Residential Development Proposed For The Hills At Portal GC; Major Renovation Planned For Whistler Golf Club

By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

In addition to earning exempt status on next year’s European Challenge Tour at qualifying school last week, Vancouver’s Ilirian Zalli brought home some memories that will last a lifetime.

One in particular stands out for the former B.C. Junior Boys champion. It happened when Zalli and his caddie — his father Gentian — were about to begin the third round of the final stage of the DP World Tour Q-school in Spain. Standing on the first tee was two-time Masters champion José Maria Olazábal.

“He was caddying for his nephew and we were paired with him the third and fourth rounds, so my dad was really excited to meet him and pass the flagstick back and forth to José,” Zalli said with a chuckle in an interview. “That was fun for me, too. José cleaned my golf ball a few times on the greens. I didn’t even ask him. It was a little hard to believe, to be honest with you.”

The story gets better. On the par 3 fourth hole in the third round, Zalli recorded a hole-in-one en route to a spectacular eight-under 63. It was a blind tee shot, so no one saw the ball go into the hole from the tee.

“We were walking to the green and we all hit pretty good shots,” Zalli recalls. “You could see three pitch marks and there was one pitch mark very close to the hole, but there were only two golf balls. So José was getting very excited, saying ‘Ilirian, it’s in, it’s in! I know it’s in!’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, let’s make sure it’s not in the bunker.’ So we get up there and ball is in the hole and he was really excited and he gave me this big handshake right near the cup. His face is like two feet from mine and I am looking at him and I can’t believe what is happening. It was surreal. I still remember thinking to myself like, wow, his eyes are really green. It was an amazing golfing moment.”

It was an amazing golfing week for Zalli, a 22-year-old who turned pro out of high school and honed his game on the Vancouver Golf Tour, where he won a record eight times this year. Zalli played exceptional golf from start to finish and despite a brilliant bogey-free six-under 65 in the sixth and final round, he fell one shot short of earning his DP World Tour card.

Zalli finished Q-school at 17-under par and for a time that looked like it might be good enough to be inside the top 20 and ties who earned cards. But as he waited for what seemed like an eternity for the rest of the field to finish, the number moved to 18-under. Zalli will have to be content with full status on the European Challenge Tour, the DP World Tour’s version of the Korn Ferry Tour. “I am happy to get Challenge Tour status,” Zalli said. “That was something I was hoping for at least on my first attempt at this Q-school.”

Zalli had to survive the first two stages of Q-school — in Sweden and Spain — just to make it to the Q-school finals. “I am proud of the way I played,” he said. “I think my worst stage by far was the first one where I only qualified on the number. I didn’t play particularly well that week, but I was re-assured by the fact I had qualified. So I thought I am not playing very well, but I still qualified and there was a month and half between stages and I worked tirelessly on practising every part of my game.

"I was much sharper the final two stages. I played much better, and I am very happy with the fact I didn’t hit any golf balls in the water or out of bounds the entire Q-school and I made no double-bogeys the final couple of stages. So I did everything I could to make it relatively stress-free.”

Zalli will also have conditional status on the DP World Tour, which he hopes might get him into a handful of the lesser events. But he will be focusing on making the most of his opportunity to play the Challenge Tour full-time and try to play his way onto the DP World Tour. “It’s nice to get that Challenge Tour status for next year,” he said.

“I just need to improve. As well as I played in this Q-school, I still feel like there is a lot for me to improve on. I am simply happy to have a tour to play next year. I wouldn’t say this Q- school is a failure because I came up one shot short. I have opportunities now to earn world ranking points and play a set tour.

"I feel like I do a good job when I have certainty as to what my schedule is going to be like. If I can commit to having a season of tournaments I feel like it helps me focus. . .I am going to try and play as much as I can next year on the Challenge Tour.”

That will mean lots of travel. The 2025 schedule has not yet been released but in past years it has begun in early February with a South African swing, followed by tournaments in India and the Middle East before beginning a lengthy European swing in the spring. Purses last year ranged between $300,000 and $500,000 US. “There’s opportunities for me now,” Zalli said. “I’m excited.”

