Sandra’s dandy on home course
Sandra Billyard almost missed having the chance to successfully defend her senior women’s title at Saturday’s 71st Annual Walt McCollum Niagara District Champion of Champions tourney at the Port Colborne Country Club.
Last week, the 61-year-old member and co-owner of the Port Colborne Country Club needed a playoff to defeat Barb Brown in her club championship. The pair shot 74 and 75 to meet up in the playoff.
“She is a good player anyways but she played fabulous,” Billyard said. “She didn’t miss a fairway, she putted well and I was thinking it was going to be tough.
“I was quite nervous, but we both played great.”
Billyard had a triple bogey on the par three 10th hole in her final round before qualifying for the playoff with birdies on 14, 15 and 16. She won on the first playoff hole against Brown, the 2018 Champions of Champions senior winner.
“That gave me confidence going into the playoff and that’s the first playoff I have ever won,” she said, adding she has lost in three previous playoffs.
Billyard didn’t need a playoff Saturday, recording a 36-40-76 to defeat Betty Divok by three strokes.
“I am absolutely thrilled,” she said. “There are a lot of girls here that I play against in the Ontario seniors and other events like that so I knew there were a lot of good players competing today.”
Billyard was anything but overconfident golfing on her home course.
“I worried for two friggin’ weeks before this because it is your own course and there are plusses and minuses,” she said. “The plusses are I knew exactly where to be slow or fast with the putts because they put some of the pins in tricky positions like they usually do. The minus is that everybody expects you to do well.”
Putting was Billyard’s biggest worry heading into the day.
“I was putting so badly but my husband (Sandy) gave me a tip last night and I was putting so badly that I don’t think it could hurt me. I putted OK.”
The tip was to take the putter back slowly and then accelerate through.
“It is pretty simple but it helps to have that in your mind because you don’t even know the things you are doing wrong,” she said.
Billyard now has seven Champions title on her resume. She won the championship women’s division in 1995, 1996, 1999 and 2003 and seniors crowns in 2017 and 2019.
Winning a Champions title never grows old.
“It is against all the best players in the area and this tournament, ever since I came to Canada (from Chicago) when I was 21, has always made me so extremely nervous because you want so badly to do well in it. It’s even more so than the Ontario tournaments.”
Other past champions in the senior women’s field included: Rockway Vineyards’ Divok, who won champion women’s crowns in 2004, 2005 and 2008 and senior women’s titles in 2015 and 2016; and, Freedom Oaks’ Sarah-Anne Smurlick, who won the champions women’s crown in 2018
LEADERBOARD
Sandra Billyard, Port Colborne 36-40-76
Betty Divok, Rockway Vineyards 39-40-79
Mandy Garner, Lookout Point 39-41-80
Suzie Sexton, Sawmill 40-41-81
Sarah-Anne Smurlick, Freedom Oaks 40-41-81
Sue MacKenzie, St. Catharines 42-44-86
Theresa Holmes, ICC 45-43-88
Sherry Christie, Twenty Valley 43-45-88
Cherie Race, Beechwood 42-46-88
Ginny Green, Niagara-on-the-Lake 42-47-89
Nicole Crevier, Willodell 50-41-91
Sue Labatte, Niagara Falls 47-44-91
Julie Zulik, Bridgewater 52-40-92
Kim Rose, Whiskey Run 52-48-100
Helga Townsend, Rolling Meadows 54-48-102
Linda Fee, Cardinal Lakes 50-45-95
Sue Huffman, Long Beach 56-59-115
Coverage of the 71st Annual Walt McCollum Niagara District Champion of Champions golf tournament is made possible with the support of Homes Of Elegance by Gatta Homes Inc. Visit them at http://gattahomes.com.
HIGH-RESOLUTION ELECTRONIC COPIES OF THE BELOW PHOTOS ARE AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE. COST IS $20 WHICH WILL INCLUDE PUBLISHED PHOTO AND ANY OTHERS WE HAVE OF THE FEATURED GOLFER. TO PURCHASE, CONTACT bpuchalski@cogeco.ca.
