December 4, 2025 – Golf Canada is proud to announce the names of 34 beginner and junior athletes which were named to the 2026 Staff Canada and Staff Canada – NextGen squads.
Athletes are chosen based mostly on outcomes from the earlier season (September 2024-August 2025), with the Staff Canada – NextGen program additionally contemplating efficiency at Golf Canada’s annual choice camps. Skilled gamers that might be a part of the 2026 Staff Canada squad might be introduced later, upon the completion of Qualifying Tournaments.
2026 Staff Canada Rosters:
Staff Canada – WomenProfessionals to be chosen later within the yr
Staff Canada – MenProfessionals to be chosen later within the yr.
Staff Canada – NextGen (Boys)
Staff Canada – NextGen (Women)
“Golf Canada is proud to announce the beginner and junior athletes chosen to the 2026 Staff Canada and Staff Canada – NextGen groups. We stay up for supporting their continued progress and performances competing on golf’s largest phases,” stated Emily Phoenix, Director, Excessive Efficiency, Golf Canada. “We’re additionally deeply grateful to the beneficiant donors of the Golf Canada Basis and our company companions whose ongoing dedication to participant growth is significant in serving to our athletes prepare, compete, and pursue their desires of success on the PGA and LPGA Excursions”.
Golf Canada’s Nationwide Staff program goals to assist extra Canadian athletes obtain success on the world’s main skilled excursions, together with the PGA TOUR and the LPGA Tour. The Staff Canada program helps a gaggle of skilled amateurs on the pathway to taking part in skilled golf together with a gaggle of younger skilled golfers constructing their careers as touring execs. Complementing this, the Staff Canada – NextGen squad focuses on creating Canada’s prime junior golfers, offering coaching and competitors experiences wanted to construct a powerful basis for future success on the beginner {and professional} ranges.
Staff Canada Coaches…
The teaching workers for the lads’s and girls’s Staff Canada squads will return in full for the 2026 season. Staff Canada – Males might be led by head coach Derek Ingram (Winnipeg, Man.) supported by coaches Louis Melanson (Moncton, N.B.) and Benoit Lemieux (Montréal, Que.). Lemieux will assume an expanded position as Lead Coach of Staff Canada – Males (Newbie), taking direct accountability for guiding and supporting the group of seven beginner prospects. Lemieux has been with the Staff Canada program since 2021 and is a two-time recipient of the PGA of Quebec Coach of the Yr award. In his time at Golf Canada, Lemieux has coached gamers to the Korn Ferry Tour and supported a number of prime amateurs of their transition from beginner to skilled golf. The teaching workers might be supported by psychological efficiency coach, Dr. Adrienne Leslie-Toogood (Winnipeg, Man.) together with power and conditioning coach Greg Redman (Kelowna, B.C.). Staff Canada – Girls might be led by Stollery Household Girls’s head coach Salimah Mussani (Vancouver, B.C.) together with affiliate coach Jennifer Greggain (Vancouver, B.C.), power and conditioning coach Andrea Kosa (Calgary, Alta.) and psychological efficiency coach Judy Goss (Toronto, Ont.).
Staff Canada coaches work with athletes and their private help groups to develop annual coaching plans and determine areas to affect athlete progress in all areas of their sport. Athletes are additionally supported by a complete sport science workforce that features bodily conditioning together with psychological efficiency and psychological well being helps. Gamers are introduced collectively repeatedly for coaching camps with nationwide workforce coaches and sport science workers. The Staff Canada – NextGen program additionally helps juniors and younger amateurs throughout a variety of pathways, together with those that elect to pursue collegiate golf.
Staff Canada Athletes….
