A golfer from Christina Lake has earned a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) scholarship.
Tanner Kopan will be attending Westminster University in Utah and will be going up against American competition.
Kopan has been golfing from a very young age and has been a golf club member since the age of three and this will be the 18-year-old’s final year playing locally.
“Next year, in the fall, I’m moving to Salt Lake City to go to university on a golf scholarship,” he said.
“I’m going to work as hard as I can down there to see if I can compete on the pro level, but if not then I’d like to see if I can one day manage my own golf course.”
He said that he had been talking to Chris Hendrickson, the Westminster University coach, for a few months now and just signed with him over a week ago.
Kopan said that the golf program there is very good and that he is excited to go.
Living near the course and having parents and grandparents who had a strong interest in golf, Kopan has had plenty of people to teach him how to play the game.
“My grandparents like to spend time with me and they really like to golf at the par-three and they took me out there every weekend,” Kopan said.
Kopan finished the third leg of the junior circuit, taking second in the 17/18-year age group, off by one stroke in Granite Point in Nakusp on Saturday. On Sunday, Kopan took first for the day, leading the age division by three strokes after
taking second on home turf the weekend before, off first by four strokes.
Kopan plays in the Kootenay Zone 1 West.
This weekend the golfers get a break as there are no games, but that means that Kopan will likely be out at the local course, perfecting his swing.