It's not often you see golfers decked out in wintry clothing on the first day of summer, but if you were at the Yellowknife Golf Club on the weekend, you'd understand why.
The Det'on Cho Group of Companies Midnight Classic returned for another year at the club with three days of golf and other frolic from June 20 to 22. Dozens of golfers from the NWT and other locales too to the course to play one of the several tournaments open to registrations, but the highlight is always the 11:59 p.m. flight on the Saturday evening.
Kylie Frederick, the club's director of golf operations, said it was one of the coldest tournaments she can ever remember being a part of.
"I can recall telling a lot of people that it was colder than the Glo-Ball," she laughed. "I was bundled up in about three layers with a toque on. It was all fun, but definitely a lot chillier than I think everyone was used to."
For reference, the Glo-Ball Tournament, which features glow-in-the-dark balls, is usually held in mid-September each year.
Everything kicked off on June 20 with a four-person scramble tournament which was well-attended. That was followed by the 18-hole stroke play championship itself - there is a proper tournament involved, after all.
Jake Roche ended up winning the men's title by shooting 75, while Barb Marsh, who made the trip in from Red Deer, Alta., won the women's crown with a round of 82.
After dinner on Saturday, it was time to bundle up and play the midnight flight. Teams of four played either the front or back nine holes and each hole had two teams of players.
Sunday morning featured the Adult-Junior Tournament, a new addition to the schedule. Just as it sounds, it had one adult and one junior team up to play the front nine and try to get the lowest score. The inaugural winners this year were the father-son duo of Conan and Cian Donohue as they managed to overcome Danny and Tucker Beck in a playoff. Both teams ended up with identical scores of 40 following the regulation nine and the 10th hole was used as the tiebreaker.
Not to be outdone, the Mediocre Golf Association was out for its version of a midnight tournament called The MGA, its play on the PGA Championship. That happened on Sunday evening and featured a first-time winner in Mike May, who shot an 18-hole total of 88 to win by three strokes over a group of four players who finished on 91.
Shaun Morris, president of the MGA Yellowknife chapter, said May just played a really good round all the way through.
Since they had the whole course to themselves that evening, Morris said they were able to have a larger crew than normal.
"We had 43 players and that includes guests," he said. "We normally have quite a few guests for this tournament, so we were able to bump things up."
