This championship features a field of 247 players—the largest of the season—drawn from over 100 clubs throughout Ontario. Each participant is a club champion from their respective home club.
The event will take place on the north and south courses at The Club at Bond Head, with competitors vying for titles in various divisions including men’s, women’s, junior boys’, senior men’s, senior women’s, and junior girls’.
“The Ontario Champion of Champions is set to be an exciting showcase of some of the best golfing talent from across the province,” says John Lawrence, Golf Ontario’s Director of Competitions and Performance. “This championship is particularly special as it celebrates the achievements of club champions from our incredible member facilities all over Ontario.”
For the full player roster and more championship details, CLICK HERE.
FAST FACTS:
Championship Venue: The North and South Courses at The Club at Bond Head.
The First: The first Ontario Champions of Champions took place in 1946.
Impressive List: Past champions include Ontario Golf Hall of Fame members Mary Ann Hayward, Bill Morland, Gerry Kesselring, Warren Sye, and Stu Hamilton.
Hall of Famer: Newly inducted Ontario Golf Hall of Famer Ashley Chinner (Coppinwood Golf Club) tees it up in the senior division.
Record Holder: Patrick Suraj won the senior men’s division championship a record six times.
The Next Wave:Next Wave Junior Development members in the field include Sierra Kowalyshyn (Sawmill Golf Course), Ava Gilbert (Summit Golf and Country Club) and Cole Thompson (Lookout Point Country Club).
The Club at Bond Head: When the South Course opened in 2005, it was named as one of the “Top New Courses” by Golf Digest. A year later when the North Course opened, The Toronto Star named it as the “Top Public Golf Course in the GTA.”
Golf Ontario held one of its most cherished events recently: the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame ceremony.
Two new inductees were welcomed into the Hall of Fame, while a longtime journalist was presented with a distinguished award at the ceremony that saw more than 150 in attendance at Wooden Sticks Golf Club.
Inducted in the Builder Category was the late Anne Edgar Dodds-Hebron, whose husband, Rick, accepted the award in her honour. Dodds-Hebron was a dedicated figure with decades of amazing achievements in the Ontario golf community. Her commitment and passion for sharing her knowledge of the game led her to teaching the rules of golf for the respective Golf Management programs at both Niagara Falls Community College and Toronto’s Humber College. She is also a certified rules referee for the Golf Association of Ontario, Golf Canada, and other members of the golf community.
Ashley Chinner was the inductee in the Player Category. Chinner had a phenomenal career as both an amateur and professional golfer, whilst giving back to the sport. He turned pro in 1989 when he joined the Canadian Tour and would go on to compete in tournaments in over 25 countries. During his playing days in the 1990s on the Korn Ferry Tour, Chinner won the PGA Championship of Canada in 1996 and finished tied for 13th at the PGA Tour’s RBC Canadian Open in 1998.
The recipient of the 2024 Lorne Rubenstein Media Award, presented by Lorne Rubenstein himself, was Robert Thompson, an award-winning reporter and an influential marketer and journalist for almost three decades. Thompson has won numerous Golf Journalism of Canada Awards (GJAC) for his work of covering the sport and is a three-time winner of the Kenneth R. Wilson award for magazine writing. His writing has appeared in well-known papers and magazines such as the National Post, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Listed magazine and so many more. Thompson is also the author of seven books and has interviewed a wide range of prime ministers, sports legends, pop stars and economists.
“On behalf of Golf Ontario, I would like to extend our congratulations to Anne, Ashley, and Robert. Their unwavering dedication and remarkable contributions have left an indelible mark on the sport in our province,” says Golf Ontario CEO Kyle McFarlane. “This year’s induction ceremony was filled with emotion as we honoured their extraordinary achievements and celebrated their passion for the game alongside family, friends and industry colleagues.”
Of those 150 strong in attendance, 10 are current Ontario Golf Hall of Fame members. Marlene Stewart Streit, Stu Hamilton, Cathy Sherk, Mary Ann Hayward, Lorne Rubenstein, Sandra Post, Patty Howard, Judith Kyrinis, Bob Beauchemin and Gary McKay were all in attendance.
Esteemed Canadian sportscaster and presenter, Rod Black, guided the ceremony for a second straight year as Master of Ceremonies. The evening started with an emotional tribute to recently passed Ontario Golf Hall of Famers: Sam Young, Bob Panasik and Ken Tarling.
