Seventh heaven

Barry Caland stood alone Monday night.

Earlier in the day the Thunder Bay golfer captured his record-breaking seventh Strathcona Invitational title, snapping a tie with the late Bob Devine for the most tournament wins at the city’s most prestigious and historic golf event.

Caland also tied Trevor Jones’s all-time local majors mark at 12, winning his fourth straight Strathcona crown with a 5&4 defeat of first-time finalist Steve Gibson, an unprecedented feat in the 80 years the event has been staged.

Caland tried not to think about the historic nature of his win in the days leading up to the Invitational, but the emotions of the moment caught up to him as he sank a par putt to win on the postage stamp 14th green.

“Eighty years of history in this tournament, to have it by myself, that’s pretty special,” Caland said, having dispatched of Brett Almgren 1-up in the semifinal earlier in the day.

“I haven’t changed my socks seven times in my life. You know, you look at the majors in sports and six seems to be the number, so to get to seven, wow. It hasn’t sunk in yet. It’s pretty neat.”

Caland, who missed his latest opportunity to equal Jones last month, losing the Keg District Open to Robert Cumming in a playoff, has two District Open and three District Amateur titles to add to his seven Strathcona wins. Matching Jones, a five-time Strathcona champion, is a feat he’s been chasing since he first started getting serious about the game.

“It’s kinda neat that all these years I’ve put in and nobody’s ahead of me. I still would like to beat (Jones), but ... I’m pretty proud of that,” he said.

The master of match play took awhile to get going on Monday. Gibson, a starter in the Strathcona Golf Course pro shop, had never made championship flight in eight attempts, but showed little sign of nerves over the first five holes.

Caland won the first when Gibson’s tee shot on the short par 3 landed in the bunker and he failed to get up and down.

But Gibson, 22, who used a three-wood off the tee all afternoon, fought back on the second, sticking his third shot to five feet. Caland chunked his approach shot and left his third 10 feet above the hole. Gibson hit, Caland missed and it was all square again.

Caland, 39, won the third with an eight-foot birdie, but Gibson recovered from a pushed drive to the left rough to par the fourth hole, while Caland’s near-perfect drive was all for naught when he came up short on his approach, flubbed his chip and had to settle for bogey.

It wasn’t a typical Caland start.

“I’ve been doing a couple of adjustments to my swing over the weekend because I have been struggling a bit. I kind of went back to a swing I had a couple of days ago on that fat wedge on four. When I kind of get zoned in I forget how to swing a club and just swing it. That’s what works for me. I kind of got it going on that line and just worked with it,” Caland said.

The two golfers split the fifth and hit the sixth all-square. Then disaster struck for Gibson, who left his drive in the gully along the left side of the hole and fired wide left of the green, leading to a bogey five. Caland earned par and never looked back.

“I got a little bit quick at the top there and hooked it a little bit. But I hit a good shot up there, I just didn’t get it up and down,” Gibson said. “I think if I would have made that putt on six, it would have been a different story. But he’s a great player. He’s not going to make bogeys and I made too many bogeys today. You can’t do that against Barry.”

Gibson went on to lose the next five holes, bogeying seven, eight and nine to make the turn down four. Caland, who played without his regular caddy Ron Rost, then birdied the 10th from 25 feet and the took the 11th when Gibson blasted a putt from off the green 12 feet past the hole and missed the comebacker.

Needing to win but one more hole, Caland, who was up five against Almgren only to see his lead disappear until the 18th, needed three to do it. Gibson birdied 12 and par was good enough to win 13. But on 14, lying less than 100 yards to the hole, Gibson airmailed a wedge over a cart bath behind the green, leaving a difficult up-and-down. Caland’s drive, meanwhile, landed 50 yards short of the green.

When Gibson missed his par putt, the tournament and the records that came with it belonged to Caland.