Regardless of how many Canucks make the International team, the Presidents Cup’s return to The Royal Montreal Golf Club Sept. 26-29 coincides with Canadian golf having a moment.
This season Nick Taylor won the WM Phoenix Open and Taylor Pendrith the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. As of this writing, Mackenzie Hughes has three top-10s and Corey Conners two, including a T-9 at the U.S. Open. Throw in Adam Hadwin and Adam Svensson, and that’s six Canadians in the top 100 of the World Golf Ranking. On the women’s side, we have 13-time LPGA Tour winner Brooke Henderson. Beauty, eh?
For a country of just 39 million (the population of California) with a short golf season, Canada is punching above its weight. Our pandemic bump is real. Canadians played 74 million rounds in 2023, up from 57 million in 2019, but the real shift goes back two decades. The impact of Tiger Woods’ 1997 Masters triumph for golf culture is immeasurable, but Mike Weir’s 2003 Masters win was comparably forceful in Canada.
“We were so proud, and it was so inspiring,” says PGA Tour veteran David Hearn, now 45. “Mike became the model for how to practice, prepare and play.” Says Graham DeLaet, who retired in 2022 to become a golf analyst for Canadian sports broadcaster TSN, “Weir’s Masters win was the biggest factor in me wanting to turn pro after college.”
Crucially, Weir’s win spurred the nation’s golf governing body, Golf Canada, to launch a formal objective: to help 30 Canadians reach the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour by 2032. The organization created a year-round performance program that combined fitness, nutrition, psychology, technique and international competition. This included a structure for identifying promising juniors plus housing and training facilities in the United States for pro players.
Canadian golfers play practice rounds at most PGA Tour stops together and often share accommodations. When Ontarians Conners and Hughes play practice rounds with Hadwin and Taylor (both from Canada’s western provinces) it’s usually an East versus West match.
“I give a lot of credit to Golf Canada for helping me get to the next level in my career,” Conners says.
“Setting up the correct environment and culture has been key over the past 15 years, along with getting the right people on the bus to take advantage of those opportunities,” says Derek Ingram, head coach for Team Canada’s National Men’s Amateur and Young Pro Teams, who coaches Conners and Pendrith.
Mike Weir of Canada is presented with the green jacket by Tiger Woods after winning the 2003 Masters Tournament.
Harry How
Of course, you can’t talk Canadian team spirit without mentioning hockey. Conners played competitive hockey during his formative athletic years, and Pendrith was an avid hockey player who took up golf only at 12. Henderson was a standout goalie on her local junior travel team. The mettle a netminder requires no doubt helped her ability to perform under pressure, and the parallels between the kinematic sequence of a high-net slapshot and a 300-yard drive are well documented.
A recent study by a Queen’s University kinesiology professor, specific to hockey but that can apply to golf, said athletes from small towns are statistically at a greater advantage to succeed in professional sports—dubbed the “birthplace effect.” The basic theory is that in small towns, early specialization in a single sport is less common because communities often focus on training and development as opposed to winning. Many of Canada’s best golfers grew up in small or medium-size towns. Hughes is from Dundas, Ont. (population 24,000), Conners is from rural Listowel (7,500) and Henderson is from Smiths Falls (9,200).
Even before the Sept. 3 press conference, when Mike Weir announced his six captain’s picks, there was plenty of speculation—with the upcoming Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal a home game—that more than two Canucks would make up the 12-man International Team. Did Weirsy flip a Toonie or Loonie to finalize his picks. Or, in between sips of a Tim Hortons double double, simply say “Sorry, Bud” to golfers ranked higher than his compatriots—adding more homegrown talent to his squad. No matter how Weir arrived at his selections, three of his six picks were indeed Canadians: Conners, Hughes and Pendrith. Despite including the most Canadians to ever play on the same Presidents Cup Team, it was a difficult decision. By picking this Ontario trio, Weir left off Hadwin and Taylor. As the teary-eyed captain told Golf Channel, “I can’t tell you how tough those calls were. I respect those guys, I love those guys, and they’re like brothers. The toughest part of being captain was those calls.”
O Canada, we stand on the tee for thee.
