Summer Of Shelly Continues As Stouffer Wins Canadian Senior, Mid-Am & Mid-Master Championships
Triple Title Winner Shelly Stouffer - Image Credit Golf Canada
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Shelly Stouffer keeps winning golf tournaments and making history. The Nanoose Bay resident not only defended her Canadian Senior Women’s Amateur title at Breezy Bend Country Club in suburban Winnipeg, she also won the Canadian Women’s Mid-Amateur and Mid-Master championships that were being played concurrently.
Call it golf’s version of a hat trick.
Stouffer becomes just the second Canadian to win the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship and the Canadian Senior Women’s Amateur Championship in the same year. World Golf Hall of Famer Marlene Streit was the first to do it in 1995.
“They said, hey, you're the second Canadian to win both titles, do you know who the first was, and I said, ‘Marlene Streit,’” Stouffer said with a laugh over the phone.
It has been quite the summer for Stouffer. She won her third straight B.C. Senior Women’s Championship at her home club, Fairwinds Golf Course, in early June. She became the first British Columbian to win a United States Golf Association Championship when she won the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur in Alaska in early August.
The 52-year-old Stouffer recently tied for 29th at the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in Ohio. “I don’t know what to say,” Stouffer said. “You know what would be really cool if I go down to the U.S. Mid-Am (later this month) and win that.
“I don’t quite know how to put it into words. It has been an amazing ride. I am hitting the ball great, I am putting pretty well, and it’s just really special. I had (her son) Brett on the bag in Alaska and (her sister) Sandra was with me at the Senior Open. I came here on my own and pushed my own clubs around.”
The Senior competition is open to players 50 and older, the Mid-Amateur is for players 25 and over and the Mid-Master is for players 40 and over. The only title Stouffer didn’t win at Breezy Bend was the Super Senior Championship for players 60 and over. Give her time, as she’s not yet eligible for that one.
Stouffer won all three titles with a 54-hole score of three-over par. She closed with an even-par round of 72 to beat Terrill Samuel of Etobicoke, Ont., by one shot in all three championships. “I played pretty well,” said Stouffer, who birdied two of her first four holes. “Terrill is a great player. She won the British Senior this year. I had never played with her before and it was lots of fun. She was really great to play with.
“It came down to the last hole. She needed a birdie to force a playoff. She made her par and then I had to make my two-footer for my par and the win. This is the first time I have won the Mid-Am, so I’m pretty exited about that.”
Christina Spence Proteau of Port Alberni was in it until the end. The six-time Mid-Am winner bogeyed her final three holes to finish two shots back at five-over in the Mid-Amateur. Vancouver’s Nonie Marler was seventh. Jackie Little of Procter, B.C., tied for seventh in the Senior competition and was fourth in the Super Senior, which was won by Samuel.
Stouffer’s win gets her into next year’s Canadian Women’s Amateur and U.S. Senior Women’s Open.
British Columbia claimed both the Katherine Holleur and Crockett trophies as champions of the Interprovincial Team competitions in both the Mid-Amateur and Senior divisions. The B.C. team composed of Stouffer, Marler and Proteau won by 14 strokes over Ontario in the Mid-Amateur division, while Stouffer, Little and Sandra Turbide of Maple Ridge were 15-stroke winners over Quebec in the Senior division.
Click HERE for complete final scoring.