A startling 64 on his home course nets Dylan Bercan the win.

Dylan Bercan and Tyson Turchanski holding Amateur and Mid-Amateur trophies respectively.

Dylan Bercan has been a member of Marine Drive Golf Club since he was nine. “It’s the best place for a Junior,” he thinks. “Everyone is pushing you to get better.”

Despite all the many hundreds of times he’s played it, though, the 421-yard 18th remains a challenge. The hole curves around a steep hill with out of bounds looming on the left, bunkers and trees to the right. A draw following the path of the fairway would be ideal, but Bercan plays most of his shots left to right.

It wasn’t a challenge for him during the second round of our 2024 Amateur and Mid-Amateur championship, however. “The wind helped keep my ball straight and I missed the bunker by a few feet,” he explains, smiling even more broadly than usual. From there, he hit a lob wedge to six inches for a tap-in birdie. That gave him a six-under 64 for the day and 136 for the tournament, one stroke better than second place finisher Tyson Turchanski.

Overall, it was one of the strongest fields the city championship has ever known, notes tournament chair Bill McDonald. In yet another sign that the game of golf is enjoying a golden moment, the field of 100 was oversubscribed by several dozen potential entrants, and the maximum handicap netted out as an impressive 2.7.

For Bercan, his place atop the leaderboard wouldn’t become clear till several more groups came in, as an even-par 72 at a breezy Kings Links By The Sea left him in a seven-way tie for seventh after the first day of play. “I hit some loose shots there,” he says. Day 2 was a different story. He started his round with a chip-in and sank a 25 footer for eagle on the par-5 12th, which, along with three birdies, gave him a 30 on the back nine.

The win was the latest in a strong run of play for the 22-year-old, a veteran of Zone 4’s Junior Tour. A senior at the University of Hawaii Hilo, he led his team to the PacWest Conference Championship, while notching several personal top-fives and being named to the all PacWest first team. We’ll be rooting for him to keep it going at the BC Golf Amateur Championship, to be held at Abbotsford’s Ledgeview Golf Club, where he’ll be joined on the Zone 4 team by Turchansky and third-place finisher Adam Karim.

- Jim Sutherland