Colwyn Abgrall has some ambitious plans for the summer. The 21-year-old from Niverville hopes to compete in at least five major golf competitions on both the local and national level.
Last summer, Abgrall won the Manitoba Match Play in Winnipeg, beating out opponent Jay Doyle four-and-two in the 36-hole final. This year, he’s looking forward to the chance to defend his title in early June.
After that, Abgrall will be competing in the Manitoba Men’s Amateur tournament in mid-June. A win would be fantastic, of course, but his main concern is making it into the top ten.
“A top-ten finish in the provincial amateur would secure me a spot in the national amateur, so that’s one of my big goals,” Abgrall says.
This year, the Canadian Amateur will be held in Qualicum Beach, British Columbia in early August.
“Another goal this summer is to try to play in the Players Cup,” Abgrall adds. “That’s the Mackenzie Tour, the PGA Tour Canada, in Winnipeg this summer.”
The Players Cup will be held at the Southwood Golf and Country Club, which may offer Abgrall a home field advantage, since that’s where he’s a member this summer.
“I’ll also be playing in the Elmhurst Invitational on June 23–24, I hope,” he says. “I just sent my application in for that. I played in that last year, so I think I should have a pretty good chance of being accepted. I hope so!”
After rattling off this long list, he pauses and adds that he might also travel down to the U.S. to play a qualifying round to get into the U.S. Amateur—if scheduling allows it.
“Oh, and I’ll be working at the golf course in Niverville again this summer,” he adds. “Although I haven’t started yet. I just got back to town a couple of days ago.”
From February through late May he was in Phoenix, Arizona where he attended Scottsdale Community College until he graduated in December 2017. He spent the last four months there playing in amateur tour events. After the summer and fall in Manitoba, he plans to return to Arizona, a popular destination for serious golfers who want to continue playing competitively throughout the winter.
“In Arizona this year I played in about ten events, and I won five of them,” he says, while noting that there is always room for improvement. “Right now I’m putting a lot of time and effort into fine-turning my short game. Your short game can never be good enough.”
Abgrall certainly isn’t afraid of hard work, as evidenced by his ambitions for the summer. On average, he says he spends two to five hours a day practicing his golf.
“I feel I have a lot more potential in the tank,” he concludes. “But that will come down to work ethic, repetition, practice, and putting in the hours to get to that very high level of golf. I’m so excited to see how this summer goes!”
