Myles Creighton won the Nova Scotia juvenile boys championship and earned himself a trip to the junior nationals in Surrey B.C. this week.
The 15 year-old Digby golfer fired a four-day total 315 on the challenging Cape Breton Highland Links July 11 to 14. He finished one-stroke ahead of Matt Gallupe of Brightwood.
“The course was tough,” said Myles later at home. “The fairways were tight, the woods were close together and you had to hit right down the middle.”
Creighton also found his scores creeping up towards the end of each round. In fact he parred the 18th whole only once and hit his only triple bogey of the tournament on the 18th on the last day.
His best round was Tuesday, the second day of the tournament, where he played even through the first nine and ended up an impressive three-over 74.
The top six Nova Scotian golfers at the tournament earned a spot at the Golf Canada Canadian Junior Golf Association championships at Morgan Creek golf club Aug. 1 to 5:
Eric Banks (Truro), Chad MacMillan (Paragon) and Lincoln Bradley (Seaview), Brett McKinnon (Glace Bay), Creighton and Matt Gallupe (Brightwood).
The second place golfer at the Nova Scotia junior championships was actually a 14 year-old from Texas, Austin Connelly, who plays at the Clare Golf Club in the summer.
Creighton will be travelling with the Nova Scotia team and chaperones but without his parents to B.C.
“He’s adamant he wants to go on his own,” says his father Grant. “And after seeing how he handled the North America Cup in Toronto I have no hesitation about it all.”
Grant says the CJGA looks after the golfers from the time they get on the plane until they land back in Nova Scotia. All their meals, transportation and even after-golf activities are taken care of as a team.
“There is a lot of unity that develops there among the team and as a parent you hardly ever get to see them.”
In fact Creighton has barely been in Digby all summer – about a week altogether. He is golfing out of Ashburn near Halifax and staying with this aunt Brenda Pace. He plays in 20 tournaments a year and already this summer he’s been to Boston and Wisconsin and Toronto to play golf.
He won the CJGA East Coast Qualifier at the end of May and from that received invitations to the North America Cup, Junior World Golf championships, Euro Junior Golf Cup and Lipton Brisk Canada Cup.
And he won the juvenile division at Ken-Wo’s Burger King tournament this past Tuesday, July 26 with a 74.
Creighton’s goal for nationals is just to make the cut and qualify to play with the best players in Canada.
“He’ll have to hit in the mid-70s,” says Grant. “He's young and he’ll have two more cracks at it so for him to make the cut this year would be phenomenal.”
Grant says he will be refreshing the live-scoring on golfcanada.ca webpage all day from Tuesday to Friday next week.
