TORONTO –
As Nick Taylor’s 72-foot eagle putt dropped to win the RBC Canadian Open a who’s who of Canadian golf charged the inexperienced with bottles of champagne to spray him.
Mike Weir, Corey Conners, Adam Hadwin, and Golf Canada officers ran towards Taylor to rejoice as 1000’s of followers surrounding the outlet got here unglued within the pouring rain.
After a 69-year drought a Canadian had lastly received the boys’s nationwide golf championship.
“To interrupt that curse, if you wish to name it that, is … I am fairly speechless,” stated an emotional Taylor. “I do not assume it’ll sink in for fairly a while what occurred right now.”
The prolonged putt ended a dramatic four-hole playoff with England’s Tommy Fleetwood. That they had been tied at 17-under after 72 holes to prime the tightly packed leaderboard at Oakdale Golf and Nation Membership. Each gamers birdied the primary playoff gap after which picked up consecutive pars earlier than Taylor’s beautiful clincher on No. 18.
The final Canadian to win the occasion was Pat Fletcher in 1954 at Vancouver’s Level Gray Golf and Nation Membership. Most of Canada’s skilled golfers seek advice from the Canadian Open as their fifth main and have been aching to finish the drought for years.
When Taylor was requested what the win meant to him and Canadian golf as an entire a fan in a close-by grandstand shouted a solution for him.
“I heard somebody shout on the market, ‘every thing,’ and I do not know some other phrase to make use of aside from that,” stated Taylor. “I believe it is a match that we have circled on our calendar since most likely junior golf.
“Ever since I have been on the PGA Tour that is one which we need to do in addition to we are able to in, and the group help was probably the most unbelievable factor I’ll most likely ever expertise in my life.”
Fleetwood has but to win on the PGA Tour however was gracious in defeat.
“Good second for Nick and the followers right here,” stated Fleetwood, who birdied Nos. 17 and 18 to pressure the playoff as Taylor watched on TV within the clubhouse. “It is nice to be part of that Sunday and that playoff.
“I had my probabilities, actually. It wasn’t to be this time. Congratulations to him.”
The wild celebrations included Hadwin, who’s additionally from Abbotsford, getting tackled by a safety guard as he rushed onto the inexperienced to congratulate Taylor. Hadwin insisted he was too stuffed with adrenalin to even really feel the blow.
“It is unimaginable. I imply, what do you say to one of many best moments of Canadian golf historical past?” stated Hadwin. “I believe all of us predicted that this was going to occur.
“I am undecided that anyone of us predicted a 72-foot eagle putt in a fourth gap playoff to get it accomplished, however what a method to go.”
There have been different shut calls, together with a dramatic three-hole playoff in 2004 when Fiji’s Vijay Singh beat Weir at Glen Abbey Golf Membership in Oakville, Ont., in 2004.
“My coronary heart is pumping for him nonetheless,” stated Weir on the 18th inexperienced as Taylor’s celebration continued close by. “That is simply an incredible end.”
This yr’s version of the Canadian Open was the one to finish the drought.
With subsequent week’s U.S. Open on the west coast on the Los Angeles Nation Membership, a lot of the top-ranked gamers stayed away from Toronto to relaxation forward of the third main of the boys’s golf season.
No. 12 Sam Burns was the best ranked participant on the FedEx Cup standings at Oakdale and he missed the reduce on Friday. No. 13 Rory McIlroy noticed the weekend, as did No. 16 Tyrrell Hatton.
The truth that eight Canadians made the reduce — probably the most since 2002 — was additionally promising.
When the third spherical started on Saturday morning, Taylor was a protracted shot to win. He had struggled to a 3-over 75 within the first spherical after which squeaked into the weekend with a 67 to sit down at 2-under.
However he rocketed up the leaderboard on Saturday with 9-under 63 to set a brand new course file at Oakdale and head into the fourth spherical in a tie with England’s Aaron Rai for eighth at 11-under.
Taylor’s gallery grew with every gap on Sunday as phrase unfold that he had taken the lead. Followers serenaded him with “O Canada,” referred to as out “Let’s go Canada!” and chanted his title — generally in a cruder, rhyming model.
“It was probably the most unimaginable ambiance I’ve ever been part of and it isn’t even shut,” stated Taylor, who completed second on the notoriously boisterous WM Phoenix Open on Feb. 12. “I believe even strolling the primary tee right now, strolling to the primary inexperienced, there’s ovations on each single tee and inexperienced.
“When Tommy would miss and they’d cheer I sort of felt unhealthy for him. However I knew simply how pumped they had been and so they had been attempting to place each ounce of vitality into it to assist me pull it by way of.”
Third-round chief C.T. Pan, Hatton and Rai tied for third.
Controversy threatened to overshadow the Canadian Open earlier within the week. The PGA Tour introduced Tuesday that it had struck a cope with Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund and the European-based DP World Tour to create an as-yet unnamed international males’s golf group.
The brand new accord ended an acrimonious yr between the PGA Tour and PIF, which owns the upstart LIV Golf, that noticed the 2 sides battling within the headlines and in courtroom.
Based in 2021, LIV Golf was meant to problem males’s golf’s conventional energy construction, providing enormous assured contracts to among the greatest names within the sport. Occasions had been team-based and imagined to have a extra full of life ambiance than the staid PGA Tour.
Final June, a number of former world No. 1s or main champions introduced that they had been shifting from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf. Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcis, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Lee Westwood had been a few of these marquee golfers to leap ship, taking part in within the first-ever LIV occasion operating in direct opposition to the 2022 Canadian Open.
McIlroy was sharply essential of LIV Golf forward of final yr’s Canadian Open, and once more discovered himself within the highlight after the information that the PGA Tour would now be working with PIF.
“I really feel unhealthy for RBC and the Canadian Open,” stated McIlroy on Wednesday. “To consider what went on this time final yr after which the bombshell that was dropped.
“I really feel unhealthy as a result of (RBC) being such an amazing associate and having these items dropped on you two years in a row may be very unfair.”
However Taylor’s triumph cleared these clouds of controversy and set a brand new goal for all Canadian golfers on the PGA Tour: one other main championship, to match Weir’s Masters victory in 2003.
“That is the subsequent step,” stated Taylor. “Hopefully, I will be in much more of them. I have never been in sufficient as I would really like over my entire profession.
“I believe subsequent week (on the U.S. Open) there’s seven of us there, so hopefully we are able to do the identical factor.”
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With recordsdata from Joshua Clipperton.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed June 11, 2023.