Jeff Chambers the 42-year-old head professional at Elmwood Golf and Country Club in Swift Current, Saskatchewan was featured in the current Fall Buying Show issue of Pro Shop Magazine “Tip of the Cap”. In each issue, Pro Shop Magazine honours those who go above and beyond to help develop the game of golf in Canada and Chambers was well deserving as he racked up a trio of honours during the PGA of Saskatchewan zone awards earlier this month.
Chambers was voted as the ‘Junior Promoter of the Year’, the ‘Coach of the Year’, and also won the Professional Development award at the PGA of Saskatchewan zone awards at Prairieland Park in Saskatoon.
“It was a pretty surreal night. It was just great to be recognized by my peers for all those different areas, but to actually be the victorious person at the end… it was a pretty special night,” Chambers shared. “We changed the awards process so that this year all three awards that I had were voted on by our membership. So, to know that there’s that many people out there that are seeing what I’m doing here across the province… yeah, it’s pretty surreal, it caught me off guard a little bit.”
“It was great because, in the crowd, I had my wife there with me this year – normally she can’t make it,” noted Chambers. “I had some of my students there that I invited to the show so that they could see the new things. I had a whole crew of people there that got to celebrate it with me, so that made it even better I think.”
Being named the ‘Junior Promoter of the Year’ is far from new news for Chambers, who’s seemed to have cornered that market, so to speak. The 2018 edition marks his seventh win in 13 years (2006, ’08-’11, ’15).
“The ‘Junior Promoter of the Year’ came through and kind of caught me off guard, and kind of broke me up a little bit,” said Chambers who, despite the plethora of wins, was front and centre for the first time. It was the first I had been up there in front of everybody, and had a hard time keeping it all together. It was a very special award. There’s just so many people that are doing great things out there, so I just hope that I’m motivating them to keep on doing more – I just believe junior golf is such an important area.”
Chambers’ Professional Development award is his second, after earning the same award in 2015.
As for his ‘Coach of the Year’ award, it ticked a box that had yet to see a check mark in what’s already been a prominent career developing young golfers.
Part of Chambers’ coaching endeavors this season came in September when he took four Canadian junior golfers to Estonia to take part in the Nordic Junior Team Matches.
