The four golfers – Gunnar Doyle of Mendon Golf Club, Zack Ottman of Locust Hill Country Club, Christian Chapman of Ravenwood Golf Club and Evan Gaesser of Brook-Lea Country Club – along with RDGA officials, traveled to the Laval-sur-le-Lac Club in Quebec on Sunday night to prepare for the 2014 Williamson Cup.
One of the longest-running competitions of its kind, the Williamson Cup is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Originally conceived as a team competition featuring charter members from Metropolitan New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Buffalo, the Williamson Cup today includes four-player teams from 10 golf associations from across the Northeast U.S. and Canada.
RDGA teams have won the Williamson Cup twice; in 1978, and most recently in 2009, when Gavin Hall, Joe Colosi, Ben Kircher and Yarik Merkulov won the title at Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford. This year, Zach Ottman is the only returning player from the 2013 RDGA Williamson Cup team; Doyle and Gaesser were named to the team after finishing as the champion and runner-up, respectively, in this year’s RDGA Junior Championship.
This year’s host venue – Club Laval-sur-le-Lac – was founded in 1917, and today is one of the most prestigious clubs in Canada. The club’s first nine holes were designed by famed Scottish architect Willie Park, Jr., and through the years, the club has hosted major tournaments such as the Canada Cup in 1954 (a forerunner to the World Cup), the Canadian Open in 1962 and many full-scale Canadian amateur tournaments.
The format for the Williamson Cup includes 36 holes of stroke play, with the top three scores from each team counting towards the team total at the end of the second day of competition.
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