Twenty years in the past, Mike Weir received The Masters to turn out to be the primary Canadian male to win a serious championship. The Inexperienced Jacket got here north of the border – to borrow a line from Jim Nantz.
The influence of Weir’s Masters triumph has been lengthy felt. And in 2023, twenty years on, there have been extra Canadians who received on the PGA TOUR than in every other 12-month timeframe. Emphasised, in fact, by Nick Taylor’s dramatic playoff victory on the RBC Canadian Open in June.
“I feel it’s a event that we’ve circled on our calendar since in all probability junior golf. However ever since I’ve been on the PGA TOUR, that is one which we wish to do in addition to we are able to in, and the group assist was probably the most unbelievable factor I’ll in all probability ever expertise in my life,” Taylor stated. “To, form of, break that curse – I’m fairly speechless.”
“I don’t assume it’s going to sink in for fairly a while what occurred at present.”
Together with Taylor’s win at Oakdale Golf and Nation Membership, Mackenzie Hughes captured the Sanderson Farms Championship, Adam Svensson broke by for his first PGA TOUR title at The RSM Basic, and Corey Conners received the Valero Texas Open for the second time. Adam Hadwin additionally added three runner-up finishes this previous season.
Conners and Taylor would advance to the TOUR Championship in August, marking the primary time that there was a couple of Canadian within the final-event subject on Tour in the course of the FedExCup-era. There have been glorious major-championship efforts, in-the-mix weeks at virtually each event, and loads of momentum behind the mid-30s group on the highest of their video games on the largest stage in males’s golf.
And that’s simply what occurred on the PGA TOUR over the past 12 months.
Add in Brooke Henderson’s season-opening triumph on the LPGA Tour together with a handful extra spectacular outcomes on the skilled and newbie circuit, it’s been a magical time in Canadian golf – one which may very well be the pillar for much more big-time inspiration to come back.
“Our particular purpose is to assist heroes develop the sport,” says Tristan Mullally, Golf Canada’s Head of Nationwide Expertise Identification. “There’s a Canadian from a small city and if they will do it, I can too.”
Taylor and Henderson are the one golfers on this nation’s historical past to win the Canadian Junior Championship, Canadian Newbie Championship, and Canadian Open on their respective Excursions. Henderson received the Canadian Junior Women in 2012, the Canadian Girls’s Newbie in 2013 and the CPKC Girls’s Open in 2018. Taylor received the Canadian Junior Boys in 2006 and the Canadian Males’s Newbie in 2007.
“When (junior golfers) see these guys successful and after they see Brooke doing properly… they must see it to know they will do it,” says Kevin Blue, Golf Canada’s Chief Sport Officer. “The success the gamers are having, they’ve earned over their very own onerous work and their achievements. It exhibits up-and-coming gamers that Canadians can and are doing it on the world stage.”
Whereas the spectacular victories – and seasons total – by these on the PGA and LPGA Tour are the world-beating newsmakers, it doesn’t take lengthy to see how unimaginable the outcomes have been by so many different Canadians on planet golf.
Alena Sharp earned Canada’s second ever medal in golf on the PanAm Video games, successful bronze in Santiago, Chile in early November. Sharp, who as soon as once more earned LPGA Tour for 2024 standing by ultimate qualifying, additionally loved success this previous season on the Epson Tour, successful one event in June and including 5 top-10 outcomes whereas not lacking a lower in 14 tournaments performed.
Two Canadians, received on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2023 – Ben Silverman and Roger Sloan. Each Silverman and Sloan have locked up their PGA TOUR playing cards for subsequent season.
One other two received on PGA TOUR Canada this season. Lengthy-time Golf Canada Nationwide Group members Etienne Papineau (Royal Seashore Victoria Open introduced by Occasions Colonist) and Stuart Macdonald (Commissionaires Ottawa Open) every discovered the winners’ circle in Canada in 2023, with Papineau ending fourth on the season-long factors listing to earn conditional standing on the Korn Ferry Tour. He additionally, as the highest Canadian on PGA TOUR Canada, earned an exemption into the 2024 RBC Canadian Open. Papineau additionally had a powerful run on the PanAm Video games arising simply wanting the rostrum, ending tied for fourth.
Kudos, too, to Myles Creighton, a winner on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica. And naturally, Stephen Ames, who received a outstanding 4 occasions on PGA TOUR Champions this season.
Canadian amateurs additionally gave us spectacular moments all through 2023.
Lauren Kim of Surrey, B.C. captured the 109th Canadian Girls’s Newbie Championship and Ashton McCulloch of Kingston, Ont. received the 118th Canadian Males’s Newbie, marking solely the third time each tournaments have been received by Canadians in the identical 12 months since 2011. Much more spectacular for Kim, she performed within the U.S. Junior Women, U.S. Girls’s Newbie and U.S. Girls’s Open along with the Canadian Girls’s Newbie and CPKC Girls’s Open, a guidelines that only a few gamers have crossed off in a single season.
A pair of 14-year-olds received their respective Canadian Junior Championships with Eileen Park of Purple Deer, Alta. successful the Canadian Junior Women Championship, and Alex Zhang of Richmond, B.C. taking residence the Canadian Junior Boys Championship.
Judith Kyrinis of Thornhill, Ont. had one other nice season, highlighted by successful the Canadian Girls’s Mid-Am for a 3rd time. Kyrinis additionally earned the most effective end by an newbie on the U.S. Girls’s Senior Open, ending tied for sixth in August. One other Canadian golf icon, Mary-Ann Hayward, received the Canadian Girls’s Senior Newbie in an exciting ultimate spherical by one over Kyrinis.
