Rothwell Feeling No Pressure As He Attempts To Win His Third B.C. Amateur Championship
Jackson Rothwell Is Seen Here With His Dad As His Caddy During His 1st BC Amateur Triumph At Big Sky GC In Pemberton In 2019 - Image Credit Bryan Outram/BC Golf
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Jackson Rothwell insists he isn’t thinking about a possible hat trick. The Victoria native is instead looking forward to competing relatively close to home and seeing some familiar faces at the 121st playing of the B.C. Amateur Championship at Morningstar Golf Club in Parksville.
One of those familiar faces will be his dad, Alex, who always caddies for his son at the B.C. Amateur. That, Rothwell said, is a big part of what has made his two B.C. Amateur wins so special.
“It’s a fun week for me because my dad takes the week off and he is on the bag for me,” the 22-year-old Rothwell said in a phone interview from Calgary, where he was competing in an event at Mickelson National Golf Club.
“We have kind of done that every year, so it’s something I really enjoy. Winning is obviously the goal, but I don’t feel any extra pressure because I have won it twice.”
One of those two wins came last summer at Christina Lake Golf Club, where Rothwell defeated Vancouver’s Tony Li in a playoff. His first B.C. Am win came in 2019 at Big Sky Golf Club in Pemberton.
Rothwell will not have any kind of 'Vancouver Island advantage’ with Morningstar being the host course for this year’s championship, which goes July 11-14. “I have never made the trip up Island to play it, but I am looking forward to it,” Rothwell said. “I have heard good things about the course.”
Rothwell is coming off his first year as a member of the University of San Francisco Dons golf team. He transferred to USF after two years at Babson College, a small NCAA Division III business school in Wellesley, Mass. Rothwell was delighted to get the chance to test his game against some of the top NCAA Division I players and he helped the Dons advance all the way to the NCAA championship tourney in Scottsdale, Ariz., this past spring.
“It was great and I learned a lot,” Rothwell said. “We made it all the way to nationals this year at Greyhawk and I just missed out individually from making the final round. I played well and it was a great year. I may not have had the results that I wanted and I felt there was a lot more out there, but I at least got the feeling that I belonged with the top guys in college golf.
“It was fulfilling, something I always wanted to know the answer to and it gave me that and hopefully going into my last year I’m able to take that freedom and run with it and play some good golf and maybe compete for some wins.”
Rothwell has been in good form this summer. He tied for third at last month’s Glencoe Invitational in Calgary. He’ll face plenty of stiff competition at Morningstar. Notables in the field include Ryan Vest and Cooper Humphreys, both of Vernon, Delta’s Jace Minni, Gavyn Knight of Lantzville, Mike Aizawa of Richmond, Robin Conlan of Victoria, John Morrow of Delta and Victoria’s Kevin Carrigan, whose 11-under 61 at the 2007 B.C. Amateur is the course record at Morningstar.
One familiar name, one that is almost synonymous with the B.C. Amateur Championship, is not playing this year. Doug Roxburgh, the 13-time champion, is sitting this one out. Roxburgh, 71, tied for 11th at last year’s championship at Christina Lake and shot a five-under 67 in the third round of that event to better his age by three shots. Roxburgh has played in 55 B.C. Amateur Championships. He missed the 2020 championship due to a family commitment after playing the event for 53 straight years.
Morningstar can yield low scores, but it generally has proved to be a stiff test. It most recently played host to the 2021 B.C. Junior Boys & Girls Championships and Gavyn Knight won the boys’ competition by five shots with a 72-hole score of one-under par.
Head professional Mike Loewen said the greens and the course’s many doglegs present challenges to players. “Some of our greens are pretty undulating," Loewen said. “And they’re kind of sneaky. Sometimes it doesn’t look like they break as much as they do. And when they are firm and fast like they are right now that makes them even more difficult.”
Morningstar also has some length. It can be played as long as 7,000 yards but will likely be set up in the neighbourhood of 6,800 yards for the tournament. “We’ve got quite a few doglegs out here and not all of them you can cut (the corner),” Loewen said. “That can definitely cause some trouble if you think you can do it and you don’t.”
Much will depend on how British Columbia Golf tournament officials set up the course, but Loewen will be surprised to see anyone go really low. “I’m going to go with a four-day total of five-under par as the winning score,” he said.
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