Leon Carter was a two-sport star, finding success with a baseball bat and a set of golf clubs.

In baseball, the speedy outfielder from River Bourgeois batted leadoff for Canada’s national senior and junior teams through six seasons. After leaving the diamond, Carter found success in golf, winning four provincial amateur championships and a pair of mid-amateur titles.

After attending the National Baseball Institute in Surrey, B.C., in 1991, Carter was named to the national junior team and competed at the World Junior Championships in Cuba.
A two-time Baseball Nova Scotia Player of the Year, Carter became the first Nova Scotian to crack the national senior roster in 1993, playing for Canada’s top team for three seasons. He batted .433 in ‘93 to set the national team’s single season record.
In his final season in 1995, Canada just missed qualifying for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, by winning bronze at the qualifying tournament with only two teams advancing to the Olympics. It was then that Carter decided to take up golf.

Carter’s mother, a teacher, played during her summer time off. His father was a golf fanatic so it was inevitable Carter would gravitate to the sport, but, after baseball, just playing casual rounds wouldn’t satisfy Carter’s competitive spirit. He wanted to play against the best players in the province.

The lefty entered his first Nova Scotia amateur championship in 1997. The next year at Digby Pines, he made the cut and was paired with Gerry MacMillan, a Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame member who would win the last of his record seven provincial amateur titles that week. Carter impressed MacMillan with his powerful hitting.

In 1999, Carter finished second at the provincial championships. In 2000, he captured his first provincial title of four in eight years (2000, 2002, 2004, 2007). He was runner-up three times (1999, 2001, 2006), played on seven provincial Willingdon Cup teams at the Canadian amateur championship, and helped Nova Scotia win its first Willingdon Cup team title in 2001.

Carter won back-to-back Nova Scotia mid-amateur championships in 2010 and 2011, confirming his natural talent in his second sport and his place among the Nova Scotia golfing greats.

*This biography is excerpted from the induction program article by Glenn MacDonald.*