John Chidley-Hill/ Canadian Press
Even informal golf followers in Listowel, Ont., had been invested in Corey Conners’s run on the Masters.
Brian Hare and Brian Paulmert had been sharing a beer at Crabby Joe’s on Important Avenue in Listowel as Conners teed off within the ultimate spherical of the Masters on Sunday, 4 pictures again of Northern Eire’s Rory McIlroy for the lead. Though neither bar patron know Conners personally or comply with golf intently, they had been rooting for his or her hometown’s star.
“It’s at all times good to see somebody from a small city doing effectively or prospering, doing what they like to do,” mentioned Hare.
“Listowel’s a bump, eh?” added Paulmert. “Once I’m within the States folks ask the place I’m from and I say ‘an hour and a half from Toronto’ as a result of nobody is aware of Listowel.”
“You speak about Corey, he’s a small-town boy doing good.”
Conners shot a 3-over 75 on Sunday to complete the match tied for eighth at 5 beneath.
It’s the fourth time he has completed within the high 10 at Augusta Nationwide. He tied for tenth in 2020, tied for eighth in 2021 and tied for sixth in 2022.
McIlroy beat England’s Justin Rose in a one-hole playoff for his first-ever Masters title.
Conners was the highest ranked Canadian on the PGA Tour heading into the Masters, the primary main of the boys’s golf season, sitting sixth within the FedEx Cup standings. His eighth-place end will drop him all the way down to No. 7 within the rankings.
The 33-year-old has constructed his skilled popularity on constant play with outstanding ball-striking capability.
He shot a 68 within the first spherical, then back-to-back 70s to enter Sunday’s ultimate spherical in sole possession of third. McIlroy was the third-round chief at 12 beneath, American Bryson DeChambeau was second at 10 beneath, and Conners was 8 beneath.
“Like I mentioned, I’m not an enormous golfer, however I’ve heard he’s made a struggle to win this match,” Hare mentioned.
Mike Weir of Brights Grove, Ont., is the one Canadian male to ever win a significant. He claimed the inexperienced jacket as Masters champion in 2003, inspiring a technology of Canadian golfers together with Conners.
Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., has received two majors on the ladies’s schedule: the Ladies’s PGA Championship in 2016 and the Evian Championship in 2022.
Winnipeg’s George Knudson, who’s tied with Weir for many PGA Tour wins by a Canadian at eight, was the closest to profitable a significant earlier than Weir’s triumph. He misplaced the 1969 Masters by a single putt.
Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., was the opposite Canadian to make the lower at Augusta this 12 months. He shot a 1-over 73 on Sunday to complete a 3-over general, good for fortieth.
Across the nook from Crabby Joe’s was the Again 9 Sports activities Bar, a golf-themed spot the place a half-dozen folks had been watching the motion from Augusta Nationwide but additionally keeping track of the Toronto Blue Jays sport out of Baltimore, Canada’s nationwide girls’s hockey workforce on the world championships in Czechia, and anticipating that night’s Toronto Maple Leafs sport in Carolina.
Conners himself usually stops by the Again 9 when he’s in Listowel and in a single nook, close to the dual golf simulators, is a wall full of memorabilia from his profession together with signed golf flags from the Masters and the Valero Texas Open, which he received in 2019 and 2023 for his two PGA Tour victories.
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