The Huntting Cup Celebrates 100 Years
The Huntting Cup Teams From 1922 - Image used with permission courtesy The City Of Victoria Archives #M08036
Front row, L-R: Mrs. Nixon; Mrs. B.R. Philbrick (Captain and B.C. and City Campion for many years); unidentified; unidentified. Middle row: Dr. G.M. Luden; Mrs. C.E. (Dolly) Wilson; Mrs. Leslie Hadley; Jean Allen (?); Vera Hutchings; unidentified; unidentified; Eunice Mitchell. Back row: unidentified; Aileen Benson; Betty Fitz-Gibbon; unidentified; Constance Sheffield; unidentified; Ruth Jones (daughter of Dr. O.M. Jones); Nora Patterson (daughter of Harvey Coombe, founder of Victoria Golf Club); unidentified; Vivian Cousland (?); Mary and Helen Campbell (father owned Campbell's Drugstore).
The Annual Huntting Cup Competition Brings Together Top Female Players From Metro Vancouver And Lower Vancouver Island
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Some of the memories have faded with time, but when Donna Thompson reflects on playing in the Huntting Cup, she thinks about the great friendships that were forged along the way in the annual competition that features some of the best female players from the Metro Vancouver and Victoria areas.
“We got to know a lot of the girls from Victoria and the Island,” says Thompson, a three-time B.C. Senior Women’s Amateur champion. “I remember meeting Margaret Todd, Dorothy DeGirolamo, all those gals. It was a great experience, a lot of fun. It was nice to get to know them and play against them. It was a very friendly atmosphere.”
Thompson chuckles when one other memory comes to mind from what she believes was her first Huntting Cup.
“It must have been 1969 because the astronauts were landing on the moon,” Thompson says. “We were at Marine Drive that day when they landed on the moon and we were playing the Huntting Cup. It’s funny how you remember where you were for certain events like that.”
Image Courtesy PGA of BC
Donna Thompson Is Seen Here With Her Husband Of 42 Years, Alvie Thompson, As He Received An Induction To The PGA of Canada Hall of Fame In 2017. PGA of BC Member Barrie McWha Is On The Right
That may have been Thompson’s first Huntting Cup, but the competition was going on long before Neil Armstrong took those historic lunar footsteps. This summer, the Huntting Cup is marking its 100th anniversary. Its centennial matches will be played Aug. 8 at Gorge Vale Golf Club in Victoria, followed by a celebratory dinner.
“It’s a pretty cool event and the fact it is 100 years old this year, that is quite a milestone for women’s golf,” says North Vancouver’s Kathryn McGarvey, who has been participating in the Huntting Cup for the past 35 years.
“I remember being at the 80th anniversary which was at Royal Colwood and Margaret Todd was there. She was talking about her memories of Huntting Cup over the years and I was like, oh my God, we are so lucky to be connected to this history.”
The competition began in 1922 when Mrs. Foster Huntting of Jericho Golf & Country Club donated a cup that was to be competed for each year by a team of female players from Jericho and Shaughnessy Golf Clubs versus a team from Victoria and Royal Colwood Golf Clubs.
Image Courtesy BC Golf Museum Image Courtesy Sweenycup.org
Mrs. Foster (Marion) Huntting The Huntting Cup
In its early years, the Huntting Cup was played in conjunction with the B.C. Championships. Top players were so keen to play in the Huntting Cup that several left their respective clubs to join Jericho, Shaughnessy, Colwood or Victoria.
The matches were not held during the Second World War and when they resumed players from all over Vancouver and Victoria were permitted to compete. In the 1960s eligibility was extended to all of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island (subsequently the Lower Island).
At about this time, the running of the Huntting Cup was turned over to the Sweeny Cup group (10 and under handicap players in Vancouver) and the Harris-Erickson group (15 and under handicap players in Victoria).
The Sweeny Cup and Harris-Erickson groups both hold their own competitions during the season and their top performers each year participate in the Huntting Cup, which alternates between Victoria and Vancouver. Normally, 12 players per side play in the match play competition at the Huntting Cup. That has been increased to 16 players a side given the special circumstances of this year’s 100th anniversary competition.
The competition has featured some legendary players over the years, including members of the Canadian, British Columbia and Pacific Northwest Golf Association golf halls of fame. Victoria’s Alison Murdoch is a member of all three of those halls of fame and has been a Huntting Cup regular for the past 20 years or so. “It’s a big deal,” Murdoch says. “It’s certainly something that you pencil in on your calendar each year.”
Image Courtesy sweenycup.org
The 2019 Huntting Cup Teams, Victoria Team In Teal & Black (Alison Murdoch Is Far Left); Vancouver Team In Navy & White
Like most Huntting Cup participants, Murdoch loves the competitive aspect of the competition. But she says the social side of it is also important. “Meeting up with the people you saw the year before is an important aspect of it and finding out who you are going to be playing against,” Murdoch says. “There’s the competitive aspect and there’s also definitely an important social aspect to it.”
