About a decade ago, Wekweètì began building a golf course. Each year, a few holes at a time, a nine-hole course appeared.
A brand new golf course means a blank history book, and Robert Judas has just taken a page of that book for himself.
The first hole-in-one at the Dechi Laot’i Golf Course belongs to him.
“I couldn’t believe that I made a hole-in-one,” said Judas, who – in classic style – only discovered his achievement when he wandered up to the first green and found the ball, marked with his initials, nestled inside the hole.
“It was my first one,” he told Cabin Radio, adding that his fellow players were also stunned. “I showed them the ball and they started taking some pictures.”
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Judas was in a fourball playing the course on the evening of September 7, which is how a dozen or so residents of Wekweètì, population 140, like to spend a summer night.
He used a three-wood to record the milestone on the 185-yard first hole. The course lies eight kilometres east of the community, past its airstrip.
“We play almost every day after work. We start at around six o’clock and finish at around 9:30pm,” he said.
“We play every day. We have a group chat through Messenger. We call ourselves Angry Birds.”
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Wekweètì’s community government has been leaning into the local devotion to golf, sponsoring the third annual Chief Adeline Football Tournament at the end of August, in which 16 golfers took part.
“With motivation still high and the players still wanting more, they have been playing every night since the tournament,” read a note about Judas’ hole-in-one sent to Cabin Radio by community senior administrator Fred Behrens.
“For the past few years, the interest has really taken off,” Behrens wrote.
The community had been planning a tournament this summer with a $30,000 prize pot, but then “all went sideways,” Behrens added, referring to both Wekweètì’s own evacuation and the impact of Yellowknife’s evacuation on the Tłı̨chǫ community, which is reliant on the territorial capital for supplies and transportation.
“Now we are planning a glow-ball tournament some time before the end of September, we hope,” Behrens said.
When Judas spoke with Cabin Radio on Tuesday, he was already planning to be back on the first tee at 6pm that night.
“We have been playing almost non-stop,” he admitted, having taken up golf two years ago.
Next year, he’s expecting a bigger tournament to be held involving players from neighbouring Gamètì. He hopes that ultimately becomes an annual event, with the teams travelling back and forth.
