Meet our 2023 Amateur and Mid-Amateur Champions
It came down to final-hole eagles versus final-hole birdies to determine the winners
Mackenzie Bickell and Dustin Franko have been friends and golf rivals for years, dating back to Zone 4 Junior days, so maybe it’s appropriate that with two holes to go, the two were tied near the top of the leaderboard in the final round of the Zone 4 Men’s Amateur championship, at Point Grey Golf and Country Club.
A day earlier, at Kings Links by the Sea, Bickell had watched a spectacular round revert to merely solid, posting a 69 after the wind kicked up, and the course’s difficult finishing holes stung him for three late bogeys. That tied him for the lead with Leo Harper, while Franko shot 70, and several other players lurked a stroke or two behind, including Mid-Amateur contender James Fahy, at 72.
At Point Grey the next day, Fahy was playing two groups ahead of the Bickell/Franko/Harper threesome, and had already posted an impressive 66 when the three hit their tee shots on the par-3 17th. Harper’s pull bounced hard left into foot-high fescue, leading to a bogey that contributed to a disappointing 75, but Frank and Bickell both left themselves birdie putts, Franko from 20 feet, Bickell only eight. Both putts skimmed the hole but neither fell.
Standing on the tee box of the par-5 18th, playing at just 450 yards, the two needed birdies to tie Fahy’s two-day total of 138. Franko hit three-metal, rolling to within inches of a bunker 200 yards from the pin. Bickell chose a two-iron that stayed just short of another bunker, this one in the left rough. His five-iron flew the pond guarding the green, sticking just 12 feet behind and left of the hole on the steeply canted putting surface. Franko hit his own iron to 25 feet, but with an uphill putt.
Franko’s attempt came up just short, leaving Bickell with a chance to win it all, provided he could sink the delicate putt, and that’s what he did. The 21-year-old, a senior on the UBC golf team and a member at Mayfair Lakes, now reigns as the Zone 4 Amateur Champion. Meanwhile, Fahy, a 31-year-old Marine Drive member who would have joined the two younger men in a playoff but for Bickell’s eagle, takes the Mid-Amateur crown as consolation.
2023 Amateur Champion - Mackenzie Bickell
Speaking afterward, Bickell described his round as business as usual, more or less. “Honestly, I hit it close a couple of times, but didn’t make anything special all day,” he said, the 18th excepted, of course. “Sank all the short ones, no three-putts.”
2023 Mid-Amateur Champion - James Fahey
Fahy, who played college golf at Gonzaga, was more effusive. “I haven’t played like that in quite some time,” he said. “It was just a very clean round. Fairways and greens.”
The two will be hoping for similarly happy times at the B.C. Amateur to be held at Parksville’s Morningstar Golf Club in July, where they’ll be joined by Franko as the Zone 4 team defends its provincial title. “I like our chances to repeat with these guys,” says Zone 4 Amateur coordinator Bill McDonald.
- Jim Sutherland