A standout teen golfer has led his high school team to an Island championship, and has a lot more high-stakes rounds ahead of him.
Matthew Wilson, a Grade 12 student-athlete at Wellington Secondary School, has a series of provincial, national and international tournaments over the coming months before he joins his new Weber State University teammates for his first season of NCAA Div. 1 golf.
Wilson and the Wellington Wildcats golf team won the Vancouver Island high school AAA golf championship May 16 at Gorge Vale Golf Club in Victoria, the second Island title in three years for the program.
Wilson and teammate Jeremy Jacklin each carded rounds of 74, Maria Schwager shot a 75 and Isabel Schwager and Dimitri Vassilopoulos were other contributors.
Earlier in May, Wilson won the NextGen Pacific Championship against high-calibre competition at the Summerland Golf and Country Club, finishing the 54-hole tournament at eight under par. He’s been playing consistently well for months, and the Nanaimo Golf Club member said it’s the result of hard work, including playing indoors at Prime Golf.
“Coming [into NextGen], my game was better than everybody else’s and it was just [about] playing my game and mentally keep going,” he said. “I’m a really good ball striker so I can go up there and hit 16 out of 18 greens, it’s just about making putts and going low. At NextGen I was able to do that and finally go low.”
Wilson made his name at the provincial level in 2021, when he won the B.C. Golf juvenile boys’ championship and pointed to the pandemic as a reason for his success because he was able to golf more than 100 straight days.
“Golf is different every single day, and getting better is something that I want to do every day,” he said. “Seeing results is a big thing for me.”
He considered a couple of other U.S. colleges first, but ultimately chose Weber State because the school gave him a good offer and expressed belief in him, and also because he liked what he saw from the state of Utah, particularly its outdoor recreation options. Wilson will be one of half a dozen newcomers to the program, so it’s hard to predict how the team will fare, but he said he’ll go there with the mindset that he’s going to play some good golf and help the team.
Heading into B.C. School Sports provincials, he’s been excited to see his teammates posting such low scores and said he’s fortunate to be able to play high school golf because not many Canadian kids get that opportunity.
Brian Lennox, the team’s coach, said it’s cool to see Wellington win against high schools with strong golf traditions. The coach said Wilson has been a leader, bringing an almost professional approach with his preparation and mental toughness.
“Every time he plays, every kid is looking at him as their marker: Can I compete with him? Can I golf up to his standard?” Lennox said.
The teacher said it’s not too common to see a Nanaimo youth earn an NCAA Div. 1 scholarship.
“It’s pretty phenomenal for a kid from here…” Lennox said. “It’s enormously satisfying to see someone getting to their goals, reaching for their goals, and the best is yet to come.”
Before the fall, Wilson still has the B.C. juniors and amateurs, and he hopes the U.S. juniors, Canadian juniors and Canadian amateurs. This is tournament season in golf, and it will be followed by a whole new tournament season for him at the university level.
“I’m a pretty competitive guy and anything I do, I don’t like to lose…” Wilson said. “Whether you play really well or you play OK, you’re always going to want more and I think that’s a great thing for being a golfer.”
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