Flood takes tournaments away from Gilbert Plains

Golf Manitoba and Gilbert Plains Country Club were not able to stage the provincial women’s amateur and men’s mid-amateur championships this week due to heavy rainfall and flooding, leaving the course unplayable.

Golf Manitoba announced the decision late Tuesday morning, after suspending Wednesday’s first round earlier in the morning.

The three-round events were set to run through this Friday, with 20 players in the women’s event and 59 in the men’s field.

“I’ve never seen something like this in 20 years,” said Gilbert Plains golf professional and general manager Scott McCallum, who was unable to drive into the property as of Wednesday afternoon. “I’m looking for a boat to try and get there.

“It’s certainly disheartening, especially in a year when you’re trying to empower your grounds crew to be detail-oriented all the way up to this event, and we were two days away or one rain away, essentially, from hosting the event.

“I feel they had our golf course in very, very good shape and we take a lot of pride in it.”

On Wednesday evening, Golf Manitoba announced the women’s event is now at Winnipeg’s St. Charles Country Club, with one round on Sunday and Rounds 2 and 3 on Monday.

McCallum said the course got about six inches of rain from when it started on Monday until Tuesday morning, and then it continued to pour throughout the day.

Roads into Gilbert Plains were impacted by flooding, while the rural municipality of Gilbert Plains declared a state of emergency following significant rainfall on Monday.

“After carefully considering the safety of our players, volunteers and staff, we have determined that cancellation is the only responsible course of action,” Golf Manitoba director of communications Brian Munz said in a release.

Golf Manitoba added that decisions regarding “potential rescheduling” will be announced once they’ve been worked out.

It’s the second time in two years that a major provincial championship hasn’t moved forward as scheduled.

In 2025, Minnewasta Golf and Country Club in Morden was slated to host the men’s amateur. However, its clubhouse burned down for the second time in five years in January, leaving the club unable to host the 100-plus-player championship.

The event was moved to Southwood Golf and Country Club and took place on the originally scheduled July dates.

The club and provincial sport organization had six months to plan that time, not a mere 24 hours.

Now, Golf Manitoba still has multiple events to plan around, including the junior boys and girls championships on July 7-9, the men’s amateur on July 13-15 and the men’s and women’s senior championships on July 27-29.

Golf Canada’s women’s amateur is July 21-24, so the priority was finding a site to determine the province’s representatives for that event.

The Canadian men’s mid-amateur is on Aug. 18-21.

This week was supposed to be Gilbert Plains’ first provincial championship since the rural amateur in 2000, aside from the 2024 Manitoba Games golf event when Dauphin hosted the Games.

“It’s a tough pill to swallow, but the municipality and the provincial government have had our back before and have done a fantastic job of supporting us and I know they’ll be there again,” McCallum said.

“I guess that might be the luxury of having a not-for-profit golf course and being on a body of water, that people are willing to help.

“The community of Gilbert Plains is very proud of the golf course they have, so it won’t be for a lack of effort. We’ll be back on our feet before too long.”

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Gilbert Plains certainly wasn’t alone in its closure, as Minnedosa and Neepawa both shut down for the rest of this week, with plans to re-evaluate for the weekend, to name a few.

Wheat City Golf Course closed for the rest of the week, forcing the Brandon University Bobcats to move the BIRT Cup double-shotgun tournament to its rain date of July 10.

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com