Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/366073
12 INSIDE GOLF Enshrined in the Alberta Golf Hall of Fame in 2010, Van Dornick has won more than his fair share of major amateur championships. He's captured the unofficial Alberta Golf Triple Crown—the Amateur in 1999, the Mid-Amateur in 1988 and 1991, and again in 2014, and topped all that off with a win at the Alberta Senior Amateur in 2009. As well, he's won the national Mid-Am title in 2004. And there's more. He's won three provincial Alberta Mixed titles with his wife Cheryl, and the Parent/Child pro- vincial crown with his son Kyle. What's perhaps even more shocking than the continual success of this Camrose, AB native is that all his accomplishments were recorded after a lengthy, self-imposed layoff from the game. While it's been reported he didn't take up the game until he was 27 years old, that actually wasn't the case. Like many kids, his dad gave him a used club, in his case a five-iron that was cut down to size. He was then told he could go to the course in his childhood home of Drumheller when he could hit the ball well enough to keep up. "I actually started looking at golf clubs when I was 10," he explained. "My father, who was not a very good golfer, took up the game when the family physician suggested it as a way to get some exercise to help him control his diabetes. I'd watch him around the yard a little bit, and thought it was kind of neat. I told him I wouldn't mind giving it a try, so he cut me down a five- iron, and he gave me a couple of golf balls. "It was basically a case of 'Okay. You take these balls and when you can hit it forward, you can come'," Van Dornick, 62, recalled of his actual start in the game he's come to love and be incredibly good at. "I used to take that five-iron, some balls, and just go golfing in the prairie," he said of building his stroke. "I'd hit golf balls one way for half an hour then turn around and hit them the other way coming home. That's how I started. After I got to the point where I could get it in the air, not hold anyone up, then my dad took me out." While kids today spend a great deal of time at their local track working on their game on the range or playing, Van Dornick didn't follow that path. He said if he played 10 games a year as a kid that was a full summer of golf for him. He also played baseball and noted the similarities between the swings, saying, "Even as a young kid I didn't have a lot of trouble hitting a golf ball. I thought it was normal." As for his break from the game, Van Dornick said it was just one of those decisions one makes in life but a decision that he was glad to eventu- ally reverse. "I left the game when I was probably about 16 and didn't pick it up again until I was 27. There was a 10-year sort of hiatus in there where I basically knew where the golf club was, but I didn't really play." Following his layoff from the game, a change in residence to Camrose reignited the desire to play. From there, as they say, the rest is history— although the winning path he was to follow was never mapped out in his mind. "It was just something to do," he said of get- ting back into the game on a recreational level. "I never really put a lot of thought into going into this tournament or that tournament…at some point I just thought that maybe I should go qualify for the Amateur, and I did, and just kept playing." Looking back, Van Dornick credits his father for both his love of the game and his skill. He said that his dad was a big influence in his devel- opment even though he wasn't a skilled player by any stretch. "He wasn't very proficient. He wasn't a very good golfer at all but he bought this book called Power Golf by Ben Hogan. He would look at this book, and when it got to a point where I was hitting golf balls, he would say, 'This is what we have to try and get you to do'. " The one thing the son emphasizes now is that these second-hand lessons, coming from a book more than a person, weren't designed to push him into the game. Rather, those times were for building a relationship with his dad. "It was more just fun. Like there was no thought that I would ever compete at any level. It was just a game." When that time to compete did come along though, the student of the so-so player showed he had game. In the beginning of his competitive days there wasn't a lot expected of him or by him. The key phrase for him back then was 'to just make the cut,' he recalled with a chuckle. "That was back in the day of Bob Wylie, Keith Alexander, all the legends of golf in Alberta. They FINISH FIRST BY GORD MONTGOMERY Frank Van Dornick is proof-positive that nice guys don't always finish last. After all, he has compiled an astonishing record of wins on golf courses around the country, particularly in Alberta, that belie his affable nature. So while he's a polite, unassuming guy in conversation, make no mistake, this guy can rip your heart out on the golf course as quickly as he can make you feel at ease elsewhere. Enshrined in the Alberta Golf Hall of Fame j n D st. es a ure no qu Frank Van finish la course nat Really Can "I never really put a lot of thought into going into this tournament or that tournament… at some point I just thought that maybe I should go qualify for the Amateur, and I did, and just kept playing."