The Ontario Golf Hall of Fame is dedicated to the recognition of extraordinary contributions and accomplishment in the game of golf in Ontario. Founded in 2000 by the Ontario Golf Association and the Ontario Ladies’ Golf Association, the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame is housed at Wooden Sticks Golf Club in Uxbridge.
This year’s event will be hosted at Granite Golf Club on Monday September 9.
Please consider joining us for this highly anticipated event which features 18-holes of golf with carts, registration gifts, breakfast, three-course lunch meal, prizes, and a silent auction. All while raising important funds for Golf Ontario’s Junior Golf programs, such as: The Junior Golf Pathway, Next Wave Program and Team Ontario.
Supporting Junior Golf not only creates future golf champions for Ontario and Canada, but provides all the young athletes in our programs a springboard to future success outside of golf and allowing them to reach their fullest potential.
We thank you for supporting Golf Ontario and we hope to see you on September 9at Granite Golf Club!
Natasha Stasiuk: A Champion of Both Golf and Autism
Golf Ontario
Natasha Stasiuk lives a very active life: she attends Toronto’s Humber College and studies in their Developmental Services Worker program; she works at her local Golf Town in Mississauga, Ont.; she walks dogs; and she’s an accomplished competitive golfer as a member at Heron Point Golf Links.
However, it is how she does it all with autism, and an auditory processing condition that defines who she is.
“It’s like a superpower as I call it,” she said, “and it’s what people with autism call it too.”
Stasiuk, 25, was born in Russia where she was left as an orphan in a run-down hospital. Sick and often unattended, she was slow to develop learning and language skills.
Peter and Sandra Stasiuk adopted Natasha at 13 months and brought her home to Canada, where she displayed above-average hand-eye coordination as a toddler.
Stasiuk has played golf ever since PGA of Canada member Nick Starchuk was brought into her gym class in fifth grade to introduce children to the game.
“Nick came and he saw a lot of potential in me and suggested I started golf, and that’s how my passion for it came about,” she said.
Starchuk invited Stasiuk to an introductory lesson at the former home of the RBC Canadian Open, Glen Abbey Golf Club. Stasiuk was handed a putter and took to the course’s practice green, where Starchuk instructed her to putt a ball towards a hole that was 30 feet away from her; a putt in which she drained on her first try.
For many years after, Stasiuk was part of a large junior girl’s golf group led by PGA of Canada member, Carrie Vaughan.
Carrie helped Natasha with all aspects of her game, introduced her to competition and provided constant encouragement whenever she felt “out of place” or discouraged because she learned differently and didn’t always understand what was being taught.
Besides golf, Stasiuk played up to seven other sports when she was younger. Though swimming, soccer, gymnastics, softball and ballet were in the mix, hockey and golf were her two favorites.
“My sister played, I played, my dad played, some of his brothers played,” she said. “So, we were always a big hockey family.”
However, Stasiuk’s auditory processing condition prevented her from thinking and processing what she saw or heard when she was younger, and still affects her to this day.
“When people start talking to her and they’re talking normal, she can’t process everything that they tell her,” said her father, Peter. “They’ll be on their third sentence when she’s just processed the first sentence they’ve said to her, and by the time she goes back to the conversation, she’s completely lost.”
Peter has always been there to help her in speaking and believes his daughter’s disability has always impacted her because it is an “invisible” one.
“From a lot of people, you can tell what their disability is because it’s a physical disability,” he said. “Looking at her (Natasha), you wouldn’t think she has a disability, but she does.”
Stasiuk originally didn’t know she had autism until a psychologist advised her to test for it almost three years ago. Her auditory processing condition has been with her almost her entire life, which affected her ability to process what people were saying to her or keep count of her own score when she was younger.
“In the beginning, when she joined the junior circuits, the other girls caught on to that (disability), Peter said. “They would always tell her she scored more than what she got, and they scored less than what she thought they scored.”
Peter believed this was always a “disadvantage” for her simply because she took what other golfers said for granted because she couldn’t remember what she actually scored. He always followed Stasiuk around and kept score as a spectator; the scores were sometimes “completely different” from the scores that were reported.
However, thanks to the help of her father and family in adapting to living with her disabilities, Stasiuk has been better at keeping her scores as well as processing what people are saying.
