By T.J. Colello
Cape Breton Post
SYDNEY — Mention a list of prolific golfers over the sport’s storied history in Cape Breton and Lorne Jennex’s name is bound to come up.
Jennex is one of three athletes, along with two teams and one builder, chosen as the 2009 inductees for the Cape Breton Sport Hall of Fame. Their ceremony will be held during the Cape Breton Sports Heritage Awards May 30 at Centre 200.
“To be included among Cape Breton’s best athletes and be considered for this honour, my goodness, it’s probably for a Cape Breton athlete, the ultimate to be recognized by the Cape Breton Sport Hall of Fame and be accepted,” he said. “It’s an honour for me, my family, for the golf club and for golf in Cape Breton.”
The 64-year-old Leitches Creek resident became interested in golf in the mid-to-late 1950s while helping his father Herbert, a greenskeeper at Seaview. Both Lorne and his brother Brian helped mow lawns and tend to the greens of the course.
“We’d do a little cutting or mowing and so on, but every chance we got, we’d chip and putt,” said Jennex. “From that point on, golf was pretty predominant.”
Jennex didn’t waste any time making his mark during his amateur career. In 1962, he won the Dosco Invitational Championship at Lingan Golf and Country Club and was the youngest winner of the event at the age of 17 in a field that included a number of top Nova Scotia amateurs. That season, he was also the Cape Breton junior champion and the Seaview Golf and Country Club junior champion.
In 1963, Jennex captured the junior championship at the P.E.I. Open among a field of top junior golfers from both Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The next year, he was the fourth low amateur at the P.E.I. Open, finishing a shot ahead of the first placed professional, John ‘Jook’ Munroe of the Amherst Golf Club. In 1965, he won both the Cape Breton Open at Lingan and the Seaview men’s championship.
Turning professional at the age of 21, Jennex claimed a long list of titles as a pro. Starting in 1971, he took home the P.E.I. Open. He also captured the Lobster Open and Magnetic Hill Open (1974), the Atlantic PGA Championship (1977), the Amherst Open (1977 and 1984) and the Mill River Open three times (1979, 1981 and 1982).
The Atlantic PGA Championship victory at the Moncton Golf Club in 1977 put an end to a long drought for Jennex at the tournament. He was runner-up at that event in 1969, 1974 and 1975 before winning. He was also runner up again in 1978 and 1989.
“We had almost a mini tour in Atlantic Canada,” said Jennex. He admitted the field for his Atlantic PGA win that year wasn’t as strong as usual. “Charlottetown, Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton, Dartmouth, Newfoundland all had individual events. The guys off the Canadian tour would come in and in a two-and-a-half week period, could play almost every day in a 36-hole event.”
Jennex has also competed nationally, taking part in a number of Canadian PGA Tour events over his career. As for course records, he set marks at Seaview twice: an eight-under par 62 in 1968 and a 61 in 1970 and at Lingan with a five-under 68 over the then par 73 in 1973. He also set a new bench mark of one-under 70 at the Amherst Golf Club in 1972 and again in 1979 and shot an even par 71 at the Oakfield Golf Club in 1971.
Today, Jennex is the head professional at Seaview, the course he’s been employed with now for nearly 30 years. He was named Atlantic Zone Professional of the Year in both 1986 and 1992 and also served as president of the Atlantic PGA from 1989-92.
Jennex and his wife Millie have two kids, Lorne Christopher and Nancy Carolyn (Marks).