Darren Zary/Saskatoon StarPhoenix
At age 17, Kyle’s Chloe Wills is the 2025 Saskatchewan Amateur women’s golf champion after finishing atop the field at the Humboldt Golf Club. Photo taken Thursday, July 17 in Humboldt, Sask.

Darren Zary

Saskatoon StarPhoenix

HUMBOLDT — Chloe Wills has ditched the hockey stick.

For now on, it’s golf sticks only.

Golf, golf and more golf.

The newly crowned Saskatchewan Women’s Amateur golf champion — just 17 — will soon be heading south of the border to attend college in Springfield, Missouri, and focus on NCAA Div. 2 golf at Drury University.

“It’s getting close,” pointed out Wills, a native of Kyle, who flies out August 8.

But, for now, she can celebrate an “unexpected” provincial women’s golf championship at the Humboldt Golf Club.

“It’s great — it’s really exciting,” says Wills, who prevailed Thursday with a one-shot victory over runner-up Ella Kozak of Yorkton.

“I wasn’t really coming here expecting to win. I was just hoping to have three solid rounds, which I was able to do. The greens were rolling great. The course played to my advantage.”

Wills finished at 1-under-par over the three-round tournament with scores of 70-74-72—216.

Kozak had rounds of 74-72-71—217.

Wills had been playing hockey, as a forward, for the Swift Current AA Wildcats and, before that, back home in Kyle until the pee wee (U13) ranks, but she is now only focusing on golf.

It’s a family sport.

“My dad (Curtis Wills) has always been a golfer and he took my brother and I out when we were younger,” offered Wills, whose family has golf memberships at both Saskatchewan Landing and Swift Current, where they’ve taken junior group lessons,  as well as doing a bit golf at home in Kyle.

Wills started doing tournaments at age 11.

“Once I started being competitive,” she said, “I really started to enjoy it.”

Winnipeg’s Charmaine Hayden (77-76-74—227) placed fourth in the Saskatchewan Amateur, followed by Saskatoon’s junior-aged Grace Odnokon (84-72-75—231).

Hayden captured the mid-Amateur women’s crown for 2025, finishing six shots better than Chaplin’s Holly Knudsen.

dzary@postmedia.com

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