VICTORIA, BC — Highland Pacific Golf Course is playing fast and firm and proving to be a stern test for the field at the B.C. Men’s Mid-Amateur Championship.
Through 36 holes of the 54-hole event — the season-opening tournament on the British Columbia Golf championship schedule — no one is under par.
Vancouver’s Nasheel Kassam and Greg Palmer of Port Alberni head into Thursday’s final round tied for the lead at even-par.
Palmer got there by firing the low score of the tournament so far, a three-under 68 in the second round. “I just played pretty steady,” Palmer said of his round. “I made a couple of early birdies and didn’t really get into too much trouble.”
There was one spot of trouble. Palmer made what he called a great “double-hazard bogey” on the par 5 seventh hole that kept the momentum of his round going. At 6,600 yards from the tips, Highland Pacific is not especially long. But it presents some challenging tee shots that takes driver out of the hands of some players.
“Off the tee you have to patient,” said Palmer, a 31-year-old who played his collegiate golf at the University of New Orleans. “There are some irons off the tee and you have to be pretty careful on the downhill putts. They can be pretty slick.”
Kassam, a member at Point Grey Golf & Country Club, fired a one-over 72 on Wednesday after opening the tournament with a one-under 70. He and Palmer have a three-shot lead on four players — Victoria’s Kevin Carrigan, Kris Yardley of Maple Ridge, Greg Koster of Courtenay and defending Mid-Am champion Wyatt Brook of Heffley Creek.
“There’s just not a lot of scoring opportunities out there,” Carrigan said of Highland Pacific. “Even when you are inside 10 feet there’s a lot of break, the greens are quick and it is firm as hell. It’s as firm as any course I have played in Victoria since the Canadian Am.”
The top three finishers at the B.C. Mid-Am will represent British Columbia in the inter-provincial team competition at the Canadian Mid-Amateur Championship, which goes Aug. 19-22 at Seymour Golf & Country in North Vancouver. The top 14 and ties at Highland Pacific will earn exemptions into the Canadian Mid-Am Amateur.
Even though he is a two-time Canadian Mid-Amateur champion, Carrigan has to play his way into the Seymour field. “My (10-year) exemptions have been exhausted,” Carrigan said.
“This year is a great grass-roots golf season for me in the sense that I have no standing anywhere, so I am having to earn my way into everything and it’s cool.”
A B.C. Mid-Master Championship for players aged 40 and older is also being contested at Highland Pacific. Yardley and Koster share the lead in that championship at three-over par.
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