A scheduling conflict has forced organizers of the Smithers Charity Golf Tournament to cancel this summer's event.
Last year, the Ladies Club at the Smithers Golf and Country Club agreed to re-schedule their Northern Open to allow the fundraising tournament to take place during Centennial week celebrations. Previously, the charity golf tournament was held every year in June.
But the agreement was to switch the dates for only one year, said Smithers Ladies Club captain Coranne Dohler.
When approached with the same request earlier this year, the women were unable to accommodate the request because of the timing of other regional golf events.
“We have women who attend our event from all over the region,” Dohler said. “We've been promoting the fact this tournament will once again take place in August of 2014 and we plan our tournament around when other clubs are hosting their tournaments which are consistent each year for their clubs.
“It's not just as simple as moving the tournament to a different weekend.”
Now, Smithers Charity Golf Tournament organizers have shifted their focus to 2015.
“It is unfortunate that we are unable to expand on the huge momentum we have established over the past three years where we have generated over half a million dollars of revenue into our community,” Delwisch and Brown said. “The selfless generosity shown by our esteemed celebrities will be lost this year but we hope that they will be gracious enough to return for an even bigger event from Aug. 13 to 15, 2015.”
Judy Morgan, last year's Smithers Ladies Club captain, said the ladies club executive are disappointed the event had to be cancelled but said they simply were not given enough notice to make the change.
“We feel that the celebrity golf tournament is a wonderful thing for the community,” Morgan said. “If we felt in any way we could have supported it, we would have. The executive looked long and hard at the other weekends that were available and it just didn't work.”
In 2013, the golf tournament and celebrity hockey game brought in about $80,000 for the Bulkley Valley Health Care and Hospital Foundation more than $200,000 for Smithers' new arena.
For 2015, confirmed celebrities already include Dan Hamhuis, Steve Darling and Todd Talbot from HGTV's Love It or List It Vancouver.