Vancouver’s Jay Snyder Leads After A Three-Under 68
BURNABY — One thing became crystal clear in Monday’s first round of the 124th playing of the B.C. Amateur Championship: Riverway Golf Course is not going to be a push-over. The highly regarded municipal layout more than held its own against a field of this province’s top amateurs. Only 10 players in the 156-player field broke par.
Leading the way was 41-year-old Jay Snyder of Vancouver, who opened with a three-under 68 that featured six birdies. Snyder’s round came in the morning half of the draw when conditions were near perfect. Players in the afternoon draw faced a brisk wind that made scoring more difficult.
“The putter was definitely working,” said Snyder, a longtime member of Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club. “I made a nice 20-footer on No. 1 for birdie and kind of just kept rolling in putts.”
Snyder has been a top amateur player in B.C. for many years. He won the B.C. Mid-Amateur Championship back in 2018 at Hyde Mountain (now called MaraHills Golf Resort) in Sicamous. “That feels like a long time ago,” said Snyder. Lots has changed since then. He and his wife now have two boys, aged five and seven.
“They can bathe and take care of themselves now and I can practice my putting a little bit more now,” he said with a laugh. “I have been playing a bit more this year than years past.”
Snyder tied for eighth at this year’s B.C. Mid-Amateur Championship, which was played in late May at Quilchena Golf & Country Club in Richmond.
Snyder had played Riverway only one time before Sunday’s practice round. “I played a Canadian Tour qualifier here way back in like 2000,” he said.
Snyder hopes his putter stays hot. “I think it is going to come down to who is making the most putts,” he said. “There’s not a ton of trouble you can get into, so there is not going to be a lot of big numbers out there. I imagine scores are going to be quite low, although it’s getting a little bit windy now. The greens aren’t really fast and they’re pretty true, so it’s going to be who gets a hot putter and makes the most 20-footers. You can make the odd bogey if you are really out of position. But I imagine it’s going to be a putting contest.”
Snyder has a one-shot lead on Vernon’s Ryan Vest and Oakley Mayner of Kelowna, two members of the UBC-Okanagan men’s team that won the Canadian University College Championship last month. Vest had seven birdies in his roller-coaster round of 69. “I played all the hard holes well and all the easy holes bad,” said Vest, whose double-bogey on the par 5 18th hole cost him the outright lead. “I had some bush trouble there. It’s unfortunate, but that stuff happens.”
Vest thinks Riverway will yield some lower scores as the week progresses. “I think the course really is gettable,” he said. “I felt like the wind in the afternoon made it tougher.” Mayner seconded that sentiment. “For the most part it was into the fan on almost every hole,” Mayner said. “There were a couple of holes downwind, but besides that it was in the face. That made it a little tricky to play, having to club one or two up.”
Seven players are tied two shots back of the lead at one-under, including Ethan Posthumus of Coquitlam, Aidan Lu of Richmond, Samuel Kurytnik of Nanaimo, Kris Yardley of Maple Ridge, Leighton Wright of Vancouver Eden Kim of Coquitlam and Hongzhao (Thomas) Xu of Vancouver.
The field will be cut to the low 70 players and ties after Tuesday’s second round.
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