A panel of judges has examined close to 100 stories, photos, videos and podcasts to identify the finest content created by members of the Golf Journalists Association of Canada (GJAC) in 2020. There was an astonishing variety of content produced across many platforms in 2020 in the world of Canadian golf journalism. The judges faced a difficult task but managed to identify the cream of the crop in five categories: Column, Profile, Feature, Photography and Multimedia. Due primarily to the pandemic there were fewer entries in certain categories, which resulted in the merging of the Action and Landscape categories to a single Photography category and the merging of the Travel category into the Features category.
There were some notable highlights from this year’s award, including sweeps in two of the categories. Bernard Brault swept the Photography category with his exceptional work from 2020 and Kody McWilliams and Casey McWilliams swept the Multimedia category for their set of Mackenzie Tour videos on PGA TOUR Canada.
Other highlights included a focus on golfers with disabilities, resulting in Tim Baines winning First place in Features and Second place in Profiles for his story, “Breaking Down Barriers: Golf has healing powers for people with disabilities.” A different kind of barrier breaking was written about in Rick Young’s winning profile of golf architect Christine Fraser. David McPherson picked up top spot for columns with his timely and lively mix of music and pandemic precautions.
The full list of GJAC Award winners is below:
Column
First Place: David McPherson, Golf from a Distance, snowbirds.org
Second Place: Robert Thompson, Nick Taylor, Global Golf Post
Third Place: Jon McCarthy, Take a magical ride to the Masters from your couch, Toronto Sun
Photo
First Place: Bernard Brault, An aerial view of the 14th hole , par 3, of the south course of the Elmridge Country Club in Île Bizard, Québec
Second Place: Bernard Brault, A view of the 6th hole , par 5, at the Château Bromont golf course
Third Place: Bernard Brault, Richard Boudreau gets out of the bunker of the 15 th hole during a nice autumn day at the Château Bromont golf course
Profile
First Place: Rick Young, Christine Fraser Breaking All Kinds of New Ground, Score Magazine
Second Place: Tim Baines, Breaking Down Barriers: Golf has healing powers for people with disabilities, Postmedia
Third Place: Adam Stanley, Taylor Pendrith’s dream of playing on the PGA TOUR is close, PGATOUR.com
Multimedia
First Place: Kody McWilliams and Casey McWilliams, Laurent Desmarchais is on the rise, Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada
Second Place: Kody McWilliams and Casey McWilliams, Blair Bursey’s journey from Newfoundland towards the PGA TOUR, Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada
Third Place: Kody McWilliams and Casey McWilliams, Eric Hawerchuk competes with a heavy heart at Canada Life Series, Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada
Features
First Place: Tim Baines, Breaking Down Barriers: Golf has healing powers for people with disabilities, Postmedia
Second Place: Curtis Gillespie, The Long Game, enRoute magazine
Third Place: Brad Zeimer, Golf, Played Well…Or Not So Well, Has Immense Health Benefits, British Columbia Golf
The GJAC Media Awards are often presented at the annual GJAC golf day event, which has usually been held in southern Ontario during the early summer. However, the pandemic affected planning for this event, which will go ahead in early October 2021. Given that time frame, the awards this year were presented via a social media release in early August and will also be posted on the GJAC website.
GJAC wishes to offer its thanks to the judges for their effort and insight. This year’s judges were Jeff Brooke, Patty Condon, Harvey Freedenberg, Craig Gardner, Bernie Kollman, Norm MacDonald, Brian McPherson, Scot Morison and Shana Wilson.