The B.C. Junior Girls’ Championship this week is 72 holes featuring the 40 best junior girls in the province
This week is a prelude to a busy two years for the Gorge Vale Golf Club. The 2025 B.C. Junior Girls’ Championship will run through 72 holes Tuesday through Thursday at the Craigflower Road course. The B.C. Men’s Amateur will be hosted at Gorge Vale in 2027 to celebrate the club’s centenary.
“We are proud of our commitment to junior golf and our junior girls in particular. We are very excited to host the best junior girls in the province,” club president Bryan Thomson said when the championships were announced.
“The centennial year of the Gorge Vale Golf Club is 2027 and what better way to celebrate than to invite the best [men’s] amateur golfers in the province.”
The B.C. Junior Girls’ Championship this week is 72 holes featuring the 40 best junior girls in the province. Monday will be a practice day at Gorge Vale.
“For golfers to score well at Gorge Vale, ball striking is key,” Gorge Vale GM Mike Heenan has said, about the A.V. Macan-designed course. “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.”
Last year’s B.C. Junior Girls’ Championship was one for the books, literally, at Gallagher’s Canyon in Kelowna with a stunning and record-breaking 18-stroke victory by 16-year-old Amy Lee, the rising star from Langley who is now 17, with many projecting a big future for her.
The top finishers in the provincials this week at Gorge Vale will advance to the 2025 Canadian Junior Girls’ Championship Aug. 13-16 in Sainte-Marie, Que. The B.C. 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 last year in the national tournament played at Marine Drive in Vancouver.
The 2025 B.C. girls’ junior tournament follows the 120th B.C. Women’s Amateur Championship held last week on the Victoria Golf Club, which was won by Lee, and the Canadian Women’s Amateur hosted last year by Royal Colwood.
Gorge Vale has its own history of hosting championship tournaments. That includes at the professional level, with nine Victoria Opens hosted from 1986 to 2007, and a starry winners list that included future PGA Tour players Craig Parry, Steve Stricker, Brandt Jobe and David Hearn.
The B.C. Men’s Amateur in 2027 will also mark a noteworthy moment in club history. It will be the 125th anniversary of the championship. It follows the last three occasions the B.C. Amateur was held on the Island, 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 B.C. Amateur have included Jackson Rothwell twice, Gordie Scutt, Ed Beauchemin, Bryan Toth, Darren Griff, Steve Berry, Sandy Harper, Tristan Mandur, Jake DuVall and Nolan Thoroughgood. The most prolific performer in the B.C. Amateur is the legendary Doug Roxburgh of Marine Drive with 13 championships.
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