Hot golf summer on tap in Canada

Every year in the lead-up to the RBC Canadian Open, Golf Canada holds a media event to preview the upcoming tournament, usually with a couple of Canadian tour pros on hand.

A feature of these pressers was always the Pat Fletcher question. At some point, someone had to ask about the comically long drought since a Canadian last won his country’s national open. It got a little awkward – especially in recent years, once Canada produced several golfers who proved themselves capable of winning on the PGA TOUR but who couldn’t quite deliver on the right week in the calendar. The drought, stretching back to Fletcher’s win in 1954, was so long that the Toronto Maple Leafs had won a Stanley Cup since then. Four of them! Imagine.

The players, naturally, would say that winning the Canadian Open would be huge. Like a major championship to them. But there was also evident frustration that the storyline wouldn’t go away.

Until last year. Nick Taylor, in addition to delivering one of the signature Canadian sports moments in history with his 72-foot tournament-winning putt, also struck a blow for his countrymen by lifting the burden of the Pat Fletcher question. No longer do Canadians have to answer whether the nerves or the pressure were keeping the drought alive.

But there’s still a lot on the line for the bulging contingent of Canadians playing at Hamilton Golf and Country Club this week. This is a once-in-a-lifetime season for the Canadians on the PGA TOUR, with a Summer Olympics on the schedule and a Presidents Cup – on home soil in Montreal – near the end of the calendar. Mike Weir is also the captain of that Presidents Cup team, intensifying the maple flavor of the coming months.

It wasn’t that long ago that Weir would’ve been the only Canadian with a shot at either of those events. But this season, a host of his fellow nationals have a chance at Paris 2024 and the team competition at Royal Montreal. It says something about the boom in Canadian golf, inspired in part by Weir himself, that he may end up choosing between multiple Canadians, all of them former TOUR winners, to fill out his Presidents Cup roster.

There will be no such tricky dance with Olympic spots. That field is determined by the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) and is limited to 60 players, with one slot automatically going to host France. The rest of the spots, two per nation, are filled according to OWGR, with a wrinkle that a country with more than two players in the top 15 can get up to four spots in the field. (That’ll likely mean four Americans.)

Whatever happens between now and when the field is set at the end of the U.S. Open in June, Canada will easily be able to send two guys; the question is who will be ranked highest by then. Taylor (28) and Corey Conners (50) are in the lead, but Adam Hadwin (55), Taylor Pendrith (61), and Mackenzie Hughes (68) aren’t far behind. Even Adam Svensson (86) could leap into the mix with some strong performances beginning this week.

The Presidents Cup selection is where things could get a little uncomfortable, since Weir is close with a number of the Canadians who grew up trying to emulate him. The OWGR determines six of the 12 spots on Weir’s International team, with the captain making the final six choices. The current rankings put Taylor fifth among potential International players – non-American, non-Euro – and the only Canadian in the top six. If Weir goes strictly by the rankings to fill out his roster, he’d include Conners (9) and Hadwin (11) but leave out Pendrith (14), Hughes (18), and Svensson (20).

Half a PGA TOUR season remains for those rankings to change, but it seems likely that Weir will only have a couple of Canadians on the team unless he risks an international incident and stacks the roster with Canucks. The last spot could come down to a choice between, say, Hadwin, Sungjae Im, and Adam Scott. Not easy, especially if Weir values the vibes boost a Canadian would bring.

The Canadians, rather obviously, could help Weir out by playing well, especially in high-point events like the two remaining majors and the FedEx Cup. All of them have demonstrated the ability to get hot. Pendrith was scuffling for a couple of seasons, derailed in part by injuries, before getting his power game back and winning his first TOUR event three weeks ago in Texas. Taylor started his Canadian Open last year with a three-over 75, but his blistering 63-66 weekend got him into a playoff that he won on the fourth hole with a birdie putt that was longer than many pitch shots.

The Canadian Open’s weak field relative to many other TOUR events provides an ideal opportunity for homegrown players to start making a run toward Paris – and Montreal beyond that.

Especially since none of them have to worry about answering the Pat Fletcher question.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.