Golden opportunity for Canadian golfers this week at RBC Canadian Open

TORONTO, Ont. – If there’s ever been a more exciting, week-in and week-out opportunity for Canadian golfers on the PGA TOUR, it’s right now.

But just don’t call it a ‘Golden Age.’

Kevin Blue, who is Golf Canada’s Chief Sport Officer and the architect of a grand plan for the national sport organization to install 30 golfers on the PGA TOUR and LPGA Tour combined by 2032, said calling what’s happening right now amongst Canadians a ‘golden age’ implies that it won’t be sustained. Folks in leadership positions in golf in Canada are hoping this is just the beginning.

“We are proud of the accomplishments of the Canadian men and the depth of the players on the PGA TOUR, absolutely. The players and everyone who supports them have put in extraordinary work,” said Blue. “(But) we are working hard to sustain, and even improve upon, the accomplishments of these players in the future.”

This season on the PGA TOUR marks the first time that Canadians have held three separate titles. Mackenzie Hughes won the Sanderson Farms Championship in the fall, while Adam Svensson won The RSM Classic just a few weeks later. Corey Conners won his second Valero Texas Open in April.

This comes while Brooke Henderson continues her long run ranked in the top 10 in the world on the LPGA Tour, winning her second major championship title last year and capturing the season-opening Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in January. Her 13 LPGA Tour wins are the most of any Canadian in history, and five more than the winningest Canadians on the PGA TOUR – Mike Weir and George Knudson both have eight.

Hughes, Conners, and Nick Taylor all have two PGA TOUR wins to their credit – and only five Canadians in the sport’s history have more PGA TOUR titles than that trio of 30-somethings. And each of those golfers have been inducted into Canada’s Golf Hall of Fame.

The impressive effort of the Canadian crew on the PGA TOUR has been long acknowledged by the elder statesman in the game – Weir himself. Weir was named the captain of the International Team for the 2024 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal, and he would like nothing more than to have a hefty number of his countrymen on his team next year.

“I would probably trade both (TOUR) wins to be on that team,” Hughes said. “I really want to be on that team for Mike. I want to play for him. I want to play in front of Canadian fans. I would like to win the Presidents Cup. Those are all things I do think about. Yeah, I don't need any extra motivation – I think about it often.”

Weir, a winner now on PGA TOUR Champions (fellow countrymen Stephen Ames, a four-time winner on the PGA TOUR, has won three times just this season on the senior circuit), has done it all on TOUR. He reached No. 3 in the Official World Golf Ranking and won the Masters in 2003, a seminal moment in Canadian golf history.

Conners was so nervous when Weir had a chance to get into a playoff with Len Mattiace he left the room with the television in it, only to return when he heard his father yelp with excitement. Hughes, Taylor Pendrith – a member of the Presidents Cup team last year – and more all point to Weir’s Green Jacket triumph as the moment when they knew they could make a go of trying to be professional golfers, too.

Small guy, small town, big accomplishments. Why not them?

“I was 11 years old when (Weir) won the Masters, just getting into competitive golf. I think he really definitely inspired me to want to make it as a pro,” Conners said at the PGA Championship, when he found himself in the penultimate pairing for Sunday’s final round.

While Weir – and Henderson – have broken through to win major championships, there hasn’t been a Canadian to win the RBC Canadian Open since 1954. A Canadian-born golfer hasn’t won it since 1914. There have been close calls (Weir the closest of them all, with a playoff loss to Vijay Singh in 2004), including Conners who finished sixth last year after a final-round 62.

“This is a really special event for me and the other Canadians. It’s our national championship. Feels like a major to us,” Conners said. “Me, particularly, I came here as a kid to watch the PGA TOUR pros play. Being able to play myself is really special.”

Adam Hadwin, a winner on the PGA TOUR and past member of the Presidents Cup team, said embracing the Canadian crowd would be paramount if he was to find himself in the mix on Sunday with a chance to do something special. It’ll especially easy for him to feel the crowd’s lift in the opening rounds, as he’s grouped with Hughes and Svensson.

“To come through all of that and now to be on the game's best stage in front of Canadian fans and to know that you have a chance to do something that hasn't been done since 1954 is, I mean, that's why we get up every morning and work as hard as we do to do that,” Hadwin said. “So, I really am looking forward to a great week.”

Regardless of where the Canadian contingent – there are 21 of them teeing it up this week at Oakdale Golf and Country Club – finishes up this week, the depth of talent Canada is sending to the TOUR has never been stronger.

And, per those who are intimately involved with making sure this wave continues, this is just the beginning.

“The quality of play this year and the depth of talent on the PGA TOUR shows young Canadian players that they, too, can play at the highest level,” said Blue. “Around six million Canadians will play 18 holes this year and we have the highest per-capita participation rate (of golf) in the world. The quality of play on the PGA TOUR shows that Canada is increasingly represented on world-class stages as well.”

Included in those stages? The winner’s circles of the PGA TOUR.