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The Okanagan Golf Club congratulates UBC Okanagan on being awarded the 2019 Canada West Golf Championships, as the sport will make its conference debut at The Bear Course.

13th February, 2019
UBCOUBC Okanagan has been awarded the 2019 Canada West Golf Championships, as the sport will make its conference debut at the Okanagan Golf Club's Bear Course.

Golf at the Canada West level was officially added as a sport following the 2018 Canada West AGM, which was held in Kelowna last May.

The final dates for the two-day championship will be announced at a later date but will take place in the fall of 2019.

The successful bid for the championship was a put together as a co-operative with UBC Okanagan Athletics, Tourism Kelowna, and the Okanagan Golf Club.

Heading the bid was UBC Okanagan's new Director, Athletics and Recreation, Tom Huisman, who in his first year as the AD successfully landed a Canada West championship.

"I'm extremely excited for the opportunity to host and profile UBCO and UBCO golf at the first ever Canada West Golf Championship this fall. The opportunity this presents for our golfers and program is pretty significant. I'd like to recognize the great work of Harvey Hubball at Tourism Kelowna, and Dan Matheson and James Grassie from the Okanagan Golf Club for their assistance in putting our bid together, as well as the continued support of UBCO and its senior leadership team," said Huisman.

One of the keys to creating the winning bid was a partnership with Tourism Kelowna. The 2019 Canada West Golf Championships joins an impressive list of recently secured bids for Kelowna as Tourism Kelowna's Harvey Hubball, a UBCO alumnus and former member of the Heat men's golf team, had also worked on successful bids including the 2019 Skate Canada International and 2020 Memorial Cup.

"Tourism Kelowna is very proud to have supported UBC Okanagan's successful bid for the inaugural Canada West Golf Championships. As a premier golf destination in Canada, we're excited to welcome top student-athletes to the Okanagan Golf Club and continue to grow Kelowna's impressive hosting resume."

The Okanagan Golf Club has been the home course for the UBC Okanagan golf program since its inception in 2008-09. From 2008 through this past fall (2018), the Heat teams have been competing in the CCAA (Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association) and the PACWEST conference for university golf, in the absence of an opportunity to compete at the Canada West level. 

The course, located near the Okanagan campus of UBC, at Quail Ridge, has hosted two provincial championships and six PACWEST tournaments for UBC Okanagan in that span, with one tournament at OGC every year since 2013.

Dan Matheson is the general manager of the Okanagan Golf Club and has been at the OKGC as long as the Heat have golfed out of the Kelowna course, and he is eager to show off the Nicklaus designed course to Canada's top university golfers.

"On behalf of the Okanagan Golf Club and GolfBC, we are excited to be hosting the 2019 Canada West Golf Championships at the Okanagan Golf Club.  As the long time host facility for our UBCO Heat Golf Team, we are excited show university players from across Western Canada what a fantastic test of golf our Nicklaus Designs Bear Course will be for all players. A lot of hard work and effort was put forward by the committee involved in bringing the event to the Okanagan Golf Club and Kelowna, and our reward will be providing a truly Championship experience on the spectacular Bear Course in the center of Okanagan golf country," commented Matheson.

The Bear course at the Okanagan Golf Club:
The Bear's 18 hole 6,885 yard, part 72 masterpiece design opened for play in 1999 and is unlike any other golf course in British Columbia. With dramatic sculpted fairways surrounded by the forests and sagebrush hills of B.C.'s sun-drenched southern interior. The Bear is the crown jewel course of the Okanagan Valley.

Heat golf tournaments hosted at the OGC
Go to the UBC Heat Website for more information.

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