After being buried at work since Saturday morning I've now had time to reflect on what turned out to be a great weekend for golf in this country... and beyond.
Last Thursday dawned gloomy and raining in Toronto at St George's G&CC, despite that, thousands turned up at 7am to follow Mike Weir, Mac Hughes and Adam Hadwin, and that was a theme that would continue all weekend.
All that momentum was soon quashed by an email leaked from PGA Tour Comish, Jay Monahan to his players suspending 13 of his members who chose to play in the rival LIV Series event in London including Dustin Johnson and Graeme McDowell....That pushed the RBC Canadian Open off the front pages.
However despite the world wide interest in the LIV, without any TV coverage it soon went on in relative obscurity, and with Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas in contention along with 6 Canadians and record, boisterous crowds packing the venerable old course in Etobicoke, the long awaited Canadian championship ended in the Sunday afternoon sunshine with Rory (62) successfully defending after an afternoon duel with Tony Finau (64) Justin Thomas (64)
" Just to play in a final group like that with that atmosphere all day, I mean the fans here this week have been just absolutely unbelievable, like so good and so cool to play in an atmosphere like that, so boisterous, loud but respectful, it was really really cool " He now moves up to world #3
To top it off, Corey Connors who is off to play in the US Open finally got the putts to fall with a final round of -8 62 to finish 6th as the low Canadian. Adam Svensson (67) T21, Mac Hughes, Nick Taylor T28 -4, Adam Hadwin -3 T35 and Aaron Cockerill E T48th,
Meanwhile Brooke Henderson was stuck in a T9th down in New Jersey at the ShopRite LPGA Classic and as the crowd was filing out of St George's news came out that Brooke had fired a brilliant bogey free final round of -7 64 to win her record 11th LPGA title in a playoff with an incredible 200 yard approach leading to an eagle 3.
She had 3 birdies and an eagle for a front nine -5 32 putting with her left hand low to propel her and Corey Connors had this to say " I'm blown away, she's incredibly talented, From all Canadians congrats to Brooke, that's really special, Eleven wins on the LPGA Tour is amazing, I'm sure she's far from done with that. She's an incredible young lady" She now moves up to world #8. Final scoreboard here.
US Open : What a weekend, and the fireworks will continue at the Country Club in Brookline Mass., for this week's US Open where Rory McIlroy will be joined by Corey Connors, Mac Hughes, Adam Hadwin, Roger Sloan, Ben Silverman and Nick Taylor who are the Canadian contingent.
Flying in from London, to play, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer will be joined by Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed with bullseyes on their backs as newly minted members of the LIV Series, and former members of the PGA Tour.
Their story will cause plenty of distraction all week.
Bryan Angus
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