Professional golf will be coming back to the Seaforth Golf Club next month.
The Seaforth Country Classic had to be cancelled because eligible players were attracted to other tournaments and that didn't leave enough players for Seaforth. But tournament Co-ordinator Carolanne Doig says on September 18th they're going to host a skins competition featuring the girls against the guys. Doig says Seaforth's Robyn Doig will be paired with Canadian Golf Hall of Famer Lorie Kane against former Country Classic winner Derek Gillespie from Oshawa and Ryan Williams from Surrey BC.
Williams won the 2014 PGA MacKenzie Tour’s Tour Championship and they'll play for a purse of 71-hundred dollars. Doig explains the Seaforth County Classic's ten year run helped encourage more tournaments for Canadian professionals on the men's tour and their hope is that in the next few years they can start a similar tournament in Seaforth featuring women from the Symetra Tour, which is similar to the Web.com tour for men. The Professional Skins Competition will start at 1:30 on Monday September 18th . Admission is free and fans are invited to follow the players around the course.
Doig says while she's in Seaforth they'll sit down with Lorie Kane and talk a bit about what it would take to bring the Symetra Tour to Seaforth.
“Our own Robyn Doig will be paired up with Lorie Kane. She's won four times on the LPGA. And then Derek Gillespie is past winner of the Seaforth Country Classic. He won in 2012 and he's paired up with Ryan Williams from Surrey, British Columbia.”
“So we're looking that down the road, maybe 2018, maybe 2019, we'll be able to have an event that showcases the women professionals and provides a place for women to play.”