GHSC News Item: October 5, 2025 – Report on Ontario Open Hickory Golf Championship (2025) 

Reported by: George Supol, GHSC Hickory Ambassador

Intro

Each year, the Ontario Open Hickory Golf Championship is GHSC’s most significant hickory golf competition. Players come from all over Ontario to attend. A few come from the U.S., and this year, one even flew in from Germany. This year’s amateur championship, the third such event, was held once again at Whirlpool GC in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The date was Friday, September 19th, to Sunday, September 21st, 2025.

Here is a link to this year’s flyer and our Registration webpage.

Hickory golf involves play with wooden-shafted clubs, typically a mix of original antiques and approved replicas. Modern golf rules are used so that players can more easily adapt. Most players use a low-compression modern golf ball when playing their hickories.

The Venue

Whirlpool was designed by Stanley Thomson and opened in 1951. It is currently ranked the 67th best public golf course in Canada by Score Golf Magazine. At this year’s event, the mild fall weather was welcome, and the course was in fine shape.

Whirlpool is well-suited for hickory play as the course rewards well-executed, run-up shots to its large and elevated greens. Good putting is required for good scoring as the greens are fast and undulating, while driving accuracy is important to avoid the thick rough that surrounds the fairways and greens. Thankfully, there are few significant forced carries for hickory players to worry about.

Warm-up Play

On the afternoon of Friday, September 19, 2025, 20 players assembled at the 9-hole Chippewa course of Legends-on-the-Niagara to participate in a friendly warm-up round of hickory golf, before two main days of competitive play. Two-player scramble teams were formed by the Tournament Committee, and teams received a 0, 1 or 2-stroke handicap for each participating low, medium and high handicap player, respectively.

Bob West and David Greenland formed the winning team and were awarded the top prize of bottles of Niagara wine. A couple of closest-to-the-pin prizes were also awarded.

After the round, the participating players enjoyed an excellent meal at the Legends’ main restaurant. Green’s fees were very reasonable at $35 per player, including dinner. This warm-up event was a great meet-and-greet and a tune-up for the competitive play to come.

Official Competition

On Saturday and Sunday, 42 registered players participated in daily 18-hole competitive rounds, spread across multiple divisions as follows:

Players generally teed off in groups with others from their assigned division. One registered player withdrew prior to weekend play, due to a last-minute illness. An additional 4 players, who did not play on the weekend, participated in the Friday team-scramble, so that we had a total of 46 players over the three days.

Any player could optionally compete in the Open Division which played from Whirlpool’s red tees (5,700 yards). The Seniors and Legends Divisions played from the yellow tees (5,200 yards) while the Ladies Division played from a mix of other forward tees (4,700 yards).

Low gross prizes were available in each division. Except for the Open Division, each player’s hickory, modern or estimated golf index was used to generate an official handicap for the event, to compete for divisional net prizes.

International handicap indices were used in the case of three players from the U.S. and one from Germany. One-day players, from both Saturday and Sunday, competed as a single group for gross and net prizes.

This year, more net prizes were made available. This move by the Tournament Committee supports the further development and use of hickory handicaps. On average, hickory handicaps tend to be 3 strokes higher than modern handicaps, so players were once again encouraged before the event to get a free official Golf Canada hickory handicap index to increase their chances of winning net prizes. Three attested scorecards are generally the minimum requirement to establish a hickory handicap index. Barbara Allan and George Supol co-ordinated our handicapping for the Championship to ensure that all assigned handicaps were fair.

Five closest-to-the-pin and one longest-drive skills prizes were also awarded over the two days of competitive play. For these prizes, all participating players competed equally against each other from their respective tee markers.

Saturday Results

Players struggled to score well on Saturday. Winds gusted throughout the day while temperatures were cool during front-nine play and much warmer during back-nine play.

After the first day of play, only two players were able to break 80. That was Hugh Cameron in the Open Division, who shot 78 from the red tees, and Turlough Finan in the Legends Division, who shot 79 from the yellow tees. Hugh is one of our Society’s best hickory players. Finan, who plays with Bill Southall at Dundas Valley, had only played a couple of rounds with the hickories prior to this event, so his score was very good under the circumstances.

Only 9 other players were able to shoot in the 80’s on day #1, namely 5 players from the Legends Division and 4 players from the Senior Division. Here are the division leaders’ low gross scores from the first day of play at Whirlpool GC:

Open Division:
• Hugh Cameron – 78
• Tom Johnson – 84
• Bob West – 89

Legends Division (aged 70+):
• Turlough Finan – 79
• Murray McCrae – 80
• Patrick Potter – 86
• George Kelly – 89
• Lorne Emery – 89

Seniors Division (aged 55-69):
• Vaughn Perusse – 85
• Chris Doupe – 86
• Jim Wilhelm – 87
• Blair Heppe – 87
• Jeff Forgrave – 90

Ladies Division:
• Ariane Macdonald – 98

Saturday one-day players were led by Peter McPedran (94) and Bob McNeely/Russ Bajurny (each with 95). Closest-to-the-pin winners for Saturday were: Bill Southall (6th) and Vaughn Perusse (14th). The longest drive winner was Bob McNeely (10th). A bottle of Niagara Region wine was given to each Saturday skills winner at the end of the event on Sunday.

