New Dad Jordan Belton Making The Daily Commute From Surrey To Nanaimo For Mid-Amateur
New Father Jordan Belton Is Making The Ultimate Commute In Order To Defend His Title In This Year's British Columbia Golf Men's Mid-Amateur At Nanaimo Golf Club - Image Credit Susan White
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
NANAIMO -- Jordan Belton desperately wanted to defend his B.C. Mid-Amateur title this week at Nanaimo Golf Club, but the Surrey resident knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Not so much the golfing part, but getting there.
Belton’s wife Courtney delivered their first child, a son named Bauer, just two weeks ago, and he knew that being away for a few days would be a tough sell. So Belton, with his wife’s blessing, decided he’d commute daily from their Surrey home to Nanaimo.
He flies home after each round and then gets up early and catches a flight back to Nanaimo. “I didn’t know if my wife was going to let me, but it worked out,” Belton said Wednesday.
“There’s lots of flights in and out of here and the schedule worked and she was accommodating. It’s working out good. I flew home yesterday and had dinner with her and it was funny, I said to her that an hour before we sat down for dinner last night I was sitting on the (clubhouse) deck having a beer watching guys come in on 18 and now I’m here. It’s convenient.”
Belton had a 10:18 a.m. tee time for Wednesday’s second round of the B.C. Mid-Amateur and Mid-Master Championships. “I took the 9 o’clock flight this morning. I fed the baby at 6, was out the door at about 7:15. I just head to the south terminal and take a sea plane right out of the river there. It’s a 15- or-20-minute flight, a little cab ride up the hill and I am ready to go. It’s pretty cool.”
Belton, a 32-year-old Vancouver Golf Club member who works as a portfolio manager for RBC Dominion Securities in White Rock, won last year’s Mid-Amateur title at Talking Rock Golf Course in Chase.
”It was very unexpected,” he said of that win. “Since I joined Vancouver Golf Club I have started to play more and more golf and have been getting more competitive with it. It was a nice surprise for sure.”
Tuesday’s opening round at Nanaimo Golf Club was a real roller-coaster ride for Belton, who made six birdies but shot 77. “I had never seen the course and I didn’t have time to play a practice round with the baby and stuff at home. I was a little out of it at the start. At one point I had three doubles in a row there which was pretty rough. Then I settled in.”
image credit bryan outram
Things Are Looking Pretty Bright For Leader Kevin Carrigan After Two Rounds At The Men's Mid-Amateur At Nanaimo Golf Club
Wednesday’s second round was better. Belton fired a two-over 74. He played the first two rounds with Kevin Carrigan of Victoria, who the entire field is chasing and does not figure to catch. Carrigan fired a four-under 68 in Tuesday’s first round to open up a five-shot lead. He added a five-under 67 on Wednesday and carries a nine-shot lead on fellow Victoria resident Craig Doell into Thursday’s final round of the Mid-Amateur portion of the competition.
The Mid-Amateur is open to players 25 years and older. The B.C. Mid-Master Championship is also being contested at the same time. It is open to players 40 years and older. “I scraped it around well on the front nine,” Carrigan said. “I had a lot of up and downs. I think I had 31 putts yesterday and putted awesome. Today I had about 23 putts and it was even better.”
Carrigan said he won’t think too much about his big lead as he heads into Thursday’s final round. “It is not like I am going to change my game plan tomorrow,” he said. “I am going to hit driver on all the par 5s, I am going to hit driver on most of the par 4s and see if I can do it again.”
Doell was four-under through 12 holes Wednesday, but made a couple of late bogeys to card his two-under 70 that left him at even-par through 36 holes. He leads the Mid-Masters competition by two shots over Sandy Harper of Nanaimo and Gudmund Lindbjerg of Pitt Meadows, but knows it's going to be tough to catch Carrigan for the Mid-Amateur title.
“I could have finished it off a little bit better, but the rain came and it washed away my good play,” Doell said with a laugh. “Kevin is playing great golf right now. He was around par for most of the round and put the pedal down on the last six holes and finished really, really well. It was pretty impressive to watch.”
Doell and Carrigan are partners in the two-ball best-ball competition that is also being contested at Nanaimo. Their two-round total of 16-under par leads four other teams by nine shots.
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