Competing for Canada on the international stage as team captain was extra special for St. Albert golfer Talin Thera.
The Sturgeon Valley Golf & Country Club member was among eight Canadians selected to play at the Euro Junior Golf Cup last week in Fife, Scotland.
“It was kind of unbelievable. It was a moment to get used to. It didn’t feel it was actually happening. It kind of felt like a dream coming true. It was different, I would say. I didn’t plan on it or think that it was actually going to happen at one point,” said Thera, 15, the second-youngest junior and one of three Albertans on Team Canada.
“It was kind of crazy to think that I was actually going there and to be part of the team and then when I was told I was going to be the team captain (on the eve of the tournament) it was kind of a crazy moment. This was actually a pretty big deal to be the captain of your country going overseas.”
Leading up to the tournament, the Canadians teed it up at the Levin Golfing Society Junior Open in Scotland and Thera placed second in the stroke play event featuring competitors from all over the world.
“That was big moment, too,” Thera said. “I haven’t done cool things like that before this.”
A series of regional qualifiers through the Canadian Junior Golf Association determined the top eight juniors for the Scotland trip.
“There was two or three tournaments that you go in and where you placed and ranked on your score you get points for that, so you need a certain amount of points,” said Thera, who was “third or fourth, I’m not sure” in the final June 10 rankings.
“It was a big goal. I always wanted to be at the national level. I always thought that it would be a pretty cool thing to do, “ Thera said. “I definitely was looking at the tournament schedules and I wanted to go to all these qualifiers to see if I can make it.”
To achieve the accomplishment, “Usually every night after work (at BP Coatings) I was going to the range and practising for three to four hours working on my short game, my putting and my chipping all night until the sun went down usually,” said Thera, who spent every day he could at Sturgeon Valley practising and/or playing rounds of nine or 18 holes when he wasn’t at a tournament.
The labour of love paid off at the Euro Junior Golf Cup, formally known as the World Junior Golf Cup that was developed in 1998 and is held on courses in Scotland. Canada was joined at the three-day tournament by the United States (San Diego Junior Golf Association), Scotland (Fife Golf Union) and this year’s event was held at the Leven Links, Crail’s Craighead Course and St. Andrews Link’s Castle Course.
The three-ball match play format had each player competing in two matches at the same time. One point was awarded to the winner of each match and if there was a tie after 18 holes each side received a half point.
Canada finished second behind the United States for the John Clark Trophy and Thera’s record was three wins, two losses and one tie (the last nine holes on the final day were rained out so each team got half a point for a draw).
The best 18-hole round for the lefty was two-over 74 playing against the team captains from the United Sates and Scotland.
“The team captains were paired up against each other for all three days and we led off the tee sheet so we were the first ones to tee off,” Thera said. “I was playing against some other pretty big guys and I thought I fared pretty well. I played probably my best as I could and I performed probably better than I thought, considering the conditions with the wind and rain.
"There was 60 kilometre-an-hour winds and rain coming off the ocean, so it was pretty crazy. It was hard to think people actually golf in that over there.”
As for the courses, “They have sand-based fairways and sand-based greens, as opposed to here where it’s just dirt and grass, so the ball rolls so much different that the spin doesn’t grab on the greens so our whole team, during the practice rounds, was trying to figure out where to land the ball, and then with the wind and rain it just made it so much more challenging. It was kind of hard just to keep focused and playing,” Thera said.
The experience bodes well for future endeavours in the sport.
“Hopefully I can continue to perform at the national level again and if that means next year or going over to college or at an NCAA level, hopefully that will get me there or just keep competing at higher levels like going through maybe another Team Canada process or Team Alberta or anyway I can get noticed more,” Thera said.
Upcoming is an American Junior Golf Association sanctioned tournament in Montana and the next major event is the 27th annual CJGA World Junior Challenge during the Christmas break at the Innisbrook Resort in Florida.
“It’s kind of an open invitational, which is a pretty big tournament, so that will be pretty cool,” Thera said
Among the estimated 10 events through the CJGA this year for Thera was the Skechers Junior Series at Woodside Golf Club in Airdrie, which was also a regional qualifier for the Euro Junior Golf Cup. His two-day total of 152, which tied for seventh in the U19 division, was highlighted by a personal-best 18-hole score of 72.
Thera also posted rounds of 83 and 78 for a score of 161 for a share of 14th place at the U.S. Teen World Championship Qualifier-West in the 13 to 18 division at McKenzie Meadows Golf Club in Calgary.
“I've been trying to stay level-headed and focused throughout the whole round and usually my distance helps me out in a lot of scenarios for sure or even creativity like around the greens and just deciding what kind of shots I can play and how versatile I can be around them,” said the recipient of the St. Francis Xavier High School Golf Academy’s most valuable player award in Grade 10.
“The spring of this year when I went to the golf academy I noticed my game really started to improve just from golfing every day with instruction there from great coaches. It helped out so much and my scores kept getting lower and my handicap started to drop. I started to realize that I actually could take this pretty far and make this my passion,” said Thera, who boasts a handicap of two since devoting all his energies to the sport in the last two years.
“Golf opens up my creativity in how many different ways you can play it or how much different ways you can practise for it or how you can get better. You don’t have to follow the strict rule book of how you have to play, what kind of swing you need to have or just what kind of set up you need to have, you can kind of play it or design it to yourself. You can make it your own game.”
