zone 2 (Thompson Okanagan) Junior Tour tournaments, including the 36-hole zone championship and became the youngest player ever to claim the order of merit title.
A week earlier he led Aberdeen Gryphons to a second straight B.C. School Sports senior A golf championship at the OGC Quail course.
One of the youngest golfers at the B.C. junior boys championship in Nanoose Bay (Fairwinds GCC) in July, Humphreys finished 12th among 114 entries with rounds of 75-77-74-70 (295).
His 2019 tour de force came at the B.C. Amateur playing against golfers some of whom were decades older. He hung with the best amateurs in the province on the Big Sky golf course in Pemberton by shooting rounds of 70-73-70-71 (284) to finish in a tie for third place (he lost in a playoff for fourth). He was just six strokes back of the provincial champion Jackson Rothwell of Victoria.
Humphreys went on to compete at the Canadian men’s amateur championship in Hammonds Plains, N.S. and the Canadian junior boys championship in Harland, N.B. in early August. And while he missed the cut in both events, the experience gained will no doubt prove invaluable in what is expected to be an eye-opening 2020 season.
Also competing at the Freedom 55 MJT National Team Challenge this weekend will be Vernon’s Kendra Jones-Munk, who finished second at the MJT PLYR Golf tournament at Predator Ridge in July.
The 17-year-old W.L. Seaton Secondary student also won the 2019 Zone 2 junior girls championship, the tour’s order of merit title and was voted the most sportsmanlike player by her peers.
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