The local favourite ended up as the big winner at a national championship golf tournament in Nanaimo this week.
Nanoose Bay's Shelly Stouffer won the Golf Canada women's senior championship, held Tuesday through Thursday, Aug. 26-28, at the Nanaimo Golf Club. Stouffer finished the 54-hole tournament at 3-under par, thanks in part to a course record of 67, 5-under par, in the second round.
“It’s awesome to win the Canadian Women’s Senior Championship,” said Stouffer in a Golf Canada press release. “It’s been a couple years since I’ve been out of it but I’m happy to be back in the winners circle."
It was Stouffer's third senior women's national championship, but she said it was "that much more special" to win this one in front of family and friends.
“I played here quite a bit this year in preparation for this tournament because I really wanted to win and get it done and it was awesome to get it done today,” she said. “This is the first time it’s been really close to home, so it was kind of like a home game which was awesome.”
In addition to the national championship trophy, Stouffer earned exemptions into next year's U.S. Senior Women’s Open, Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship, Canadian Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship, and Canadian Women’s Senior Championship.
She also led Team B.C. to the Golf Canada inter-provincial team championship, held concurrently with the first two days of the senior women's championship. Stouffer, Kyoka Takahashi of Vancouver and June Zhang of Coquitlam came back to beat Team Ontario by one stroke in that competition with a combined score of 10-over par.
In the super seniors' division, Mary-Ann Hayward of St. Thomas, Ont., won the national title, shooting even par over three days, eight strokes better than her nearest competitor.
Golf Canada noted that other highlights of the tournament were two hole-in-ones on the 120-yard fourth hole on Thursday, Aug. 28, with Gisselle Willimus of Edmonton and Marie-Thérèse Torti of Candiac, Que., both accomplishing the feat.
