From Boyds to Men
Fathers and a son reflect on the Kootenays’ legendary and somewhat loose Boyd Haddad golf tourney.
Spirit of ‘36 — Pitting Kootenay golf course aces against one another for 94 years, the Boyd Cup was in fact built from an old whiskey keg. Jesse Heinrichs Photo
Meet Cranbrook golfers Wayne Haddad and Bob Langin. Cumulative age 158 years. With their best golf played through the eras of a young Nicklaus, Lopez, then Faldo, the fellas’ combined handicaps would have barely reached double digits back in the day.
As two of the longest time members at the Cranbrook Golf Club — the 84-year-old Haddad has been there since the course opened in 1951 — at their best, both he and Langin were scratch golfers and part of the club’s always formidable squad in the Kootenays’ most quietly famous golf tournament, the Boyd Haddad.
“It was pretty much a party to start with,” laughs Haddad, whose name adorns one of the tourney’s two cups. “You’ve seen the original trophy.”
Donated by Vancouver golf course and highway builder John Boyd in 1936, the “cup” is in fact a rotund and antiquated wooden whiskey keg. Part of the tournament entry fee, Haddad explains, was a bottle of rye. Crown Royal no less. Each team brought its prerequisite 26er, and each one went into the keg. By the time the tourney and evening’s celebrations ended, most of the whiskey had been shot or maybe lost to spillage. On road trips to neighbouring courses, a designated driver was hired for safe navigation of the rollicking passenger van that ferried what was often a victorious Cranbrook squad.
Good times aside, the retired car dealer and insurance brokerage owner explains that the tournament has, for decades, featured many of the region’s best golfers.
“It was an honour to make the team,” he says. “A lot of the players were club champions.”
Originally pitting East Kootenay teams against one another, the competition now includes squads from Kimberley, Fernie, Creston, Trail’s Birchbank, Castlegar, Balfour, Nelson’s Granite Point, and the reigning champs, Cranbrook.
In the ‘70s, Haddad introduced the second tourney to include a net tournament, to add to the Boyd, which was gross. That way he says, more golfers could have a shot at competing. He played in 20 or more Boyd Haddads. Same goes for the 75-year-old Langin. In fact, over the years the scoreboard has included a number of father-son tandems, including he and his son Jeff.
“The format is fun and it’s about bragging rights,” says the junior Langin, 37, a Cranbrook native and current course champ in Nelson, where the Boyd Haddad will be held this summer. (Somewhat true to its casual form, as of Trench press time, no one was quite sure of the tournament’s date.)
Golf ’s currents run deep in the Langin family. Bob went to school in Colorado Springs on a hockey scholarship and played on the golf team too. Jeff played for Washington State University. He and his brother played in the BC Amateurs. Mom Langin has had three holes-in-one.
“I had a club in my hand when I was three,” says Jeff, who remembers playing 36 holes a day as a kid on the Cranbrook track. He started out-shooting his dad around age 13. Son and Pops have been paired up twice in the Boyd Haddad. “But we never played any good when we played together,” Jeff recalls. “We weren’t the greatest partners, but we had fun,” Bob laughs, “At least I did.”
The elder Langin’s still got game. He’s shot his age. “You have to be pretty good to do that,” he surmises, “and live long enough.”
Bob’s days at the tournament ended with the Fernie club’s tilt in 2009. For Haddad, the sun has set on his tee times. Once a 100-round-a-year player, he got out for maybe a dozen games last year.
“My golf days are behind me,” he says, recalling his first rounds on the old course in the nearby former lumber town of Wardner, back in his teens. “People nowadays don’t even know there was a course there,” says Haddad. “It’s all pasture now.”
~ Darren Davidson
Find this full-length story and more in The Trench’s Spring + Summer 2024 edition: