Garrett Kucher continued his assault on the Vancouver Golf Tour (VGT) with another strong performance at the Chilliwack Open on Sunday.
The Trail-born golfer sits in third place overall on the VGT, finishing in the top-10 in his last seven events, that included a victory at the Vancouver Open Pro Am last month.
The 23-year-old former Selkirk Saints hockey player is just coming off a 10th-place finish at the Chilliwack Open on the weekend, preceding that with a second place showing at the Kelowna Golf and Country Club’s Ogopogo tournament.
“It’s been really good, if I was to look at my goal sheet at the start of the year, I’m really happy where I am right now, and I have a really solid team, and it’s only getting better going forward,” said Kucher.
He is backed by sponsors Don and Doug Mayhew of First Class Waste Management (FCWM) and has been steadily improving his game since the FCWM began backing him two years ago.
Kucher set a record on the first two days of scoring at the Ogopogo with scores of 67 and 66 for a two-day total of 11-under par, however lost a four-shot lead to eventual winner Matt Palahniuk on July 10, by shooting an uncharacteristic round of six-over 78.
He again jumped out to a great round of 5-under 67 on Saturday at the Chilliwack Open to sit two strokes back of the leader Matt Makinson, before finishing up with a two-over 74 to slip to 3-under 141 for 10th place.
Kucher had one of his best performances of the season at the Vancouver Open earlier this month. After firing a sizzling 67 to win the Pro Am round at the Ledgeview Golf Club on June 29, he finished seventh overall playing in a field of over 100 professional golfers with a 1-over par 215, eight strokes back of winner and PGA pro Adam Hadwin. Kucher was just two shots back of Hadwin going into the final round of the tournament, but Hadwin carded his best round of the tournament, 5-under, to win the Open, while the former captain of the KIJHL Osoyoos Coyotes shot a 1-over 73.
“I was chasing him a bit, so yes it was good,” said Kucher. “There’s not a lot that divides us from the top guys out there. We have the same skill set, it’s just between the ears. It’s getting that confidence, that experience, and knowing what to do with it.”
At his home course in Osoyoos, Kucher finished tied for sixth going 2-under at the VGT Sandpiper Open on June 15, and came in third at the VGT Pagoda Ridge-Royalwood Major on May 18 with a 5-under par 139 in the two-round tournament.
Kucher will look to raise his game to another level in his longterm pursuit of a PGA Tour card when he travels to Alberta in an attempt to qualify for the Canadian Tour’s Syncrude Oil Country Championship at the Glendale Golf Club in Edmonton July 28-31 and the ATB Financial Classic in Calgary Aug. 4-7,
“They don’t shoot on the PGA tour any numbers lower then we do on the VGT or Canadian Tour,” said Kucher. “It’s not much different. You shoot 5-under everyday you’re going to win 95 per cent of golf tournaments. That’s just the fact of the matter, when you get opportunites to sneak yourself to the next level, you just have to really be in a good spot, and be healthy, be ready and take advantage of it. Sometimes it comes in one week, sometimes it takes 10 years of golf, that’s just the way it is.”