The Girls’s Newbie Staff could have seven returning gamers, led by Lauren Kim (WAGR No. 19) of Surrey, B.C., who’s at the moment in her junior yr on the College of Texas. Kim earned her second collegiate win on the Betsy Rawls Invitational in March and added a pair of third place finishes in addition to a prime 5. Kim additionally competed in her second consecutive Augusta Nationwide Girls’s Newbie match in April. Kim represented Canada on the World Newbie Staff Championship alongside returning teammate, Vanessa Borovilos of Etobicoke, Ont. Additionally returning in 2026 are: Katie Cranston of Oakville, Ont., Tillie Claggett of Calgary, Alta., Nicole Gal of Oakville, Ont., Vanessa Zhang of Vancouver, B.C. and Lauren Zaretsky of Thornhill, Ont. Borovilos (Chevron Collegiate), Claggett (PGA of Canada Girls’s Championship), Gal (Girls’s Porter Cup) and Zhang (Ivy League Girls’s Golf Championship and Quinnipiac Traditional) have been all victorious in 2025.
The 2026 Males’s squad will characteristic seven amateurs led by the bottom ranked Canadian male on WAGR (No. 92), Ashton McCulloch of Kingston, Ont. McCulloch is a fifth yr student-athlete at Michigan State College and just lately represented Canada on the World Newbie Staff Championship. This previous season McCulloch competed in each the RBC Canadian Open and the Rocket Traditional on the PGA TOUR. Collegiate gamers Justin Matthews of Little Britain, Ont., Isaiah Ibit of Orleans, Ont., Ethan Wilson of St. Alberta, Alta., Cooper Humphreys of Vernon, B.C. and Matthew Javier of North York, Ont. are all returning to this system and can transfer up from the NextGen workforce for 2026. Eric Zhao of North York, Ont., a freshman at Princeton College would be the lone new addition to this system. Zhao earned two titles this season, profitable the 2025 NextGen Ontario Championship and the 2025 Ontario Males’s Newbie.
Staff Canada – NextGen Coaches…
Matt Wilson (Toronto, Ont.) has been employed as the pinnacle coach for the Staff Canada – NextGen Boys workforce. Wilson re-joins Golf Canada after serving the previous 5 years because the director of instruction at Baltusrol Golf Membership in Springfield, N.J. Previous to his time at Baltusrol, Wilson was the pinnacle coach of Staff Canada’s Junior Women workforce and director of NextGen efficiency from 2017 to 2020. Earlier this month, Wilson was named to the most recent version of the Prime 100 Academics in America by GOLF Journal. Wilson might be joined by psychological efficiency coach Dr. Jonathan Lasnier (Ottawa, Ont.) together with power and conditioning coaches Andrew Hoermann (Milton, Ont.) and Iordan Krouchev (Montreal, Que.).
Jeff MacDonald (Chester, N.S.) returns as Staff Canada – NextGen Women head coach and might be supported by assistant coach Jennifer Ha (Calgary, Alta.). Over the previous three years, MacDonald has led Staff Canada to a gold and back-to-back silvers on the World Junior Women Golf Championship. They are going to be joined by psychological efficiency coach Justin Fredette (Winnipeg, Man.) and power and conditioning coach Dr. Emily Wiggin (Dartmouth, N.S.).
Tristan Mullally of Dundas, Ont. will proceed as the pinnacle of Nationwide Expertise Identification, overseeing the nationwide expertise identification system that was established in 2022. On this position, Mullally offers help to a promising group of younger junior golfers and their current teaching groups to develop the pool of future Staff Canada prospects. In 2026, six gamers have transitioned from Expertise ID to Staff Canada – NextGen.
