TST #4 Sixty-Four

Penticton Golf & Country Club | June 7, 2026

Some rounds belong to the player. This one belonged to everyone who watched it.

The forecast had been threatening all week. Early June in the Okanagan had been cold and wet, and Sunday looked like more of the same. Then the clouds thinned, the sun came through, and the field got golf weather instead of the storm they'd packed for.

Thirty-eight made it to the first tee. More than a handful had pulled out late, leaving a field smaller than the tour is used to seeing here. Penticton is deceiving. Tight and short, but well-placed trees and water make it sneaky hard.

In the Gross division, there was a round, and there was everyone else.

Dan Turnbull had already announced himself this season. Penticton was something else. Every golfer waits for the round that finally goes right end to end. Most never get it. Dan got it on a Sunday in June.

His playing partners stopped competing and started witnessing. Putt after putt found the bottom. Approach after approach held its line. They weren't grinding against him by the back nine. They were watching, glad to have a seat.

It built all the way to the last hole. Seven birdies. The seventh on the eighteenth, because of course it was. Dan signed for a sixty-four. Six under.

A sixty-four is a number ninety-nine point nine percent of golfers will never write on a card. Dan wrote it on a Sunday with a gallery of friends who'll be telling the story long after the season ends.

Behind him, Mark Johnson had a round of his own going.

Through nine, Mark was two under and building something. For half a day he was the second story Penticton was writing. Then the back nine arrived and took it from him. Five bogeys. The charge became a scramble, and the scramble became a fight to hold second.

He held it, barely. Mark signed for plus three, narrowly edging Vitaly Yaromich, whose plus four was good for third. The margin between them was thin. The margin to Dan was a canyon.

The Net division offered no more mercy to the chasers.

Minus ten won it. A number that doesn't just lead a leaderboard, it empties one. The nearest pursuer sat nine strokes back, close enough to see the trophy and nowhere near enough to touch it.

The race, such as it was, played out for second. Brenden Blair carried a four-stroke cushion to the eighteenth tee. Comfortable. Then the creek that guards the hole got involved. A triple bogey erased the cushion and forced a tiebreaker with Mark Johnson, who found himself contending on both boards. Brenden took it. Second place.

The standings rearranged behind the leaders. Reid McIntyre, absent from Penticton, slid down the Gross race for the points he didn't earn. Vitaly Yaromich climbed to the top, with Chris Myer and Mark Johnson rounding out the top three. In Net, Evan Koppa held his familiar perch at the front, while Brenden Blair pushed into second. Dustin Hughes and Andy Abreo gave ground. Mark Johnson, busy everywhere this stop, slid into third.

Penticton asked the field to navigate trees and water and a course that hid its difficulty behind a pretty face. Most of them managed. One of them transcended it.

Sixty-four. Some days the course wins. On June 7th, it didn't get the chance.