OTTAWA – As the roar was building and the 18th green was growing closer, Cristie Kerr and Mirim Lee paused to allow the subject of the crowd’s love and affection soak it in all alone.
It’s the walk of honour typically given a champion, and Brooke Henderson wasn’t that on this day, but it hardly mattered.
“She’s Canada’s champion, so it was fitting,” said Kerr, a 19-time winner on the LPGA Tour.
The hometown girl did good, if not great, and thousands of fans wanted her to understand they were appreciative that she provided at least a window through which they can glimpse an even brighter future.
The roar built and Henderson lifted her visor and turned a full 360 degrees in acknowledgement, waving at every turn.
It’s not the typical treatment you get for finishing tied for 12th and finishing with an even-par 71, but it wasn’t a typical weekend at Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club.
Henderson is the 10th-ranked golfer in the world, already has a major championship to her name and is just 19 and was playing at a course where she has an honorary membership and just down the highway from her home in tiny Smiths Falls.
There was hope that should would provide the ultimate storybook week and become the first woman to win her national championship since 1973, and at her “home” course in the nation’s capital in summer of Canada’s 150th birthday, no less.
“These crowds were so incredible,” said Henderson. “I just couldn’t imagine this many people coming out to watch me play golf, it’s amazing … I would have loved to have finished a little bit better for them to give them something a little bit more to cheer about … they were 100 per cent behind me the whole way.”
Even getting to this point was storybook. Henderson needed to birdie the 18th hole on Friday to make the cut. Coming down the final few holes on Friday she was clearly feeling the pressure. It was at that point Kerry put her arm around her shoulders to give her a pep talk.
“I just thought it would be really good for the tournament if she played better,” said Kerr, who finished tied for third with a final-round 69. “So just kind of put my arm around her and I said, ‘It’s time to dig, kid.’ She said, ‘I’m digging,’ and I said, ‘Dig harder.'”
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Free from the pressure of making the cut, Henderson set the course record with an 8-under-par 63 on Saturday to vault up the leaderboard and send expectations skyrocketing. She started the final round tied for sixth with five other golfers and a golf course full of people hoping to see history.
She started with a bogey at the first and dropped another shot at the par-5 sixth, with no birdies to soften the blow.
“I wasn’t nervous,” said Henderson. “But I had some tension. I wanted it so badly that it kind of affected me a little bit with some of the shots I hit. Some of the putts, they were so close to going in and it kind of got me down a little bit that they just rubbed the edge or stayed on the lip a couple of times.”
On Saturday all those putts went in. She was bogey-free. She was, she said, in the zone.
The zone is a wonderful place to be for a professional athlete, it’s just incredibly difficult to stay there.
That was Henderson’s challenge on Sunday in front of a massive with little girls in “Brooke’s Brigade” T-shirts and grown men with Canadian flags tucked in the back of their ball caps.
The crowd was so big she couldn’t even make out all the familiar faces that were in it. Probably a good thing, she said.
At 1 over through five holes, Henderson needed to spark her round at the par-5 sixth and she signalled her intent by smashing her drive 285 yards, dead centre. She then ripped a fairway metal at the green. It looked wonderful off the club but faded ever so slightly, coming to rest in six inches of gnarly rough on top of a greenside bunker. With heels hanging over the sand she sent her chip through the green, her next chip with her ball nestled against the collar was well short and instead of moving up the leaderboard, Henderson dropped another shot.
Her fate was only more evident when Lee put her second shot 10 feet right of Henderson’s and chipped in for eagle and a share of the lead at 10 under, dropping Henderson to five off the pace.
She wasn’t able to pull closer.
When she finally made her first birdie putt – a 25-footer she punctuated with a fist pump on the par-4 12th – all it did was leave her at six back of the lead.
She kept gunning – a birdie at the 14th got her on the cusp of the top 10 — but bogeyed the 15th to fall back again. By then, Sung Hyan Park was on her way to posting a 7-under-par 64 that vaulted her from a four-way tie for 12th and four behind 54-hole co-leaders Nicole Broch Larson and Mo Martin to the top of the leaderboard.
Park’s lead stood up, making for an anti-climactic finish. The LPGA rookie added a Canadian Open to her U.S. Open title from earlier this summer, winning by two strokes while waiting out a playoff that never came on the putting green.
Henderson got the championship treatment even as she ended up finishing six shots back. She’s hopeful the experience will serve her well. Kerr compared the galleries following Henderson to something she’s only experienced at a Solheim Cup or a major championship in her 22 years on tour. It puts a charge in the air and Henderson knows what that feels like now.
“I felt like I did a lot better job this year that I’ve ever done at home, just because I tried to embrace it, tried to ride their wave of enthusiasm, their momentum,” she said. “I just tried to match all of the excitement that they had … that’s really exciting to know that I can do that. I feel like it’s a step in the right direction and hopefully when we come back here to Ottawa Hunt at some point – hopefully it will – and hopefully I’ll be able to hoist that trophy.”
The best news for Henderson and Canadian golf is that she doesn’t turn 20 until next month. For most players her experience this weekend would be once in a lifetime. Henderson is just getting started.
