Sandra Billyard gave herself an early birthday present Saturday at the 75th Walt McCollum Niagara District Champions of Champions golf tournament at the St. Catharines Golf and Country Club.
The Fonthill resident fired a 74 to capture first place in the senior women’s division, just two weeks short of her 65th birthday.
The win was the fifth championship in five years in the senior division and ninth overall for Billyard, who golfs out of the Port Colborne Country Club.
“That’s five for five but it gets a little more nerve wracking as time goes on,” Billyard said.
Despite such an impressive track record, Billyard doesn’t go into the tournament thinking big.
“Oh God, no. The more you win the more stressed you kind of get, that’s kind of how I am,” she said. “I’m always thinking I’m going to blow it or something.”
Billyard was able to recover from a rough start that saw her bogey the first four holes and had her wondering if it wasn’t her day.
“Then I drained a putt for birdie and then on one of the tougher holes I drained another put for birdie and I thought that negates some of the bogies,” she said. “I thought I was done and then on the back nine it was weird. I’d have these 25-foot difficult putts and I kept putting them up, like four inches from the hole. I guess I started striking the ball better and my irons better and things like that.”
Billyard said she focused on minimizing the damage early on.
“I hung on on the front nine — I never had a double bogey, which I tried very hard not to do — and then on the back nine I started to play better,” she said. “I thought if I could just bogey, you know eventually you’re going throw in some pars and maybe a birdie or two so that was huge.
“I had no blow up holes and out here and that’s pretty good because they have some different, difficult holes.”
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