Monet Chun, a senior on the College of Michigan, grew to become the primary Canadian to make the lower on the Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Newbie. She completed tied for 14th after her ultimate spherical at Augusta Nationwide and made the lower on the U.S. Girls’s Open at Pebble Seashore.
Natasha Stasiuk of Oakville, Ont. received her third straight Canadian All Talents Championship, whereas Chris Willis of Aurora, Ont. received the boys’s championship for his first nationwide title.
The UBC Thunderbirds Girls’s group continued their dominance by successful a sixth straight nationwide title on the Canadian College/Faculty Championship. Sonja Tang of Victoria, B.C. not solely helped lead her group to victory but in addition received back-to-back Girls’s particular person titles and made her first look on the CPKC Girls’s Open.
Canada added its fourth Tailhade Cup in November as Felix Bouchard of Otterburn Park, Que. and Brady McKinlay of Lacombe, Alta. led Canada to victory by 4 strokes over Denmark and Switzerland.
Essentially the most profitable season in Canadian golf historical past added one other thrilling chapter in early October as Group Canada received its first-ever group title on the World Junior Women Golf Championship.
The Canada 1 Group comprised of 14-year-old Anna Huang of Vancouver, Vanessa Borovilos of Toronto and Vanessa Zhang of Vancouver shot a team-total 138 at Brampton Golf Membership in Brampton, Ont. to complete a single shot away from the Republic of Korea. Huang’s runner-up end was the most effective Canadian particular person end result since Brooke Henderson’s completed fourth in 2014.
“The thrill stage for outcomes we’re seeing is implausible and it rubs off on the younger gamers,” says Blue. “The youthful gamers will see this and assume, ‘why not me?’ and that’s nice.”
Whereas there have been a number of milestones that deserved recognition on the golf course, there have been many off it as properly this 12 months.
Golf Canada celebrated two profitable launches this 12 months with the creation of the BDO Nationwide Golf League and the She Performs Golf Pageant.
The BDO Nationwide Golf League is a nationwide, season-long competitors that was created to reinforce the league expertise for males, girls, and junior gamers. In its inaugural season, 11,000 golfers and 107 leagues competed coast-to-coast for a spot within the Regional Playoffs. Via the Regional Playoffs, 51 groups certified for the BDO Nationwide Golf League Championship, which shall be going down throughout event week on the 2024 RBC Canadian Open at Hamilton Golf and Nation Membership. The 51 groups shall be handled to a once-in-a-lifetime, all expense paid journey to compete for the championship.
The She Performs Golf Pageant was a week-long girls’s golf celebration that happened this June in Calgary in partnership with The Glencoe Golf and Nation Membership. The competition was designed to rejoice girls’s golf in any respect ranges and deal with gaps within the participation pathway for girls and women; the competition ran concurrently with the Digital Commerce Financial institution Glencoe Invitational. Occasions in the course of the week included try-golf clinics for girls and women, a group nine-hole scramble together with a networking occasion for girls in sport {and professional} growth occasions for girls leaders in golf. Following the profitable pilot this summer season, the She Performs Golf Pageant is ready to increase to extra cities throughout the nation in 2024.
First Tee – Canada welcomed over 57,000 individuals at 240 areas with programming delivered at golf programs, faculties, and neighborhood centres throughout the nation in 2023. This previous 12 months noticed a 151% enhance in individuals and a 114% enhance in areas providing programming. First Tee – Canada expanded to 6 chapters with the addition of Alberta, becoming a member of British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic Canada. All chapters present kids life-enhancing experiences by the sport of golf.
The expansion of First Tee – Canada, and success of our athletes in our high-performance applications displays the sustained influence of champion donors driving the philanthropic excellence of the Golf Canada Basis which skilled one other banner 12 months, elevating over $8 million {dollars} in assist of the sport.
Making a secure and welcoming sport atmosphere continued to catch the attention of the Nationwide Sport Federation, as Golf Canada grew to become a Program Signatory of Abuse-Free Sport, the brand new nationwide impartial mechanism to forestall and deal with maltreatment in sport. All high-performance athletes, coaches, staff and athletes assist personnel are underneath the jurisdiction of the brand new mechanism. As a program signatory, all individuals have entry to the Abuse-Free Sport Helpline the place operators with experience in counselling, psychology and sport will pay attention, supply assist and refer people to acceptable reporting mechanisms.. Golf Canada was proud to launch a brand new Range, Fairness, Inclusion and Secure Sport Useful resource to assist its member golf equipment on this vital mandate.
The success of 2023 for Golf Canada’s two Nationwide Open Championships was rightfully acknowledged by the LPGA and PGA Excursions of their season-ending event recognition. The RBC Canadian Open took residence “Greatest Advertising and marketing Initiative” and “Greatest Match Gross sales” whereas the CPKC Girls’s Open was as soon as once more awarded the LPGA Tour Match of the Yr Award (the second consecutive 12 months taking residence the Tour’s prime honour), along with recognition for “Greatest Sponsor Activation” and “Greatest Volunteer Appreciation.”
The 12 months ends with one other celebrated milestone—the primary time ever that Golf Canada members surpassed the ten million mark for scores posted to the Golf Canada Rating Centre for handicap monitoring. Let that sink in—10M scores—a rise from the earlier document 9.7M scores posted a 12 months prior because the resurgence of golf continues. Be a part of the celebration and share your individual #MyGolfYear achievements to wrap the 12 months!
From Weir’s win to Henderson’s heroics, Taylor’s triumph and the various milestones celebrated by the season, there’s by no means been a extra thrilling time in Canadian golf, and this 12 months has been a shining instance.
Remember to observe our social channels over the approaching weeks as we proceed to rejoice 2023, a momentous 12 months in Canadian golf.
