Local news delivered daily to your email inbox. Subscribe for FREE to the rdnewsNOW newsletter.
(Gord Bamford)
Bamford Charity Classic

Gord Bamford Charity Golf Classic back for 14th year

Aug 17, 2021 | 3:17 PM

The 14th Annual Gord Bamford Charity Golf Classic is set to go this week at the Lacombe Golf and Country Club on Aug. 19-20.

While it will still be a scaled-back event due to the pandemic, they’re hoping this year’s celebrity-filled golf tournament will get them close to the $5 million mark in fundraising totals to date.

Canadian country singer Gord Bamford says they were pretty lucky to even have a golf tournament go on last year.

“We only had 12 teams a day with three days of golf, but we ended up raising $100,000 which is substantial for a COVID year,” says Bamford. “It really kept us rolling, being able to give some money back and kept us rolling into this year. Things are looking really good and we are excited to see what will happen.”

This year, Bamford says they are expected to be back up to about 30 teams a day hitting the links.

To date, the tournament and gala have raised $4,255,983 for Bamford’s foundation.

Funds from The Gord Bamford Charitable Foundation are distributed to a variety of youth-centered charities across the country, such as MusicCounts, the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre, and the Ronald McDonald House Central Alberta.

In non-COVID years, the tournament would include a gala which usually attracts around 700+ people. Instead, this year will involve a patio jam session at the golf course, similar to what they did last year.

Bamford says the reason why there’s no gala this year is because it takes so long to plan such a large-scale event, and by the time the public health restrictions regarding indoor gatherings were lifted, they simply didn’t have enough time to plan it.

“It’s been such a classy event since it started and we want to make sure it stays that way and not rush into it. I know people love it, it’s one of the big parts of it, but it’ll be back, hopefully bigger and better next year.”

There will be plenty of the usual celebrities on-hand for participants to place bids on for the chance to golf with, including hockey stars Theo Fleury and Rob Brown, and musicians Dallas Smith, Dan Davidson and Clayton Bellamy.

For more information on how to get involved, go to gordbamfordfoundation.com.