Ziemer's B.C. Golf Notes: Cooper Humphreys loving life in San Diego
BC's Cooper Humphreys In The 2023 BC Amateur At Morningstar GC - BC Golf Photo/Bryan Outram
Other Notes: Tough weekend for B.C. pros; Belmont re-opening set for June; No Crown Isle Q-school this year
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
(March 3, 2025) - Cooper Humphreys has that laid-back, California surfer-dude persona and has always seemed like the kind of guy who would feel right at home in shorts, shades and flip-flops.
So it should come as no surprise that the two-time B.C. Amateur champion is loving life playing collegiate golf for the University of San Diego. “It has been awesome,” the Kelowna native said in a telephone interview.
“After growing up with snowy winters, it’s so nice to wake up to 70 degrees and sunshine pretty much every single day. I can remember one day where it has rained a little bit and a couple of days where it has been cloudy. The weather has been awesome.”
So has the golf. Humphreys has registered two top-10s in the first two spring events of his freshman year and his team has taken home titles in three of its last four starts.
“We have got a really strong team, pretty much our whole team is really good, especially our top five,” Humphreys said. Humphreys’ San Diego team, nicknamed the Toreros — which means bullfighters in Spanish — are currently ranked 35th in the NCAA.
He likes to think they can make a run and play their way into the NCAA Championship tourney in May. “I don’t want to speak too soon, but that is our end goal, to make it to Natties (nationals) and I think we can do it,” he said.
“We’ve got a good squad. I am excited about the rest of the season.” Humphreys is pleased with the trajectory of his game. He finished 10th at the recent Nick Watney Invitational in Fresno, Calif., and tied for seventh at his team’s spring opener, The Prestige Invitational, last month at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif. “I am feeling better about my game,” Humphreys said.
“My first (fall) semester I didn’t play too well, I wasn’t really feeling like myself with the whole transition to living on my own and everything. But I am starting to feel more like myself. “I think I had a good chance to win the last two tourneys, individually. I had a few mistakes I need to clean up. I feel like the game is getting better which is nice. Competition-wise, the level of golf is pretty much everything I thought it would be. But it’s nice to know I can hang with some of these top guys. It’s nice to realize that.”
Humphreys acknowledges balancing golf with academics can be a challenge.“It was kind of a weird transition after I took a gap year and I had three years of online high school before that, so it was kind of strange going back to actual classrooms, but I have enjoyed it. There has definitely been a lot of late nights completing papers because I keep procrastinating. I have to work on that.”
About the only thing Humphreys doesn’t like about San Diego is the traffic. “Driving in San Diego is insane,” he said.
Next up for Humphreys and his San Diego teammates is the annual event they host, the R.E.L. Invitational, which goes March 10-11 at San Diego Country Club.
RUNNER-UP FINISH: Julia Alexander-Carew’s second-place finish helped the UBC-Okanagan women’s team to a third-place showing at The Trailblazer tourney played at the TPC at Summerlin course in Las Vegas. Alexander-Carew finished the 36-hole tourney at eight-over par, four shots behind winner Chiara Israng of Ottawa University Arizona. UBC-Okanagan’s Bess Chan tied for seventh.
POSITIVE START: Simon Fraser University’s women’s team tied for fourth in its spring debut at the Tim Tierney Pioneer Shootout in Alameda, Calif. The Red Leafs completed the 36-hole event at 16-over par, nine shots behind the winning team from California State University-East Bay. Surrey’s Anaya Bhandai led the way for SFU with an eighth-place finish in the individual competition. The other four SFU players all finished inside the top 20. Izzy Ferguson and Meera Minhas both tied for 14th, while Chloe Tran and Sueah Park both tied for 20th.
PERSONAL BEST: Surrey’s Rebecca Kim, an Oregon State University sophomore, registered the best finish of her collegiate career with a tie for 20th at the Causeway Invitational in Sacramento, Calif. A three-under 69 in the first round was Kim’s best round as a collegian. Oregon State won the team title by two shots over Sacramento State.
WEEKEND OFF: The professional golf circuits were not kind to British Columbians last week. Surrey’s Adam Svensson was done in by some late second-round bogeys and missed the cut by two shots at the PGA Tour’s Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches in Florida. Over on the Korn Ferry Tour, Merritt’s Roger Sloan and Stuart Macdonald of Vancouver both missed the cut at the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires.
The Epson Tour held its season opener in Florida, where Vancouver’s Leah John and Yeji Kwon of Port Coquitlam both missed the cut. On the Asian Tour, Kimberley’s Jared du Toit played his way into the New Zealand Open with a six-under 66 in the tournament qualifier, but missed the cut in the event by six shots
THE WEEK AHEAD: The Abbotsford duo of Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin are both in the field for this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, a PGA TOUR Signature event in Orlando, Fla. As a side note, Taylor and Hadwin are featured quite prominently in the second episode of the recently released Season 3 ‘Full Swing’ documentary on Netflix. Surrey’s Adam Svensson will tee it up in this week’s opposite field event, the Puerto Rico Open. Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald and Roger Sloan of Merritt are in the field for this week’s Astara Chile Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour.
BACK IN BUSINESS: Belmont Golf Course in Langley, which has been in hibernation since late 2022 due to construction of the TransMountain pipeline, is re-opening in June. Belmont’s owner, the West Coast Golf Group, used the closure to make a number of significant improvements to the course.
NO SCHOOL DAYS: For the first time in what seems like forever, there will not be a PGA Tour Americas qualifying school this spring at Crown Isle Golf Resort in Courtenay. The PGA Tour Americas circuit recently released the dates and sites of its six spring Q-schools and the lone Canadian location is Mill River Resort in Prince Edward Island, which will play host to the sixth and final Q-school June 23-27.
Other Q-school sites are scheduled for May 26-30 in Colombia, June 2-6 in Florence, Ind., and San Jacinto, Calif., and June 9-13 in Dothan, Alabama and Ocala, Fla. The reason for the change in the Canadian location is due to the fact that the North American portion of the PGA Tour Americas schedule begins this year in New Brunswick and ends in British Columbia. In previous years, the PGA Tour Americas circuit and its predecessors always started their schedules on the West Coast.
CHIP SHOTS: Coquitlam’s A.J. Ewart finished 10th at the Asher Tour’s Pasadera Cup in Monterey, Calif . . . Vancouver’s Stephen Thomas tied for ninth at the Toro Tour’s La Canada Golf event in Spain. . . Osoyoos Golf Club is scheduled to open for the season on March 7 for members and March 8 for the general public.