Scoring switch nets Thomson title

Golf is a game of wide swings. One minute you’re in the bunker, the next you’re in the hole.
Chrissy Thomson will testify to that fact as she went from being an almost certain winner with four holes to play to a runner-up on the 18th green to a champion by the time she left the scorer’s tent.
A two-stroke penalty accepted by playing partner and former junior teammate Jill Hardy of Winnipeg after the final hole gave Thomson the Manitoba Women’s Amateur Golf Championship at the Transcona Golf Club in Winnipeg by one shot—the first such title ever won by a local player.
“I’ve been playing well, but to put it all together in a tournament . . . it just hasn’t been there,” said the 20-year-old from Fort Frances, who will be entering her sophomore NCAA season this fall with the St. John’s Red Storm ladies’ golf team based in Queens, N.Y.
“I think my attitude and patience were the best part of my game [in Winnipeg],” she added. “To go out and play well under pressure feels good.”
Thomson, who finished with a three-round total of 223 (74-72-77), entered the final day with a one-stroke lead over Hardy, whom she had come up short against in a number of past tournaments.
Hardy birdied the first hole to pull even, but Thomson kept her cool and shot a solid front nine to lead by two at the turn—despite blustery conditions that made good shot-making a difficult task.
“The wind was crazy all day,” recalled Thomson, who finished 17th in the tournament last year. “Even if you hit a good shot, the wind could end up blowing it another way.”
The tournament seemed to be in Thomson’s back pocket as she walked up to the 15th tee with a three-shot cushion. But that’s when the tide turned—and nearly drowned her chances of victory.
“I hit it out of bounds off the tee and double-bogeyed No. 15,” recounted Thomson, who left the hole only up one.
“We both parred No. 16, but then Jill birdied No. 17 and I bogeyed, and suddenly I’m down one going to the 18th,” she added.
Both players hit wayward tee shots on No. 18, with Hardy’s ball ending up near some trees. But on her practice swing before her second shot, Hardy knocked two leaves off a branch as she lifted the club back, unintentionally improving her swing path—a no-no in the golf rulebook.
Hardy and Thomson each bogeyed the hole eventually, leaving Thomson to prepare her second-place speech—or so she thought.
“I congratulated her when we walked off the 18th green,” said Thomson, who believed the short rough and large number of possible birdie holes on the Transcona course were well-suited to her style of play. “We both deserved to win it.
“But when she sat down at the scorer’s table, she turned and said I deserved the congratulations because I had really won it. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
“It showed what kind of person she is.”
Thomson and Hardy will be on the same side as part of Team Manitoba at the Canadian amateur championship in Montreal on Aug. 11-15.
They will be joined by Heather McMunn and Stacey Bieber, who outduelled Donna Mathieson in a one-hole playoff to secure the final two spots on the team after the trio tied for third with identical three-round scores of 229.
It will be a youthful quartet making the journey to La Belle Province, but Thomson said the group is ready.
“Everyone’s really excited about this team,” she enthused. “It’s really strong, even if it is really young.
“Heather’s only 24 or 25. Jill’s only 22, but if she wasn’t playing for the University of Manitoba, she could certainly play down in the States. Stacey’s only 18, but she’s a former Manitoba junior champion.
“We’re not as experienced, but Heather, Jill, and I are all playing college golf,” noted Thomson. “That’s where the strength in the Canadian ranks is coming up from.”
Thomson also will be accompanied by McMunn, Bieber, Mathieson, Kathleen Zeweniuk, and Angela Daykin to Vernon, B.C. for interprovincial team matches July 26-28 against the host province, Alberta, and Saskatchewan in what will serve as a tune-up for Montreal.
“I was looking forward to entering those competitions as an individual, anyway,” said Thomson, who has made Team Manitoba as a junior three different times.
“But to go in as the Manitoba amateur champion is a whole different feeling,” she added. “It will give me much more confidence going in.
“I went to Winnipeg wanting to win, whereas in the past, I just wanted to go and do well,” she remarked. “I’m going to go into nationals with the same attitude.”