Now, Stasiuk has made herself known as a role model to golfers with disabilities both on and off the course. Off it, she always advises anyone with any disability who is unsure of playing golf full-time to “go for it.”
“You never know what will happen,” she said. “Go watch these people with disabilities play golf, it’s amazing and pretty inspiring too.”
Stasiuk believes anyone with a disability who is new to the sport can quickly make connections and lifetime friends. Just like she did.
“I think she enjoys expanding the game to others that may not look at golf as a possibility because they have a disability,” said Peter. “It’s still a small segment that actually plays with disabilities, but it’s growing.”
On the course, Stasiuk has built quite the résumé in the past few years. She is currently world ranked No. 1-female golfer with intellectual disabilities as per the WR4GD Rankings.
Since 2019, she has been Golf Ontario’s Women’s Adaptive Champion, and plans on competing in this year’s Adaptive Championship at Weston Golf and Country Club in July. She has also been Golf Canada’s Women’s All Abilities Champion for the last three years.
Stasiuk has also finished top five in the USGA Adaptive Open in the past two years and finished first in the intellectual category of that same championship last year. She also finished third in the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin in 2023 and first in the Special Olympics North America competition later that fall.
Although the year has just begun, Stasiuk was one of 12 in the world chosen to train at the first EDGA Development Camp in Portugal, and she recently finished third overall and first for her disability category at the USDGA Championship at the PGA Club in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
Traveling to different places away from her home to compete in each of these championships, as well as making friends along the way, have led to Stasiuk having more confidence in her game than ever before. She feels like she finally belongs.
“It’s good to experience different places in the world,” she said. “I know some of them are back in Ontario, but it’s still nice to play courses I’ve never played before.”
As April marked the observance of Celebrate Diversity Month, it presented Golf Ontario with a wonderful opportunity to share inspiring stories and honour the diverse backgrounds and contributions of our members, volunteers, players, and colleagues. We plan on sharing these inspiring stories–like Natasha’s–throughout the season.
Get Into The Swing! Register For Women’s Golf Events
Golf Ontario
We’re excited to invite you to this season’s Women’s Try Golf events! Whether you’re picking up a golf club for the first time or looking to refresh your skills, this series is perfect for you.
Registration is now open, and we’re constantly adding new events.
Complimentary Golf Clubs: No clubs? No problem! We provide everything you need.
Pre-Event Tips: Receive video tips before the event to start off on the right foot.
Celebrate with Us: Enjoy a complimentary glass of wine after your round.
Fun and Relaxed Atmosphere: Play a casual 9-hole round with no scorekeeping—just fun!
Our Try Golf events are all about making golf accessible and enjoyable. They offer a wonderful opportunity to meet other women who are also new to the sport. Bring your friends, make new ones, and enjoy a delightful day on the green.
The growth of women’s golf is inspiring, and we’re passionate about inviting even more women to experience the sport. We’re always exploring ways to facilitate continued engagement through the Women’s Participation Pathway, with the help of our partners and local facilities.
If you’ve been playing more often or have attended multiple Women’s Try events before, why not explore ‘next step’ opportunities with our partners Iron Lady Golf and LPGA Amateurs? They offer a diverse range of fantastic ways for you to TRY, LEARN, and PLAY even more frequently!
Are you ready to make this your best summer of golf yet? Join an Iron Lady Golf Summer League for weekly play with guaranteed tee times, league captains providing support, monthly tip sessions, and so much more. These leagues aren’t just about golf; they’re about forming meaningful connections, enjoying the sport in a supportive atmosphere, and, most importantly, having a great time!
Iron Lady Golf Leagues welcome players of all skill levels. Whether you’re just starting out or have a wealth of experience, whether you’re playing a leisurely round or keeping score, you’ll find your place here.
The LPGA Amateur Golf Association is the ultimate golf community for women, bringing together players from all walks of life, of all ages and abilities, in a friendly and inclusive setting. You’ll expand your network, forge new friendships, and share in the love of golf. With over 300 events across Ontario, we offer organized, social golf experiences along with educational opportunities to enhance your gameplay.
Our pay-as-you-play green fees ensure golf is accessible to all. Find out what’s happening at a local chapter near you at LPGA Amateurs Ontario.
Golf Ontario’s Official Days Highlights Power of Volunteer Spirit
Golf Ontario
Last week, more than 125 dedicated volunteers joined forces for the Golf Ontario Official Days, which were held across the province.
