Gorge Vale will be golf central for some of the best players in the province over the next three years. It was announced the 2025 ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ junior girls’ championship will take place at the Craigflower Road course from June 30 to July 4 and that the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Men’s Amateur will also be hosted at Gorge Vale in 2027 to celebrate the club’s centenary.
“The centennial year of the Gorge Vale Golf Club is 2027 and what better way to celebrate than to invite the best amateur golfers in the province,” club president Bryan Thomson said in a statement.
“We are also proud of our commitment to junior golf and our junior girls in particular. We are very excited host the best junior girls in the province.”
Gorge Vale has a history of hosting championship tournaments, including at the pro level, with nine Victoria Opens held at the A.V. Macan-designed course from 1986 to 2007, with winners there on Craigflower that included future PGA Tour players Craig Parry, Steve Stricker, Brandt Jobe and David Hearn.
The ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ junior girls’ championship next year will be 72 holes featuring the 39 best junior female players in the province. This year’s winner, at Gallagher’s Canyon in Kelowna with an astonishing record-shattering 18-stroke victory, was the 16-year-old prodigy Amy Lee of Langley, considered the next big thing coming out of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ female golf.
Gorge Vale GM Mike Heenan laid out the challenge his course will provide for Lee and the other hopefuls next year: “For golfers to score well at Gorge Vale, ball striking is key. Keeping your ball in play off the tee and finding the right spots on the greens will set the competitors up for a successful week.”
The top finishers will advance to the 2025 Canadian junior girls’ championship in Sainte-Marie, Que. The ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ team of Lee, Ha Young Chang of Surrey and Chelsea Truong of Victoria, an NCAA Div. 1 sophomore with the University of New Mexico Lobos, won the Canadian junior team championship this year in the national tournament at Marine Drive in Vancouver.
The 2025 girls’ junior provincials add to a busy next summer of championships on Island courses after the 120th ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Women’s Amateur, Mid-Amateur, and Mid-Master Championship were announced for Victoria Golf Club from June 23-26.
Meanwhile, the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Men’s Amateur in 2027 will be the 125th in the history of the venerable championship. The last three times the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Amateur was held on the Island were in 2023 at Morningstar in Parksville, 2021 at Storey Creek in Campbell River and 2016 at Pheasant Glen in Qualicum Beach.
Island champions in the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Amateur have included Jackson Rothwell twice, Tristan Mandur, Jake DuVall, Nolan Thoroughgood, Bryan Toth, Gordie Scutt, Darren Griff, Ed Beauchemin, Steve Berry and Sandy Harper. The golfer with the most ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Amateur championships is the iconic Doug Roxburgh of Marine Drive with 13.
