The North Reigns Supreme… Again

John Curran | Sep 02, 2020

The year 2013 brought with it many notable headlines: Floods in Alberta; Rob Ford's crack admission; and, the South last won Buck Lake’s annual Battle of the Branches golf tournament.

Since then the North side has dominated winning every successive Battle and this year was no different.

“The North has kept their streak alive,” announced organizer Bruce McDonald. “The final score was 41 South Branch to 38.3 for the North Branch.”

Held at Evergreen Golf Course near Wolfe Lake, the Battle of the Branches is a unique best-ball tournament. Each side of the lake divides their players into teams of four. They then try to achieve the best score they can under the best-ball format. At the end of play, each side has their scores totalled and dived by its number of teams to determine their final score. That way an uneven number of players can still compete in a team format.

“We have more teams that’s why we always lose, there’s more chances for mistakes,” joked JoAnne Hopkins, a long-time participant in the tourney for the South. “We used to say, ‘Battle of the Branches, bring your clubs!’ But people really looked at us funny.”

Fellow Southerner Crawford MacIntyre lamented the feeling of losing to the North is starting to grow all too familiar.

“I’m beginning to feel like a Leafs fan,” he said. “We got in a few good hits out there, but not enough again this year.”

The South had good reason to hope this time out on the links, too. The fearsome foursome of Peter Dawe, Katrin Milner, Craig Rump and Sandy Jenks actually carded the low round of the morning, cobbling together a tidy 36. In the end, however, it wasn’t enough to hold off the more consistent Northern side.

For Don and Shirley Young, this was their first time representing their South Branch cottage at the tournament.

“Don recently retired from St. Lawrence College where he worked in International Studies, before that he was a helicopter pilot in the military,” said Shirley. “This is the first year we’ve been able to golf in the Battle of the Branches because he’s normally getting ready for the school year… it’s a lot of fun, with some really good people… we will definitely be back.”

Also a first-timer, but one waving the Northern flag, Mark Nicol echoed Young’s comments.

“It was a beautiful day and it was great seeing our neighbours, especially during these times of COVID-19,” he said. “It’s a great course and they have it in amazing shape right now.”

For Nicol it was his first opportunity to play Evergreen in quite some time.

“Back in university, when I was going to Trent, a friend of mine had a family cottage on Wolfe Lake so we came for the weekend and played a round here back then,” he explained. “They have really put a lot into the course since then, it’s a great spot to come for a change of pace.”

With the summer winding down and COVID having played havoc with so much of our scheduled lives, that the regular late-season event was able to continue at all, albeit with a little extra social distancing, was perhaps the greatest victory of all in the eyes of most who participated.

“Thanks to the team here at Evergreen who did a great job taking care of us today and even helped coordinating the tee-off times,” concluded McDonald.

Buck Lake’s regular duffers have a standing Monday morning tee time throughout the warmer months, and again it falls to McDonald to organize the fun.

“We alternate between here at Evergreen and over at the Rideau Lakes Golf and Country Club… anyone from around the lake can come out and join us,” he said. “We’ve been lucky with great weather all season long and today was no different.”

McDonald says he very much enjoys getting together with other golfers from around the lake to begin each week.

“The group is generally all out to have fun and the majority of the players don’t even keep score,” he said. “We’re constantly mixing up the teams and putting different people together, it is a great way to get to know others in the community.”