PAYING HOMAGE: As he has in the past, Zalli played under the Albanian flag at Q-school. He is a dual citizen and Zalli said the decision to compete as an Albanian is in large part a tribute to his dad. “I have Albanian citizenship,” he said. “I enjoy representing the country that reminds me of my family. Quite simply, when it comes to my golf career the person who has helped me the most is my father, so this is a little bit of an homage to him.”

PORTAL PLANS: The future of one of Metro Vancouver’s oldest golf courses could be in serious jeopardy. The owners of The Hills at Portal Golf Club (formerly Peace Portal) are asking the City of Surrey to allow them to remove part of the property from the Agricultural Land Reserve for residential development. In return, the remainder of the course — about 100 acres — would be ‘donated’ for use as a neighbourhood park. A public information meeting, with City of Surrey staff present, is being held at the course on Nov. 28 from 4 to 7 p.m. The course will be closed that day and the public is being invited to walk the property anytime between 1 and 7 p.m. Peace Portal was established in 1928 and the course was purchased in 2021 by Surrey businessmen Joe Haley and Randy Bishop.

MAJOR RENO: Whistler Golf Club is getting a $10-million renovation that will force closure of the course for the entire 2026 season. “We’re 41 years old now and have obviously done some work over the years, but anything past 25 or 30 years infrastructure-wise starts to get a little aged,” said longtime general manager Alan Kristmanson. “We are trying to be a world-class golf resort, so we have to keep reinvesting and that is what we are going to do.” It will be business as usual at the Arnold Palmer-designed layout for most of next season, but the course will close a little over a month earlier than normal at the end of August to allow some work to be done before the snow falls. It will remain closed for all of the 2026 season and then re-open early in the summer of 2027.

“The biggest challenge is six months of the year we have got three feet of snow out there, so to do anything significant you do have to close to take advantage of the growing season,” Kristmanson said. The renovation will include re-doing and re-positioning bunkers and expanding tee complexes. The short par 4 fourth hole will be redesigned, as will the par 3 8th and par 4 18th holes. “We have three or four fairways that are actually original fairways from 41 years ago, so those will all be re-done as well,” Kristmanson said. The renovation will be led by Thad Layton, a former architect with the now-shuttered Arnold Palmer Design Company who now runs his own design firm.

WAITING GAME: Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor missed the cut at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship and now must wait to see if he will remain inside the top 60 on the FedEx Cup points list. That would gain him entry into two Signature events next year, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Championship. Taylor has opted not to play in this week’s fall season finale, the RSM Classic in St. Simons Island, Ga. He dropped one spot to 58th after missing the cut in Bermuda.

Merritt’s Roger Sloan also missed the Bermuda cut and remains 176th on the points list. He has one last opportunity this week to try and salvage some PGA TOUR status for next year. To do that, Sloan would need to move inside the top 150. Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin is also playing the RSM. Hadwin, who said after last month’s Las Vegas tourney that he was done for the year, decided to play this week to try out some swing changes he has been working on. Hadwin ended the regular season inside the top 50 and is exempt into all of the 2025 Signature events.

BRONZE MEDAL: Surrey’s Lauren Kim teamed with Vanessa Borovilos of Etobicoke, Ont. to win the bronze medal for Canada at the Spirit Invitational Amateur Golf Championship in Trinity, Tex. Kim and Borovilos finished at 20-under par, three shots behind the winning team from Denmark.

CHIP SHOTS: Jeevan Lotay of Burnaby won the Bantam Boys division and Maggie Zhang of Richmond won the U15 girls division at the Maple Leaf Junior Tour National Championship in Kissimmee, Fla. . .Kimberley’s Jared du Toit tied for 61st at the Asian Tour’s Taiwan Glass Taifong Open. He is now 92nd on the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit. Du Toit is fourth on the reserve list for this week’s $2-million US Hong Kong Open.