Granite Pointe's Clarkson heads to national senior men’s open
By Contributor
By Erika Mathieu
Granite Pointe Club Manager, Reg Clarkson has qualified to compete at the upcoming 2022 Canadian Men’s Senior Golf Championship in Red Deer this September.
The former owner of Eagleview golf course in Balfour placed in the top 23 players in the Province last month during the B.C. Men’s Senior/Super-Senior tournament at Uplands Golf Club in Victoria, and will now move on to compete alongside the top men’s senior golfers from around Canada when the tournament kicks off on Sept. 6 at the Red Deer Golf and Country Club.
Looking forward to nationals in September, Clarkson’s perspective on succeeding is cloaked with optimism.
“I’m a guy looking at it kind of saying, ‘it’s not impossible.’ I feel like I am playing well enough that I can compete at the highest level.”
Although the intent to do well in the tournament is one aspect, Clarkson’s competitive golf history also represents an underdog’s spirit, and his attitude of resilience is a salient principle with broad applications in life.
“Even at my age it’s healthy, whether it’s golf or anything else you’re doing, to pick something and try and get better.”
Clarkson, who won the Kaslo Rainbow Men’s Open in July, played competitive golf during his undergraduate studies at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
On the school’s golf team, he competed at the provincial amateur level in his early 20s. Although he continued to play recreationally after UBC, raising children with his wife and owning a business became higher priorities.
However, as he neared the age threshold for the senior’s tournaments, he decided to shift his focus back to the competitive side of golf.
“I knew when I was 54 and a year away from being a senior that I wanted to try one more time,” he said.
“I have been blessed. My hips are good, my back and shoulders and my joints are all still working; I can still swing athletically, so I wanted to see if I could compete with the guys that used to beat me when I was 20.”
Clarkson’s inclination to never stop trying is perhaps an inherited trait. He grew up with a focus on athletics, as his father, Reginald Clarkson Sr., was a multi-sport professional athlete and inductee of the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame’s (1974), the Greater Victoria Sports Hall of Fame (1999) and the UBC Sports Hall of Fame (2000).
“Dad was playing for the Calgary Stampeders and the (former) Edmonton Eskimos. He got injured, but because he was a five-sport professional athlete before that, he didn’t have time to play golf,” explained Clarkson.
During his stay in the hospital, Reginald Clarkson Sr. contracted rheumatic fever, which effectively ended his football career. He was almost 30 before he took up golf himself.
“When he started to play golf, he brought an unbelievable “will to win” to the game. He was never a classic golfer, but he figured out that if he got it in the hole in fewer shots than you did, he would win no matter what it looked like, and he made a career out of that,” added Clarkson.
With limited representation from the Kootenays at the upcoming championship in Red Deer, Clarkson said he is proud to represent Nelson on a national stage.
“That is really an important part to me, especially because we’re rebuilding our junior program here and it’s a chance for me to say to the kids that it’s okay to try; it’s okay to participate. You have to embrace the process of trying to get better.”
