PRESIDENTS CUP
NORTH STARS Canada’s Nick Taylor, Brooke Henderson, Mackenzie Hughes, Adam Hadwin and Corey Conners.
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. Of course, you can’t talk Canadian team spirit without mentioning hock- ey. 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 par- allels between the kinematic sequence of a high-net slapshot and a 275-metre drive are well documented. A recent study by a Queen’s Univer- sity kinesiology professor, specific to hockey but that can apply to golf, said athletes from small towns are statisti- cally at a greater advantage to succeed in professional sports – dubbed the “birthplace effect.” The basic theory is that in small towns, early specialisa- tion 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, Ontario (population 24 000), Conners is from rural Listowel (7 500) and Hen- derson is from Smiths Falls (9 200). With Weir as captain, it’s likely he flipped a Toonie or Loonie (Canadian coins) to finalise his six wild card picks, or, between sips of a Tim Hortons dou- ble double, simply said, “Sorry, bud” to Taylor, Hadwin and Svensson in picking South African Christiaan Be- zuidenhout, Korea’s Si Woo Kim and Australian Min Woo Lee ahead of them. O Canada, we stand on the tee for thee.
O Canada
real shift goes back two decades. The impact of Tiger Woods’ 1997 Masters triumph for golf culture is immeasur- able, but 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 organisa- tion created a year-round performance programme that combined fitness, nutrition, psychology, technique and international competition. This includ- ed a structure for identifying promising juniors plus housing and training facili- ties in the United States for pro players. Canadian golfers play practice rounds at most PGA Tour stops together and often share accommoda- tions. When Ontarians Conners and Hughes play practice rounds with Hadwin and Taylor (both from Cana- da’s western provinces) it’s usually an
Canada is fired up for the Presidents Cup BY DAVID MCPHERSON
T he Presidents Cup’s return to The Royal Montreal Golf Club from September 26 to 29 coincides with Canadian golf having a moment. It’s therefore surpris- ing that Canadian Mike Weir, captain of the International team, chose only three Canucks among his six wildcard picks in the 12-man roster. This season Nick Taylor won the WM Phoenix Open and Taylor Pendrith the CJ Cup Byron Nelson. Mackenzie Hughes has three top-10s and Corey Conners two, including a T-9 at the US 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
62 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024
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