Original History

                                                                                                              AREA GOLF PROS CREATE OWN ZONE

                                                                                             By Bob Ferguson – Citizen staff writer, January 13, 1976

On July 11, 1911, The Royal Ottawa Golf Club was the site of an historical event in the annals of Canadian golfdom – establishment of the Canadian Professional Golf Association.
On January 1, 1976, Ottawa was once again the site of a historic golf moment – the declaration of independence of the CPGA Ottawa Zone.
The ninth such body in the CPGA galaxy, and the first such move within the organization since Northern Ontario became a zone about a decade ago, is the result of a concentrated lobbying job on the part of the area’s 45 oro golfers. 

“It’s taken a year of hard sell,” admits captain Harry Hereford of Rivermead, “but it’s a brand new ball game now. We’ll now have a greater voice in our own destiny and golfers throughout the area should benefit.”
 

The Ottawa zone, encompassing 45 professionals from 40 clubs in a geographic region bounded by Deep River on the Northwest to Hawkesbury on the Southeast and along the St. Lawrence through Cornwall to Kingston, is the fourth largest in Canada, topped only by Ontario, Quebec and B.C..  

“Surprisingly,” explained vice-president Bud Malloy of Hylands, “we received no opposition from the Quebec zone of which we’d been part since CPGA inception. In fact, they supported our proposal as did Ontario and the CPGA president. Actually, the creation of zone status was more a process of evolution than anything else. In 1965, Chaudiere’s Stan Kolar and several other area pros formed the Ottawa Valley PGA group under the QPGA and we’ve operated most successfully at that level ever since. However, because of our geographic location we were too far from Toronto region or even Montreal region competitions for many of us to participate in major events. Also, while our group encompassed so many members, we had no voice at the national level. The zone status rectifies this situation.”

Better relationship

The executive is convinced the new status will provide a better working relationship between themselves, the Quebec Golf Association and the Canadian Ladies Golf Association. In fact, there’s a strong belief that time will produce a similar status for the region’s amateur golfers. They now function under Quebec Zone control.

“The most immediate benefit to the amateurs,” Kolar explains, “should come in the area of junior development. Instead of having to work through the Quebec body to set up clinics, etc., John Holzman and his aides can deal directly with Larry McCauley, our junior development chairman. It should expedite matters considerably.”
A dozen tournaments – 10 of them Pro-Ams – are being scheduled in the area as well as junior clinics and merchandise shows for the pros. In mid-March, in co-operation with the City of Ottawa GolfSpo ’76 is being planned at Pineview.

“We’re definitely airborne now,” claims Malloy. “And the sky’s the limit.”