High School Golf
Louis Riel siblings finish 1-2 at high school golf championships
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Sisters Marlies and Kiersten Klekner-Alt from Louis Riel high school placed second and first respectively in the NCSSAA high school golf championships at the Camelot Golf and Country Club on Monday. Fred Sherwin/Photo

There's nothing like a little sibling rivalry to bring out the (athletic) best in a person. Take the Klekner-Alt sisters from École secondaire Louis Riel, for instance.

Two weeks ago, 15-year-old Marlies bested her older sister Kiersten by three shots to earn top female honours in the Mayor's Cup at the Pineview Golf Club.

It was the first time that Marlies had beaten her 17-year-old sister, who was the defending female champion in the annual high school tournament, in competition.

"I think it had more to do with Kiersten having a bad day than it with my own game," said Marlies who finished in the more familiar position of runner-up in the National Capital Secondary School Athletic Association championship at the Camelot Golf and Country Club on Monday.

Playing on her home course, Kiersten scored an impressive 74 to beat her sister by 12 strokes and claim the gold medal after finishing second in the tournament in both 2007 and 2008.

The Grade 12 student scored three birdies, three bogeys and a double bogey to win her third tournament at Camelot in less than a month. In September, she won both the junior women's club championship and the senior women's title in the span of two weeks.

It's been a heck of a summer for Keltner-Alt, who is entertaining several scholarship offers to play golf south of the border. She finished second at the Canadian Junior Golf Association national champiomnship in Barrie and made the cut at the RCGA Canadian Women's Amateur Championships in Moncton, New Brunswick where she ended up tied for 66th, and she was one of the youngest member on Team Canada at the Stephen Ames Cup.

"I've been so busy this season. It seems like I was in a tournament every other weekend," said Klekner-Alt. "Making the cut at the women's amateur championship was definitely one of the highlights."

Kiersten has received a couple of offers from universities south of the border and she plans to visit a school in Pennsylvania next month.

"It's pretty exciting," said Klekner-Alt.

Kiersten can't graduate soon enough as far as her sister is concerned. With Kiersten off playing golf south of the border, Marlies should be the odds on favourite to win the city high school championship the next two years before the third Klekner-Alt sister, Lilian, arrives on the scene.

"She's just starting, but she really enjoys it," said Marlies.

The two older siblings will be playing in the OFSSA championships in Windosr next week, where Kiersten is hoping to win a medal.

(Posted 7:30 p.m., Oct. 6)

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