Staff Canada – NextGen Athletes…
Staff Canada – NextGen (Boys) options two returning gamers together with 2025 Canada Summer season Video games winner, Austin Krahn of Christina Lake, B.C. Krahn added two further provincial wins in 2025 profitable the B.C. Newbie and B.C. Junior Championship. Jager Ache of Woodbridge, Ont. returns and has dedicated to the College of Virginia for 2026. They are going to be joined by eight newcomers led by 2025 Canadian Junior Boys champion, Dawson Lew of Toronto, Ont. Lew added 4 further particular person wins in 2025 and two inter-provincial workforce titles for Ontario on the Canadian Males’s Newbie and Canadian Junior Boys. Becoming a member of Lew are six in-year winners together with (wins in brackets): Alexis Rouleau of Montreal, Que. (NextGen Choice Camp, Golf Quebec Junior Provincial Match Play Championship, Marathan Petroleum Preview at Findlay), Spencer Shropshire of Ramara, Ont. (Ontario Junior Boys Championship,), Emile Lebrun of Laval, Que. (Golf Quebec Males’s Newbie Championship), Thomas Grenier of Thetford Mines, Que. (Golf Quebec Boys Junior Championship, NB3 Elite), Maxim McKenzie of Chilliwack, B.C. (NextGen Pacific Championship), Eddie Gu of Aurora, Ont. (AM Technical Options Junior at Southpointe, Florida Junior Tour Labor Day Main). Additionally becoming a member of the workforce is Chase Jerome of Ottawa, Ont. Jerome earned 10 prime 10 finishes throughout a variety of tournaments this season.
Staff Canada – NextGen (Women) options eight returning members led by Aphrodite Deng of Calgary, Alta. In July, Deng received the 76th U.S. Women’ Junior Championship changing into the primary Canadian to win the title in match historical past. One month later, Deng adopted up her historic efficiency with a T20 end on the CPKC Girls’s Open, incomes the Marlene Stewart Streit Award, given to the low beginner. Deng additionally received twice on the AJGA taking the Junior Invitational and Mizuho Americas Open and was just lately named junior participant of the yr by the AJGA. Deng is at the moment the bottom ranked Canadian beginner participant a part of the nationwide workforce program, at the moment No. 14 on WAGR. The 2025 Canadian Junior Women Championship winner Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont. additionally headlines as a returnee. Liu added 4 further wins in 2025, together with the Peloton Glencoe Invitational and was a part of Staff Canada 1 that earned silver medal honours on the 2025 World Junior Women Golf Championship. Michelle Xing of Richmond Hill, Ont. returns after profitable the 2025 Canadian Girls’s Newbie Championship, introduced by BDO in July. Xing was additionally a part of Staff Canada 1’s silver medal workforce and represented Canada with Borovilos and Kim on the World Newbie Staff Championship. Clairey Lin of Langley, B.C. received two AJGA occasions and added two runner-up finishes. Lin completed solo third on the Canadian Junior Women Championship and on the World Junior Women and was the third member of the silver medal facet. Clara Ding of White Rock, B.C., Eileen Park of Purple Deer, Alta. and Ruihan Kendria Wang of Vancouver, B.C. all represented Staff Canada 2 on the World Junior Women Championship, main the workforce to a sixth-place end. As well as, Ding received the Girls’s Orlando Worldwide Newbie Championship and the GolfBC Group BC Girls’s Open to earn an exemption into the CPKC Girls’s Open. Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont. returns after incomes 5 wins this season on the provincial and AJGA circuits. Park has received 15 occasions over the previous two seasons. Becoming a member of the returning members are new members Ann-Sophie Bourgault of Gatineau, Que. and Jodie Han of Vancouver, B.C. Bourgault earned three runner-up finishes in addition to a third-place end and two prime 10’s on the AJGA this season. She added one win on the 54 Gap Fort Myers Junior Open. Han completed as runner-up on the Staff Canada – NextGen Choice Camp match in September and received the adidas Junior All-Star and added two runner-up finishes and a prime 5 end on AJGA this yr.
For full Staff Canada athlete and coach bios together with match outcomes and extra info, please click on right here. Staff Canada is proudly supported by RBC, Canadian Pacific Kansas Metropolis (CPKC), Titleist, FootJoy, Hilton, Puma, Foresight, Golf Canada Basis and Sport Canada.
