The Irly Bird’s Spring Fling Golf Tournament raises funds for children’s charities on island and is driving toward becoming one of the premier events on Bowen’s calendar. The 7th annual tourney Sunday June 8, and while the numbers aren’t all in, organizers said the total raised will exceed $12,000.
That will be the highest total to date and another record set this year was the number of golfers: 180 island and off-island players took part in the Texas Scramble/Best Ball shotgun format and the Bowen Island Golf Club saw more golfers on the day than it likely ever has in any other single day, with 3 flights of 60 golfers, one each at 9a.m., noon and in the afternoon at 3p.m.
Bob Miller of the Irly Bird said many off-island golfers marvelled at seeing deer and eagles as they played and duffers and experienced golfers alike praised the course itself, saying it’s a beautiful a nine-hole course as they have played. While a lot of teams came in with great scores on a challenging course, this tournament was not strictly about golf.
“It’s really a big social event that happens to involve golf and it was absolutely perfect,” Miller said. “The weather was great, the course was fantastic and the dinner from Glenn Cormier and everyone at the pub was tremendous. Win or lose, you’re sure to have a wonderful time and raise money for a great cause.”
Over 200 showed up for the dinner and afterwards every golfer got a prize as dozens of local and off-island businesses and customers of the Irly Bird made donations to the prize table. Ardent golfer, and socialiser, Dean Nickle said their group had a great day. “The tournament was terrific and so was the dinner,” Nickle said. “It was a herculean effort by the Irly Bird and we’re grateful.”
There were, of course, winners in the tournament and the foursome that came out with the top score of 28 and took the Peter Schmidt Memorial Trophy (a.k.a. The Silver Fox trophy) was made up of Alice Jennings, Deb McGillivray, Harvey Hubball and Glen McGregor. At the other end, a 44 from the plucky Pat Adams along with Audrey Shirley, Josephine Riley and Greta Smith won the race for last place. Peter Moir won the putting event.
The Irly Bird also paid for 10 junior memberships for young golfers and gave them away by lottery. Among the winners were brothers Clayton and Wyatt ‘the Riot’ Miller and Jewel Minoose and her brother Romeo.
Miller noted that all of the staff at the Building Centre donate time and effort to the tournament and said that the Irly Bird is “proud of what we’re able to accomplish with our staff and sponsors, we’re a small organization and we work hard at it and we enjoy putting it on.”
