The Guelph Gryphons men’s golf team are golden again, after winning their first provincial championship since 2000. The University of Guelph Gryphons earned their first provincial gold medal in 26 years on Sunday at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) tournament in Ottawa. The men finished with a combined team score of 591, edging out Brock University by two strokes and Wilfrid Laurier University by six strokes. “I feel great. I mean, this has been a long time coming. Five years on the team and then to finally do it in my last year. It means a lot,” Caleb Shorthouse, a golfer and business management major said. “I feel great. I’m so happy. Finally got this done. It’s been four years of built up, so,” William Dodd, golfer and mechanical engineering student said. “I knew we had a deep squad this year, and we actually didn’t win any tournaments this year until OUAs. But we all knew that we were just saving it for that, so it’s pretty special.” “I’m proud of the entire team and how everybody played out there,” Carson Skinner, golfer and accounting student said. It’s the fourth provincial team title for the Gryphons men’s program, who will now set their sights on nationals in British Columbia next summer to try to bring home Guelph’s first ever Canadian team championship. “I know we can do it. We have five golfers that, on any given day, can shoot low. And I think we’re going to surprise ourselves at nationals as we did this year at OUAs,” William Drewery, golfer and business management major said. Andreas Diogenous transferred to Guelph from playing Div 1 golf with San José State University. The team said it was a major boost at the start of the season that gave them higher hopes. “Coming into the year, I knew with picking up Andreas and Ryan Kaseloo as well, I knew we had a really good team coming in. I felt like this was the year to do it,” Shorthouse said. Women claim silver On the women’s side, the Gryphons’ team earned a silver medal at the OUA championship and a berth in the Canadian University/College Championship. “We had a really good team this year. I would say it’s one of the best teams we’ve ever had. We had a lot of people sick this weekend at OUAs, and that hurt us a little bit. But we still played really well and I’m really proud of us,” Ela Jones, golfer and microbiology student said. Fourth year Ela Jones also earned her own gold medal. She became the second female in Gryphons history to be named OUA individual scoring champion. “It’s been a goal since I started at Guelph, so it’s really bittersweet,” Jones said. “I had the lead after day one, but when I finished on day two, I knew it was going to be pretty close. And it actually wasn’t as close as I thought, so that was really nice. But no, I didn’t expect that it would happen this year.” The Gryphons’ teams have never won the Canadian University/College Championship but they have had one athlete win it all. Sarah Dunning won individual gold at the national event in 2019. Both teams will compete at the national event organized by Golf Canada from June 1 until June 4, 2027.
