By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

The significance of what he had accomplished was not lost on Austin Krahn after he survived a gruelling eight-hole playoff and won the Team Canada NextGen selection camp tourney in MacTier, Ont.

The 17-year-old Christina Lake resident — the reigning B.C. Junior and B.C. Indigenous champion — is now officially a member of Team Canada.

“It’s a huge honour to represent your country,” Krahn said in a telephone interview.

“It is something I don’t take lightly. I want to represent them well. It’s not all about the golf, I understand, it’s a lot about how you act on the course and I want to show them that I am more than just a good golfer. I am a good person and I want to show that to the country. And of course it’s the highest level of golf in Canada and it’s an absolute privilege to be part of that.”

Krahn was one of 19 of Canada’s top male junior golfers who were invited to the selection camp tourney, which was held concurrently with the inaugural Canadian Collegiate Invitational at Öviinbyrd Golf Club.

The winner was guaranteed a spot on Team Canada’s NextGen national team. Krahn finished the 54-hole event tied for the lead at even-par with Charlie Gillespie of Calgary and Jager Pain of Woodbridge, Ont. Their subsequent playoff turned into a marathon, finally ending on the eighth extra hole. “It was a long day, but it was a fun day,” Krahn said. Fun but exhausting.

“It is really tough mentally because you have to be so focused on every shot and you have to control your nerves and where your head is at,” Krahn said of the playoff. “You can do that for two holes, but as it goes on and on, you just start getting tired and mentally fatigued and you just have to keep pushing through. You don’t know when it’s going to end, it keeps going and going.”

Pain was eliminated on the second extra hole, which Krahn and Gillespie both birdied. “On the last hole he (Gillespie) hit a poor iron shot and didn’t get up and down. I played steady the whole time and just kept it going. I two-putted for par to win it.”

The win caps off what has been an excellent year for Krahn. He repeated as B.C. Indigenous champion this past spring at University Golf Club in Vancouver. A few weeks later he won the B.C. Junior Boys Championship at Gallagher’s Canyon in Kelowna with a 72-hole score of 11-under par. “This has been a very good year,” Krahn said.

“I probably played my best golf of the year at the B.C. Junior. I was just hitting the ball so good there. I won a couple of Maple Leaf Junior Tour events mixed in there and then went to Saskatoon for the Canadian Amateur. I made the cut which I was really proud of.

"I didn’t play well the last two days, but all things considered I was really happy with the way I played for the week. The Canadian Juniors was a little bit of a disappointment. My first round was phenomenal, but I didn’t play well the last three days. But that’s okay because not every week can be great.”

Krahn felt his game this week was nearly as sharp as it was at the B.C. Junior. “I hit the driver this week phenomenally,” he said. “I never lost a ball off the tee and then I putted really, really well. Same thing as Gallagher’s. The hole sometimes seems so big and you can just roll it in there.”

Krahn can’t wait to take advantage of the many opportunities that will come his way as a member of Team Canada. “There’s tons of advantages,” he said. “I know I will get lots of good coaching — mental and physical — and I will learn more about things like nutrition and all that kind of stuff.

“Funding is a huge thing, especially for us juniors. And then getting into more tournaments. They have all these different tournaments that you can get into and help you to play your best.”

See complete final scoring for the NextGen Junior Boys Championship HERE

CHIP SHOTS: The University of Notre Dame won the Canadian Collegiate Invitational with a team score of 17-under. That was five shots better than the University of Missouri and the University of Michigan. . .Michigan’s Hunter Thomson, a Calgary native, won the individual competition by two shots with a score of 14-under par. He earned an exemption into the 2025 RBC Canadian Open.