Gorge Vale will host the centenary of the women’s golf Huntting Cup on Monday. The tournament is an annual competition between the Lower Mainland’s Sweeny Cup-winning players and South Vancouver Island’s Harris-Erickson competition winners.
William Foster Huntting donated the Huntting Cup to be awarded to the winner between the South Island and Lower Mainland teams, composed of six players each, from the four founding clubs Jericho, Shaughnessy Heights, Colwood, and Victoria golf clubs. Shaughnessy Heights hosted the first competition in 1922.
The Centennial event will have a ceremonial tee-off with hickory sticks and feather golf balls at 10:30 a.m. Monday. Mike Riste from the B.C. Golf Museum will be on hand with historical clubs from the museum.
The Huntting Cup was so prestigious in its earlier years that top players left other clubs to join Colwood, Victoria, Jericho or Shaughnessy just to be eligible to play for the Cup. Eligibility was extended to all Lower Mainland and Lower Island clubs in the 1960s.
The competition has featured several star players over the years, including members of the Canadian, B.C. and Pacific Northwest golf halls of fame. Alison Murdoch of Victoria is a member of all three of those halls of fame and is scheduled to play in this year’s Huntting Cup, as she has done for more than two decades.
“It’s a big deal,” Murdoch said in a statement.
“It’s certainly something that you pencil in on your calendar each year.”
Other women in all three halls of fame who played in the Huntting Cup include Violet Sweeny, Marilyn Palmer O’Connor, Gail Harvey Moore and Margaret Todd.
