ESTEVAN — The Estevan Oilfield Technical Society's (OTS) Oilwomen's Golf Tournament, held on July 21 at the TS&M Woodlawn Golf Course, attracted 119 participants, which is the highest number they've seen in quite a few years.
Tanya George, who is the treasurer for the event and is part of the organizing committee along with Claire Robson, Caron Pingert, Tricia Debruyne and Tricia MacLenzie, said they couldn't be happier with how everything went.
"It was a nice day, nice weather. Women had fun out there socializing, connecting, networking, meeting new people," George said. "The vibe was great. Everyone was having a good time."
Each team had to have at least two oilwomen, which could be currently working or having retired from the industry. The majority of the women were from the Estevan area, but there were also a couple of teams from the Weyburn and Carlyle areas.
"It's fairly local," George said. "Every once in a while we'll get teams from Calgary, depending on what's going on. But this year, it was pretty local."
OTS Oilwomen is an 18-hole Texas scramble event, however, it's not very competitive, as the winner of the top prize is decided by a draw rather than score.
"We just do a lottery draw. At the end of the day they turn in their scorecards with their names on it, and we just draw cards for first, second and third place," George said. "We went away from keeping score, just so it wasn't so intimidating for ladies who have never golfed before or who don't golf much.
"It keeps it fair for everyone, so they can just go out, have fun, don't worry about keeping score. They can keep score if they want to, but that doesn't impact the first, second and third place teams."
First-place winners this year were Lesley Dukart, Kiana Highfield, Brooklyn Dukart and Lindsay Faris.
The OTS Oilwomen also presented their 2022 50/50 and raffle proceeds, which came to $2,000, to the Estevan Public Youth Centre. This year's proceeds will go to Southeast College's scholarship fund, but the total has yet to be calculated.
Not only did the event see more participants, but they also experienced more interest from sponsors, and ended up with five beverage hole sponsors, taking care of keeping players hydrated and providing snacks, which is more than they had for quite a few years.
"Compared to last year where our numbers were quite low in every aspect of the tournament, this year, we had people who were contacting us wanting to sponsor different events, whether it be a supper sponsor, an entry gift sponsor or a hole sponsor, so the response was fantastic," George said. "[And with participation] when the oil industry took a dive even before COVID, our numbers were close to 100, but we never quite hit that 100. So I would say probably before the oil industry went down … we were hitting that 100, 120, 144 [maximum capacity] with a waitlist. So it's been a few years since we've had numbers this high."
