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Canadian golfers shine on PGA Tour

Columnist Bruce Penton writes about the many Canadian golfers on the PGA Tour
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Canadian male golf professionals have had a pretty good run on the PGA Tour in the last couple of years, and the number of tour players sporting the Maple Leaf on their bag is going to grow by at least a couple in 2020.

In recent decades, there always seemed to be a few token Canadians on tour, rarely doing anything of significance. Dave Barr, Dan Halldorson, Dick Zokol and Jim Nelford all spent a number of productive years on tour, with the occasional victory or Top 10 finish showing up.

Then along came lefty Mike Weir, who not only won eight PGA tournaments, but made history by becoming the first Canadian to win a major — the 2003 Masters. He was also ranked among the world’s top 10 for a couple of years. But his Canadian compatriots on tour could have easily fit into a Chevy sedan.

That situation has since undergone a huge change. In 2019, there were no fewer than eight Canadians with PGA Tour status and two of them, Corey Conners and Adam Hadwin, are considered among the Tour’s elite, although Conners is the only one to have qualified for the 30-player Tour Championship last week in Atlanta.

Hadwin is a PGA Tour winner (Valspar Championship 2017) and stunned the golf world with a 13-under-par 59 in the third round of the 2017 Career Builder Championship in Palm Springs. Conners burst onto the scene in 2019 with a win at the  Valero Texas Open.

Roger Sloan, Mackenize Hughes and Nick Taylor are Tour regulars, the latter two with victories to their credit, and three others from north of the 49th parallel — Adam Svensson, David Hearn, and Ben Silverman — teed it up on a regular basis in 2019.

More are on the way. Michael Gligic finished 17th on the developmental Korn Ferry tour this year, meaning he is one of 25 to earn his 2020 tour card. And don’t forget about Weyburn’s Graham DeLaet, who has missed most of the past two seasons due to back problems and is expected to return this fall, with his playing status protected by a conditional medical exemption after undergoing microdiscectomy surgery.

So who do we thank, besides the moms and dads, aunts and uncles and friends who encouraged young boys and girls to take up the game? You can start and finish with Golf Canada’s Long-Term Player Development Program, born in 2006 and obviously paying huge dividends.

  • Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “Mariners infielder Tim Beckham drew an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. Considering he’s been hitting .211 since April 7, here’s hoping he kept the sales slip.”
  • Another one from Perry: “The individual letters that sat atop the rotunda of Seattle’s since-rebranded Safeco Field — 11 feet tall, 5 feet wide and about 300 pounds apiece — are now on the auction block. Given the Mariners’ performance this season, bidding should be fierce for the L and two E’s.”
  • Patti Dawn Swansson, aka the River City Renegade: “(Mike) Reilly is the toughest dude QB in the CFL, but the Leos keep asking him to win a knife fight with a plastic straw.”
  • Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, on the Walby Burger, the $45 Investors Group Field concession offering that features six burger patties, six chicken tenders, six hotdogs, six pieces of bacon, cheese, pickles, lettuce, fries, onions, tomatoes, and a secret special sauce. “I started to calculate an estimated caloric content for the ‘Walby Burger’ but my calculator overheated and went dark in the midst of the calculation.”
  • Comedy writer Jim Barach: “Tennis pro Nick Kyrgios was fined $113,000 in Cincinnati for unsportsmanlike conduct, verbal abuse and audible obscenities. Meaning he got penalized for pulling the rare ‘Triple McEnroe.’”
  • Another one from Barach: “A study says watching sports on TV is good for the health, lowering blood pressure for fans when their team is winning. Which is just more bad news for Jets fans.”
  • Comedy writer Alex Kaseberg: “Former Yankee star Alex Rodriguez says he had $500,000 worth of stuff stolen from his rental car in San Francisco. Keep in mind Rodriguez believes a ball and bat with his autograph on them are worth $100,000 each.”
  • Kaseberg again, via Twitter, on Major League Baseball scheduling a game on the ‘Field of Dreams’ diamond in Dyersville, Iowa, next season: “They were going to play at the park in ‘The Natural,’ but the lights still aren’t working.”
  • Perry again, titling this tidbit ‘Bluntly speaking’: “Mike Tyson said he consumes $40,000 worth of marijuana a month. Joe Frazier? Looks like they called the wrong one ‘Smokin’.”
  • Comedian Argus Hamilton, on the downside of the self-driving vehicle craze: “Eventually there’ll be a country-music song about your truck leaving you, too.”
  • Adam McCalvy of MLB.com, after Adrian Houser threw up on the Miller Park mound for the second time this season: “Houser is a promising young hurler for the Brewers.”

Care to comment? Email brucepenton2003@yahoo.ca

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.  

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