Darryl James Leading the Pack at PING Club Professional Championship
25 July, 2022
It was a beautiful day for Round 1 of the annual PING Club Pro Championship hosted this year at the serene River Bend G&RA in Red Deer. Conditions on the course were excellent for all our competitors today and we saw some great scores on the Leaderboard which has set us up with an exciting R2 tomorrow. Last year’s defending Champion - Todd Halpen (Golfuture YYC) will look to keep the trophy for a second year running while our other 54 competitors will look to take it off his hands.
In First place, after battling in the Playoff at last year’s Championship, coming out firing for R1 was: Darryl James (National Golf Academy at Shaganappi) who carded an excellent 5-under par 67 today with a 34 on the front-9 and 33 on the back-9. Darryl had 7 Birdies on the card today along with only 2 blemishes to show and is holding a 2-stroke lead over his nearest competitors.
In a 3-way tie for 2nd is: Josh Fleming (Golf 365) & Kasey Timms (Leduc GC) and Sam Kirkness (Inglewood G&CC) who all shot great 3-under par 69’s today. Kasey carded a 1-under 35 on the front-9 and followed it up with 2-under par 34 on the back-9 with 5 Birdies on the card. Josh also carded a 1-under par 35 on the front-9 and followed it with a 2-under 34 on the back-9 with 6 Birdies on the card today. Sam carded 2-under par 34 on the front-9 and 1-under par 35 on the back-9 with 5 Birdies on the card.
Rounding out our Top-5 today, in a 2-way tie for 4th is: Jeremy Maher (Modern Golf) who carded a respectable 2-under par 70 with 1 Eagle and 3 Birdies today. Jamie Kureluk also carded 2-under par 70 today with 3 Birdies on the card.
Round 2 will resume tomorrow morning (July 26th) at 9:00 AM.
Final group of: James, Fleming and Timms tee it up at 11:33 AM sharp tomorrow!
Congratulations to our Day 1 Skins Winners: Andre DiBartolo (Edmonton Garrison Memorial G&CC) with a Birdie on #3 and Mathew MacDonald (Innisfail GC) with an Eagle on #18. Each player won $550 per Skin.
Special thank you to our long-time Sponsor: PING Canada for their continued support of this event and the Association.