By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

(October 28, 2024) - When Dylan MacDonald reflects on his time as a UBC Thunderbird, he’ll undoubtedly remember being part of NAIA and Canadian championship teams. He will also never forget one very special week in Bremerton, Wash.

Last week at Gold Mountain’s Olympic course, MacDonald played what he called the best golf of his life and won the UBC Men’s Invitational tourney with a three-round total of 17-under par.

That broke the UBC program scoring record for a 54-hole event and MacDonald’s final round of eight-under 64 matched the school’s single-round record.

“This was definitely the best golf I have ever played,” MacDonald said in an interview.

“It was really nice to be able to do that in front of my coaches, Chris (Macdonald) and Jeff (Buder), who have been here with me for all five years and have been so much help to me along the way. It is honestly the best experience I have ever had on the golf course.”

To say MacDonald did not see his record-setting performance coming would be an understatement. He joked that his first practice round at Gold Mountain did not go well. “We played nine holes the first day and one of my teammates beat me by eight shots, so I was not very good,” he said.

MacDonald won the individual competition by eight shots over teammate Aidan Schumer and the Thunderbirds won the team competition by 12 shots over Ottawa University of Arizona. The University of Victoria finished third.

The UBC men headed into this season with high expectations and had gotten off to something of a slow start. MacDonald hopes the Bremerton tourney can be a turning point in their season. “I have been here for five years and this is by far the strongest team that we have had,” he said.

MacDonald, a philosophy major who hails from the Toronto area, gets emotional when he reflects on his time at UBC. He grew up wanting to play NCAA Division I golf, but is so happy he instead opted to head west and play at UBC.

“Looking back, I would not change a thing,” MacDonald said.

“We get to play at Shaughnessy, we get to play a great American schedule. I am really glad that I ended up here. Honestly, it has been the best time of my life. Especially with Chris (head coach Chris Macdonald), he really cares about the development of his players, not only on the golf course, but as people. I think you maybe miss that experience if you go to an American D-I school. It has been the best experience I have ever had and I would strongly advise anybody who is going to go to school for golf to look at UBC.”

MacDonald and his Thunderbird teammates are in Hawaii this week to play in the Kapolei Invitational, a NCAA Division I tourney on the island of Oahu.

BROWN WINS GOLD: The UBC women also played host to an event — the Gail Moore Intercollegiate — last week on Gold Mountain’s Cascade course. They won by 25 shots over Oregon Tech with a two-day score of two-under par. UBC’s Bo Brown won a playoff over teammate Jessica Ng and Oregon Tech’s Quincy Beyrouty to claim the individual title. All three players finished the tournament at two-under par. The University of Victoria finished third. UVic’s Cindy Koira was fourth in the individual race, finishing two shots out of the playoff at even-par.

KWON ADVANCES: Yeji Kwon turned pro this past summer instead of accepting a scholarship to play golf at Baylor University in Texas. In hindsight, it’s beginning to look like that might have been the right decision for the 18-year-old from Port Coquitlam. Kwon sailed through the LPGA Q-Series Qualifying Stage in Venice, Fla., and now has an opportunity to play for a LPGA Tour card. Kwon tied for 10th in Venice, where the top 35 players and ties in the 194-player field advanced to the final stage of Q-school, which goes Dec. 5-9 in Mobile, Ala. She finished the 72-hole event at 10-under par and did most of her damage with a bogey-free eight-under 64 in the second round. Click HERE to see complete final scoring.

Kwon was one of four Canadians to advance to final stage. Josee Doyan of Saint-Georges, Que., Maddie Szeryk of London, Ont., and Monet Chun of Richmond Hill, Ont., all made it right on the number at four-under par. Mary Parsons of Delta and Leah John of Vancouver failed to advance. Parson tied for 103rd at three-over par, while John tied for 173rd at 12-over. John was done in by a nightmarish first round. She opened with a quintuple-bogey on her first hole and shot a 10-over 82. While she will miss out on a chance to earn LPGA Tour playing privileges, John does have good status for the 2025 Epson Tour thanks to finishing 61st on the points list this year.

TEXAS CALLING: Two-time B.C. Junior Girls champion Amy Lee of Langley has committed to the University of Texas. Lee, a Grade 11 student at Walnut Grove secondary, will join the Longhorns in the fall of 2026. That’s the senior year of Surrey’s Lauren Kim, who is now in her second year at Texas and is Canada’s highest ranked amateur. Lee won her second B.C. Junior Girls title this past summer at Gallagher’s Canyon Golf Club in Kelowna, where she beat the field by 18 shots. Earlier this summer she won the B.C. Women’s Amateur Championship at Balfour Golf Club. She also has B.C. Juvenile and B.C. Bantam Girls titles.

MAKING PROGRESS: Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor closed with a three-under 67 and tied for 33rd at the Zozo Championship in Chiba, Japan. Taylor’s seven-under total was 13 shots behind winner Nico Echavarria of Colombia. Taylor moved up one spot on the FedEx Cup points list to 57th. Taylor is attempting to remain inside the top 60, which will get him into two 2025 Signature events, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-am and the Genesis Championship. The PGA TOUR’s fall season now takes a two-week break and resumes Nov. 7-10 for the World Wide Technology Championship in Los Cabos, Mexico.

HAWAII 2.0: The Simon Fraser University men’s team completed their Hawaiian double-header with an eighth-place finish at the Hawaii Pacific Sharks Shootout. The Red Leafs finished the 36-hole, 19-team event at eight-over par. That was 36 shots behind the winning team from Colorado Christian. Max Corcoran led the way for SFU with a tie for 13th finish at three-under par.

Earlier in the week, the SFU men tied for ninth at the Dennis Rose Intercollegiate hosted by the University of Hawaii-Hilo. Sophomore Denby Carswell eagled his final hole to tie for sixth place at five-under par. The SFU women also competed at the Dennis Rose tourney and finished fourth, 13 shots behind the winning team from Missouri-St. Louis. Izzy Ferguson led the Red Leafs with a tie for seventh. Dana Smith tied for 10th.

SECOND STAGE: Vancouver’s Ilirian Zalli will be competing this week at the second stage of DP World Tour qualifying school in Spain. The former B.C. Junior Boys champion advanced to second stage in September at a first-stage site in Sweden. Zalli will be looking to advance to the Q-school finals, which go Nov. 8-13 in Tarragona, Spain.

ZHANG THIRD: Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang, a freshman at Harvard University, tied for third at the Lady Blue Hen Invitational in Rehoboth Beach, Del. It was Zhang’s best finish of the fall season and her third top 10.

CHIP SHOTS: Kimberley’s Jared du Toit is in the field for this week’s $2-million BNI Indonesian Masters in Jakarta. Du Toit missed the cut at last week’s International Series Thailand event in Bangkok. . .Mount Brenton Golf Course in Chemainus has awarded five-time B.C. Senior Women’s champion Shelly Stouffer of Nanoose Bay an honorary membership. Stouffer, a past U.S. Senior women’s champion, is a four-time winner of the Mount Brenton Women’s Amateur.