Tyler Ferdinand’s Mount Allison golf career ended Sunday at the same course where he started the game as a child.
“[I] started playing when I was five years old. My dad took me and my brother to a putting lesson at Northumberland Links. We liked it so we started playing full time the next year.”
Even though he was never part of a championship team, as Holland College has dominated the Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association (ACAA) golf circuit for years, he is still proud of what the teams have accomplished in his time. He was impressed by the amount of players that are on Mt.A’s team this year as it’s always been a struggle to put a complete team together.
Ferdinand has had his fair share of personal success on the course as well. He shot his best score of his life this summer, a one-under-par 71 at his home course at Northumberland. Throughout the years he won multiple tournaments on the McDonald’s tour, a tour that includes five different courses that juniors can compete at. He also won low net in his first ever tournament at age thirteen, and has finished runner up several times. He made the cut at the Nova Scotia Amateur this summer finishing tied for forty-seventh, which was played at his home course.
This was Ferdinand’s fourth season on the team, making him the “grizzled vet,” as he put it. When asked about his best memories about his time playing golf for the university, he had much to say, but some of the stories you would have to ask him about yourself.
“I’ll keep this ‘PG,’” he said. “I’ve had a lot of good times and memories dating back to the days of Corey Potier, Alexander Lepage and props to all of them for putting up with me. We always played on homecoming day, so when we got back we all got a few drinks together. They were some prime times!”
Golf is not the only sport Ferdinand played as a child. He participated in baseball, badminton, track and field, and was a hockey goaltender for years. As he put it: “if there was a sport in Pugwash, I played it.” He played AAA hockey for years and got offered tryouts by teams in the Canadian Hockey League and Junior A, but things never quite worked out for the athlete.
When he is not playing sports, he is studying commerce in his fifth and final year of university. He is also helping coach hockey while enjoying the limited time he has left at Mt. A. He is already evaluating his options for next year as well. Ferdinand is currently looking at joining the Forces or getting into the business world.
“I really want to do something in the music business,” he said.
Ferdinand compares his game to that of Luke Donald. They both focus on ball striking because they both lack distance in their games. But he is also a big Tiger Woods fan because he admires his will to win, calling it “insane.”
Whatever Ferdinand does he has already proved to everyone that he will succeed and make everyone’s lives much more enjoyable while he’s doing it.