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Kwon first at junior national golf championships

Golfer shoots record score
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Hugo Bernard (above) hits his ball out from under a tree on the first hole at Morgan Creek Golf Course

Pitt Meadows golfer Kevin Kwon dominated the field at Canadian Junior Boys Golf Championships last week at Morgan Creek Golf Course, finishing 11 strokes better than the next closest competitor.

Kwon, whose home course is Swan-e-Set Bay Resort, shot three of four rounds in the 60s  (71-65-67-69) to finish Friday with a 16-under-par 272 score; second-place golfer Richard Jung, of Toronto, was five-under.

“I never dreamed I could beat this type of field by that much,” Kwon said in a release. “I’ve won by big margins, but not this kind of tournament. This is the highlight of my career so far.”

Kwon’s score was also 18 strokes better than the second-place juvenile-division golfer – Surrey’s Donald Qu, who finished two-over-par. The 18-stroke difference is the largest all-time in the juvenile category.

In addition, his total score of 272 is the lowest 72-hole score ever posted by a juvenile champ, besting the previous record of 280, which was set by Raphael Lee in 2004 and matched by Mitch Sutton in 2008.

Kwon’s scorecard was littered with birdies after the final round – he had five of them, and just two bogeys, in his fourth round Friday, and had six Thursday, against just one bogey.

With the victory, Kwon earned an exemption into this week’s Canadian Men’s Amateur Championship in Winnipeg, but instead chose to play at Western Canada Summer Games, which are underway this week in Kamloops.

South Surrey’s Adam Svensson, who was seventh after the first round last Tuesday and in the top-10 most of the tournament, made a charge in the last two rounds to finish third, at four-under (71-73-69-71).

In the final round, Svensson was three-under-par through 15 holes, but bogeyed the par-3 16th and the par-4 18th – he’d birdied both holes a day earlier – to finish at one-under on the day.