Phyllis Laschuk started her golf relatively late in life and used the Sweeny Cup and Huntting Cup to hone her game. It paid off as she went on to become a B.C. Senior Women’s champion and compete regularly in PNGA and USGA events. “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.”
Image Courtesy sweenycup.org
The 2017 Huntting Cup Teams, Vancouver Team In Red (Phyllis Laschuk Is Far Left); Victoria Team In Navy Blue
Laschuk has become a fixture for the Vancouver team at the annual Huntting Cup matches. “This year’s Huntting Cup will be kind of emotional,” she says. “I am thinking 100 years, how can that be. And we all know some of the great names who played it in the early days. It would be nice for them to see where we are now thanks to their vision.”
McGarvey is one of the key organizers of next month’s celebration at Gorge Vale and for many years has done considerable behind-the-scenes work to keep the Sweeny Cup and Huntting Cup running.
“For me, it’s about the camaraderie and the Island girls that you meet,” says McGarvey. “It’s a friendly rivalry, it’s not an, ‘oh my God, we’re going to kill them’ thing.
Image Courtesy PNGA
Kathryn McGarvey (L) And Parnter Jackie Little Won The 2016 PNGA Sr. Women's Team Title
“The big challenge for me has always been to play well enough to be chosen to represent Vancouver on the Huntting Cup team. I am not like a Holly Horwood or Phyllis Laschuk who are guaranteed locks. I have to fight to get on those teams because I am not as good as they are. So for me it was always an accomplishment to make the team.”
Sandra Turbide of Maple Ridge was runner-up at this year’s B.C. Senior Women’s Championship and recently won the Washington State Senior Women’s title. She credits the Sweeny Cup and Huntting Cup with helping keep her game sharp. “It’s fun to be able to play with players of the same calibre as you,” Turbide says. “We all belong to different clubs and it is a way to get a game together and compete together.”
Vancouver has had a decided edge in the Huntting Cup competition, which is why matches are now played based on handicaps. “The talent pool in the Vancouver area is a little deeper than it is here,” says Victoria’s Murdoch.
The Harris-Erickson group in Victoria is making an effort to get younger players involved in their competitions. Penny Baziuk, a longtime Huntting Cup regular, has been mentoring promising Victoria junior Chelsea Truong for the past few years. Truong competed in the last Huntting Cup in 2019 (it was not held in 2000 or 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic).
“We’re hoping this is not the end of it and it continues on from here,” Baziuk says of the Huntting Cup. “I got Chelsea into the Harris-Erickson and she has been playing with us from 2019. I think it’s really good that we incorporate the juniors. She fits right in.”
A Regular Competitor In The Early Years Of The Huntting Cup, Mrs. D.S. Montgomery Of Jericho GC - Image Courtesy of the City Archives/Archives# CVA 371-1139
As the Huntting Cup prepares for its 100th anniversary celebration, there are lingering concerns about its future. The Harris-Erickson group and especially the Sweeny Cup group in Vancouver are facing significant challenges finding courses that will free up tee times for their matches. “This year we have eight games,” Baziuk says. “Usually we have 18. Some courses are not welcoming us back because their tee sheets are so busy.”
The situation is more serious in the Lower Mainland for Sweeny Cup players. Only one match will be played — at Squamish Valley Golf Course — before the Huntting Cup matches go in early August.
The list of Vancouver-area courses that previously had provided times for Sweeny Cup matches includes the likes of Beach Grove, Ledgeview, Marine Drive, Seymour, Vancouver, Shaughnessy, Point Grey, Surrey, University and Richmond.
“We worked so hard to find courses and I think it is just a year too early,” Turbide says. “Clubs are not ready to give us their course after Covid, they want their members on, they want the public on. I do understand that.”
Murdoch, one of British Columbia’s most highly decorated golfers, is less sympathetic. “I think it is really unfortunate that some golf clubs have used the pandemic as an excuse to say that they have changed their outlook on things and sort of stepped away from supporting these competitions,” she says. “It is unfortunate and unpleasant.”
British Columbia Golf made a financial contribution to help fund next month’s centennial gathering at Gorge Vale. Chief executive officer Kris Jonasson believes events like the Huntting Cup are an important part of the foundation of amateur golf in the province.
“It’s such a pleasure to be part of the centenary for this amazing event,” Jonasson says. “Over the past 100 years the best women in B.C. have competed for the Huntting Cup and I have no doubt the tradition will continue for another 100 years.”
To read more on the Huntting Cup & its history click here for BC Golf Museum article by Mike Riste