Ceremonial tee off begins festivities ahead of Paradise Canyon Open starting Thursday

18 weeks have gone into making this happen, and Sakamoto attributes that to the unbelievable work by volunteers and the crew from Paradise Canyon as well.

“It’s just amazing how the people of Lethbridge step up, and it’s not just for this, they step up for hockey tournaments, baseball games and soccer tournaments as well,” he continued. “We’ve got tremendous volunteers in Lethbridge and we’re very proud of what we have here.”

Golfers from around the world are visiting the city as their flags fly behind the driving range, and Sakamoto told a story about how foreign the coulees in Paradise Canyon were to them.

“They said ‘this is so unbelievable, it’s like dinosaur land!’ I said those are called coulees, and none of them really understood. These guys are from all over the place, Australia, Europe, South American. So, I said ‘OK I’m going to explain what a coulee is, in the old days when the French traders came out here they had big ravines with water in the bottom and that’s what they called them.’ Whether they knew it or not they just shook their heads and said ‘Oh’ but it is tremendous to have them here and they just love the course.”

“They’re amazed that we have such a tremendous golf course here in Lethbridge,” Sakamoto added.

Tickets are $10 a day, or $25 for four days and can be bought at the ENMAX Centre or down at Paradise Canyon.
Sakamoto says that pretty reasonable for the calibre of talent participating in the open.

“Some of this talent they’re going to see here in the next few years are going to be on the big pro tours, in fact, one of the players I talked to came 6th as an amateur in the English Open where he was playing with Sergio Garcia. Two years ago, he turned pro, and some of the players out here are just amazing to watch. Especially with this wind, I guarantee they’ve never experienced anything like this before,” Sakamoto said with a laugh.

In addition to competing for the overall championship trophy, 156 golfers will compete for a $200,000 purse in the Paradise Canyon Open that will wrap up on Sunday, June 24.

On top of the money, the tournament’s winner will get his name on a special Paradise Canyon Open trophy that is uniquely tied to Lethbridge.

“We thought that we should use ammolite from Lethbridge to make it because it’s the only place in the world where you can get it from the Korite mine. So, I called my friend Rene Trudel and he arranged it all for us and donated the ammolite to us. Then I phoned my friend Shane Seib who is a metal artist that works all over the world, and he said absolutely Ron I’ll get that made for you,” Sakamoto said.

Sakamoto added it’s special, it’s one of a kind and it’s a tremendous piece of art that took three weeks to make.

The trophy will stay in Paradise Canyon, however, as the winner will get a different trophy to take home.

Full tee times for the tournament can be found here.

by Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Ceremonial tee off begins festivities ahead of Paradise Canyon Open starting Thursday

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