After missing out on a playoff to determine the winner by a single stroke last season, Jarred Callbeck bounced back with vengeance in 2014 to claim the overall title at the 51st annual Cedar Hill Open Men’s Golf Tournament on Sunday.
The Gorge Vale Golf Club member followed up his opening 5-under par 62 on Saturday with an equally impressive 63 for a 125 total at the popular District of Saanich-operated course at the 36-hole event.
Callbeck rolled in an eight-foot birdie putt on the final hole Sunday to walk off with the victory over a highly competitive field. He drained it as his nearest rival, Kevin Carrigan of Royal Colwood, watched.
“The year before I played pretty well, too, so I knew I had a shot at it if I could put it all together,” said Callbeck, who played the course regularly in his junior years.
“My game plan wasn’t as aggressive as the others. I relied on my wedge play and my putting,” added Callbeck, who will attempt to qualify on Monday for the upcoming PGA Tour Canada’s Bayview Pace Island Savings Open presented by the Times Colonist the first week of June.
Carrigan, who recently helped B.C. Golf defend its Pacific Northwest Golf Association title, fired back-to-back 63s.
“I felt like I played well, so obviously he played solid,” Carrigan said of Callbeck.
Ben Griffin, of Uplands Golf Club, topped the pro field with a two-day total of 129, two shots better than Paul Devenport and three up on Kent Fukushima and local Bryan Scott. Devenport and Fukushima are longtime PGA Tour Canada players originally from New Zealand and Grande Prairie, Alta. Devenport now calls Victoria home.
“It was a hoot,” Carrigan said of the tournament. “The course was in as good a shape that I have ever seen it and I’ve been bumming around it since the age of 10.”
Carrigan played at Cedar Hill as a junior from the ages of 10-17 years before becoming a member at Royal Colwood.
mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com
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