When Phyllis Laschuk left the family farm in Smoky Lake, Alta., at the age of 17 and headed west to Vancouver, she never would have imagined that one day she would be inducted into the British Columbia Golf Hall of Fame.
After all, it was more than 20 years after moving to the west coast that Laschuk discovered golf, a game that has become such a big part of her life. “I took up skiing and boating and squash,” Laschuk says of her early days in Vancouver...
“I realized I needed something that would last more than an hour or two, so I heard about golf and phoned B.C. Golf and asked who they would recommend as a female instructor for my first go at it.”
Laschuk had that first lesson with Ginny Golding at University Golf Club and quickly became hooked. It was after turning 50 and becoming eligible to play as a senior that Laschuk began playing a lot of competitive golf.
She played her first B.C. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship in 2003 at Revelstoke Golf Club and won it. She won a second B.C. Senior title in 2010 and has competed in the U.S., British and Irish Senior Amateurs.
Laschuk was delighted when she got the call from B.C. Golf Museum historian Michael Riste informing her she was one of four individuals selected to join the Hall of Fame.
Laschuk, Bryn Parry of North Vancouver and Dave Mick of Victoria will be entering the Hall of Fame at an induction ceremony scheduled for Oct. 1 in Vancouver. Longtime British Columbia Golf chief executive officer Kris Jonasson will be the first to enter the Hall of Fame in its new builder category.
“I was kind of thinking about it over the last few days and basically coming from a farm girl not knowing anything about sports to achieving a spot in the B.C. Golf Hall of Fame is remarkable,” Laschuk says. “I am so very grateful.”
Now 72 and a longtime member of Point Grey Golf & Country Club, Laschuk cherishes her two B.C. Senior titles, but counts her participation in the Sweeny Cup as perhaps the most meaningful part of her golf journey.
The Sweeny Cup is a competition among 10-and-under handicap women from the Vancouver area. For the past 103 years a team of Sweeny Cup players has met a team of players from the Greater Victoria area in the annual Huntting Cup.
“Because I started my golf as a 40-year-old and I had heard about the Sweeny Cup, I thought that it would be a good place to start because at 50 I wanted to compete at the senior level,” Laschuk says.
“So I thought let me join with these Sweeny girls and it is such great competition. It gave me the drive to say, maybe I can compete at the B.C. Seniors and I can go to the PNGA and I can go to the USGA. It just gave me that impetus to keep going. It has meant the world to me. I don’t know where I’d be without it. And you make so many friends along the way.”
Bryn Parry has been a dominant player on the Vancouver golf scene for the better part of three decades. Parry has won the PGA of BC Championship four times and has five PGA of BC Assistant titles. He won the 2013 PGA Championship of Canada and the PGA Assistants Championship of Canada in 1999 and 2005. He has been selected as the PGA of BC’s player of the year 10 times.
The 53-year-old Parry, who now has a busy teaching schedule at Seymour Creek Golf Centre in North Vancouver, was asked what he is most proud of about his career.
“I am going to say my resiliency because I realize I have done well and I have won a lot, but I also feel there have been a lot of near misses, You know, one shot from the PGA TOUR, one shot from winning on the Nationwide Tour, one shot from this tournament, one shot from that tournament, one shot from getting through that stage, one shot from playing in the U.S. Open. There have been a lot of tries and a lot of things have gone my way, but there have also been a lot of times where they haven’t, too.
“I can remember driving home from PGA TOUR Q-school in Palm Springs and every time I stopped the car for gas I wanted to leave my clubs on the side of the road and quit and give up because it didn’t work out. And then six weeks later I am on a heater and playing well and it’s the best time ever, right. So that ability to fail and get back up and try again, I think, is something I am pretty proud of.”
Parry said when he got the call informing him of his induction, he immediately thought of Phil Jonas, who is already in the B.C. Golf Hall of Fame. “Phil was hard to play against. He’s got unbelievable tenacity and never gives up. When he moved to Saskatchewan a couple of years ago, I was genuinely sad. Here’s a guy who is 10 years older than me that I have battled so hard for so long in every tournament. He’s so good, he’s so competitive and he has played around the world. I got to battle with him and I am very grateful for that.”
Dave Mick played much of his competitive golf in the 1960s and ‘70s before becoming a dentist. He was runner-up to Doug Roxburgh at the 1973 B.C. Amateur and the stroke-play medalist at the 1972 B.C. Amateur.
Mick, a longtime member at Gorge Vale Golf Club in Victoria, played on five Willingdon Cup teams. He was a member of Canada’s silver medal-winning team at the 1978 World Amateur Team Championships in Fiji. Mick could not be reached for comment for this story.
Kris Jonasson has spent the last three decades leading British Columbia Golf. Under his watch, Jonasson worked to make the game more welcoming and introduced an All-Abilities Championship and Indigenous Championship to the B.C. Golf tournament schedule.
Jonasson also pushed to make the B.C. Golf board of directors more diverse and reflective of the community it served. He earned a well-deserved reputation as an innovator and agent of change. Jonasson, who is retiring from British Columbia Golf, was humbled to learn he will be the first person inducted in the Hall of Fame’s new builder category.
“It is rewarding,” he said. “Honestly I just did a lot of things that I thought were right and some of them worked, a lot of them didn’t. But I was very fortunate that I always had a very supportive board and people that were willing to do things that were a little bit different if they could see some merit in it. They deserve the credit as much as I do.”
Tickets for the Oct. 1 induction ceremony and dinner at Point Grey Golf & Country Club will go on sale in mid-August through the B.C. Golf Museum.