Skip to content

Same game, same time, this year

The Red Deer Golf and Country Club Skins Game will have a familiar look this year.The June 28 event will feature the exact same lineup that competed for the roughly $8,000 in prize money last year.
B08-SkinsGame4RandyJune22
Red Deer Golf and Country Club pro Ken Frame watches eventual winner Mike Mezei tee off during last year’s Skins Game at the RDG&CC.

The Red Deer Golf and Country Club Skins Game will have a familiar look this year.

The June 28 event will feature the exact same lineup that competed for the roughly $8,000 in prize money last year.

Mike Mezei of Lethbridge is back to defend the title he won for the first time in 2010, and will be joined by fellow Canadian Professional Golf Tour players Wes Heffernan of Calgary, Kris Wasylowich of Lethbridge and James Love of Denver, and RDG&CC pro Ken Frame.

“It’s an excellent field. We’re quite happy we could keep it together,” Frame said Monday.

“We’re hoping we can attract a little more interest this year by the fact we’ve moved the tournament back one week to avoid the Young Guns tournament (at Alberta Springs) which has conflicted with our date the last few years.

“This new date also works well with the Canadian Tour schedule.”

Mezei captured the 2010 title with $5,750 in skins.

He nearly duplicated the feat accomplished by current PGA Tour player Graham DeLaet a year earlier, but narrowly missed an eight-foot birdie put on the ninth and final hole which would have netted him at least a chip-off for the entire $8,000 pot.

Mezei has competed in one Canadian Tour event this season, finishing seventh at the Mexican PGA Championship in Mazatlan.

He sits with $3,964 in 2011 earnings, while Love — formerly of Calgary — Heffernan and Wasylowich have yet to play on the Canadian Tour this year.

Thanks to a cash donation by Red Deer bank manager Bernie Papp, the Skins Game pros will offer lessons to junior golfers prior to the event.

The Red Deer Golf and Country Club will also host the men’s Central Alberta Amateur July 30 to Aug. 1.

Meanwhile, the Alberta Amateur central qualifying tournament will be held July 5 at Olds, and Sundre Coyote Creek will stage the provincial senior men’s championship Aug. 9-11.

For the younger set, Red Deer River Bend will host Nike Golf Junior Series and Canadian Junior Golf Association Junior Linkster Series events May 28-29, and Wolf Creek Resort will be the site of a Nike Junior Series tournament June 18-19.

Wolf Creek will also welcome the McLennan Ross Sun Junior Tour championship event Aug. 29.

Other McLennan Ross Sun tournaments to be held in Central Alberta are set for July 11 at Rocky Mountain House Pine Hills, July 13 at Lacombe, July 19 at Ponoka, July 20 at Wetaskiwin, July 28 at Stettler Pheasantback, Aug. 8 at Innisfail and the following day at Olds.