These days marked the beginning of the 2024 championship season, uniting Golf Ontario staff and volunteers in celebration of the year’s start.
“Our volunteers are essential to our team; they’re the foundation of our mission. Their unwavering dedication allows us to continue shaping lives and offering enriching experiences through golf,” says Golf Ontario CEO Kyle McFarlane. “We’re honoured to acknowledge the significant influence our volunteers wield within the Golf Ontario community.”
Tournament Officials: These key volunteers oversee more than 100 qualifiers and championships annually. Their responsibilities include managing registration, overseeing starts, scoring, and maintaining the pace of play.
Referee: Referees at provincial events must have completed at least Level 2 of the Golf Canada rules of golf education program. They should possess a deep understanding of the Rules of Golf and demonstrate the capacity to make decisions collaboratively under pressure.
Course Rater: Upon affiliation with Golf Ontario, clubs receive an initial rating, which is re-evaluated as courses mature or undergo design modifications. Up to 70 courses annually may be appraised by a specialized Course Rating Team. Course raters need to be adaptable, methodical, and have a penchant for math or statistics. Comprehensive training is provided, encompassing both classroom and on-course instruction.
Interested in becoming a part of the Golf Ontario volunteer community? Discover the various opportunities and their benefits on our Volunteering Resource page HERE. To join our volunteer team, please complete the application form.
The Team Ontario program, established in 2009, is dedicated to fostering excellence across all aspects of life for its athletes. Participants benefit from comprehensive guidance on time and self-management, physical strength and conditioning, mental sports psychology, nutrition, as well as tactical and technical strategy.
In addition to Chun and Anderson, notable players to come through the program include Ashton McCulloch, Max Sear, Johnny Travale, Nicole Gal, Hailey McLaughlin and Katie Cranston.
Entitled the “Spring Tune-Up,” the webinar will look four main areas of interest:
What is Body-Swing Connection?
The importance of having a good warm up routine.
How to warm up properly & fire your muscles to create a consistent movement pattern.
What can you do in preparation for the upcoming golf season?
In addition to the live webinar, Swing Lab has also created supplementary PDF, which offers deeper insights into the webinar topic. The webinar will also be recorded so Golf Ontario can re-watch in the future.
Located in Richmond Hill, Ont., Swing Lab’s primary goal is to assist golfers in developing a consistent and efficient swing.
The National Facility Awards for Junior Golf is a program designed to acknowledge the crucial contribution of golf facilities and academies to the growth of young golfers throughout Canada. These awards celebrate the facilities that have notably influenced the progression of junior golf within their local communities throughout the 2023 season.
Sawmill was recognized with the “Junior Golf Opportunity Award,” which is awarded to the facility that provides exceptional access and membership opportunities for junior golfers.
The “Grassroots Junior Program of the Year,” which is awarded for excelling at creating new junior golfers through local programming, was given to Deep River.
South Muskoka was awarded with the “Tournament Host of the Year” for giving back to youth golf by embracing the opportunity to host junior competitions.
From September 1 to October 31, 2023, all individual members and facility members of Golf Canada were able to nominate facilities for each award category.
All nominations were reviewed and feedback about nominees was provided by members of the Golf Industry Advisory Council, Sport Committee, and Amateur Championships Committee. Final award selections were made by Golf Canada staff.
Nominations for the 2024 National Facility Awards for Junior Golf are expected to open in September 2024.
This National Volunteer Week, we at Golf Ontario are honoured to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts of over 250 volunteers from across the province.
At the heart of Golf Ontario, our volunteers are the lifeblood in a variety of critical areas, including championships, rules, course rating, and governance on committees and our board of directors. They are the sport’s ambassadors and an essential part of our team, enabling us to deliver exceptional programming and experiences to golfers, partners, and industry stakeholders.
Throughout the week, join us on social media as we showcase our remarkable volunteers. We’ll be sharing their inspirational stories and the fulfillment they derive from being an integral part of our community.
During National Volunteer Week, we’re excited to present a series of “Officials Days,” celebrating the dedicated volunteer officials who are instrumental in orchestrating our tournaments and competitions. This is a special time when they come together to inaugurate the 2024 season.
Interested in becoming part of the Golf Ontario volunteer family? Find out more about the opportunities and rewards on our Volunteering Resource page HERE.