After Saturday play, competition was tight for the top three low gross spots in both the Legends and Senior Divisions.

Sunday Results

The winds died down, and the temperatures rose on Sunday. Accordingly, players’ gross scores dropped about 3-5 strokes on average as compared to Saturday. Player groups were reorganized on the basis of having Saturday’s best performers in each division grouped together on Sunday.

The official combined gross and net scores for the Championship may be viewed here.

Below is a summary of the overall winners with their total gross and daily gross scores (Sat/Sun). Combined two-day net score winners are also listed:

Open Division:
• Championship Winner (160 – 78/82) – Hugh Cameron (Large Silver Medal) **

• 1st Low gross (166 – 84/82) – Tom Johnson (Silver Medal) **
• 2nd Low gross (175 – 89/86) – Bob West (Bronze Medal)

Legends Division:
• 1st Low gross (163 – 79/84) – Turlough Finan (Silver Medal) **
• 2nd Low gross (165 – 80/85) – Murray McRae (Bronze Medal)
• 3rd Low gross (171 – 92/79) – Bill Southall (other prize)
• 1st Low net (154) – Glen Fast (Bronze Medal)
• 2nd Low net (157) – Ron Wiens (other prize)
• 3rd Low net (159) – Patrick Potter (other prize)

Seniors Division:
• 1st Low gross (167 – 86/81) – Chris Doupe (Silver Medal) **
• 2nd Low Gross (170 – 90/80) – Jeff Forgrave (Bronze Medal)
• 3rd Low Gross (171 – 87/84) – Jim Wilhelm (other prize)
• 1st Low net (154) – Harold Macdonald (Bronze Medal)
• 2nd Low net (159) – Chris Hawes (other prize)
• 3rd Low net (159) – Chris Freitag and David Greenland (other prizes)

Ladies Division:
• 1st Low gross (211 – 98/113) – Ariane Macdonald (Silver Medal) **
• Other Low gross (modern clubs, 186) – Donna Adams (other prize)

One-Day Players (other prizes):
• 1st Low gross (94) – Peter McPedran, Saturday (from Legends Division)
• 1st Low net (76) – Chris Gardner, Sunday (from Seniors Division)
• 1st Low net (85) – Michael Alexander, Saturday (from Legends Division)

** = winners’ names will be engraved on our Championship trophy

Other prizes were generally one or two sleeves of golf balls or another suitable prize. Closest-to-the-pin winners for Sunday were George Kelly (3rd), Jim Wilhelm (12th) and Bob West (17th). A bottle of Niagara Region wine was given to each Sunday skills winner.

Special Awards

The following special awards were given out on Sunday, after play was completed and the scores were tallied and attested to.

A Special Recognition Award was given to Tom Johnson, a U.S. hickory player, for his long-time support of our GHSC Championship events, both the Ontario Open Hickory Championship and the CB Macdonald predecessor events.

Another Special Recognition Award was given to Patrick Potter in recognition of his continued support of our Championships by playing his bagpipes before official play commences for each such event.

A Special Recognition Award was given to Gilles Hamel (Summerfresh) for his support of GHSC events.

A Special Recognition Award was also given to Christoph Meister, representing the German Hickory Society. Christoph played on Sunday and also attended our Saturday night dinner along with his wife, Franciska. Christoph also presented a Special Recognition Award from his Society to GHSC’s Chris Hawes for being the best dressed hickory player of the Championship.

A special Rooky-of-the-Year Award, a laser-engraved wooden medallion, was awarded, the day after the event to Todd Halliday in recognition of his positive attitude and for being an excellent role model for others.

Draw Prizes

A number of draw prizes were awarded to participants of the event. A smart phone random generator app was used with one-day players each getting their own draw number and two-day players each getting two draw numbers. Draw prizes included a large golf picture, several golf books, other golf collectibles, and two brand new Kelly Leonard wooden-shafted “bulger” transitional woods.

The two hand-made clubs donated by Kelly Leonard were won by Chris Freitag and David Burgess, both two-day players. These are beautiful replicas that are strong enough to be used for hickory play using low-compression modern golf balls.

Conclusions

And so, this year’s Championship has come to an end. This writer has spoken to many of the participants of this year’s event, and the consensus seems to be that it was a very enjoyable time for everyone.

The fact that this year’s prizes were approximately equal in number to the total number of participants confirms the development of our annual Championship into a solid, consistent and still financially viable event. Our accommodation of both one and two-day players is also very positive. We look forward to seeing all of you players again, and hopefully several more, next year!

Your Tournament Committee

Barbara Allan, Lorne Emery, Allan Lew, George Supol, Bob West

Below are some pics from our 2025 Championship. These were taken on Sunday by George Supol. Click on an image to see a larger version. More pics will be added soon. Additional pics may be seen on GHSC’s Facebook page.

(Another fun historical golf experience.)

Special note: Players are reminded that they can visit our sponsor, St. Andrew’s Fish and Chips restaurant in Scarborough ON, and receive a 25% discount on their meal, until October 31, 2025. This promotion covers the player and one guest.