Alberta golf pro Chris Toth says that Whitehorse’s Mountain View Golf Course feels like home.
His address: top of the standings.
Toth, 42, won his fourth consecutive title at the Skookum Asphalt Charity Pro-Am Golf Tournament at Mountain View on Saturday.
“What a treat to come up again. It’s home – I love this place,” said Toth. “It’s so nice to come up and the peacefulness, and the golf course, and the people are amazing. When us pros go to these pro-ams, sometimes it’s in our mind, ‘I wonder what my amateurs are going to be like.’ This is six years I’ve been coming up and I have not run into one bad individual.… That makes it that much easier.”
Toth, a club pro from Cardiff Golf and Country Club just north of Edmonton, carded an even par 72 in the morning and a two-over 74 in the afternoon for a two-stroke victory – the same margin as last year and in 2014.
He birdied hole 18 both rounds and came away with a total of four birdies on the day.
In the past he kept his driver in the bag. This year, with thicker grass keeping balls from scampering into the woods, his one-wood saw more action.
“The first two years I played, there were no drivers. This morning I think I hit four drivers and hit three this afternoon,” said Toth. “This course isn’t overly long. So if you play the course the way it’s set up – don’t try to turn it around the corner or get farther, just hit it to the corner.… That’s the way the greens are meant to be shot into.
“A couple of the guys asked, ‘What’s your secret?’ (I said) don’t look at the pin, just hit in the centre of the green. If you hit it on the green, you’ve got a birdie chance because the greens aren’t huge.”
Fourteen visiting pros teed off in the seventh annual pro-am. Edmonton’s Tyler Rumpel placed second with a pair of 74s. Fellow Edmontonian Bruce Hardy came third with a 74 and 75.
Mountain View club pro Graham Frey tied for fourth with 74 and 77, moving up from a seventh place finish last year.
The event was Toth’s fourth of the season and his first win.
In golf a repeat is infrequent and a three-peat is even more rare. A four-peat is nothing short of extraordinary.
“(Toth) and another golf professional stayed on Sunday and we did a little bit of fishing for a couple hours to unwind and we were talking about that,” said Mountain View director of golf Jeff Wiggins. “Him and I and Cory Draper could not think of an event someone has won four times in row – as far as provincial stuff, mini-tours, pro-ams. I don’t think I’ve seen that before.”
“As an amateur golfer, when I was a youngster, I won our club championship I think six years in a row,” said Toth. “But as a pro, this is by far my most successful event.”
On the “am” side of things, Yukoners Craig Tuton, Bill Whitty and Howard Firth, along with Vernon pro Brodie Carle, took first in the team event.
Early estimations are that the pro-am raised over $50,000 for the Yukon Hospital Foundation, the event’s long-time beneficiary.
“The sponsorship was really good, Karen (Forward) at the hospital foundation did an exceptional job of making sure the ambiance and the dinner – the quality of the event – was higher than it was the last few years,” said Wiggins. “It was just one of better years that we’ve had. Just the smoothness of it, the organization of it, the support from the community, the support from the sponsors, the support from the golf professionals, the quality of the golf course.… There really wasn’t a negative to the whole event.”
Contact Tom Patrick at tomp@yukon-news.com