OAKVILLE, Ont. – One of these years it’s going to happen.
A Canadian will win the Canadian Open. It’s a numbers game. As long as enough Canadians are on the PGA Tour one of them is going to put four good rounds together and become the first local hero to become national champion in 62 years and counting – and just the second since 1914.
Canadian hopes for glory in the 108th Open rest on the shoulders of two worthy candidates: 26-year-old Mackenzie Hughes, who won his first PGA Tour event in his fifth start, and Graham DeLaet, 35 and in his eighth season on Tour.
Of the 17 Canadians that started the event, they’re the only two still standing.
Another Canadian that will miss the weekend? How about tournament director Brent McLaughlin, who will not take part on the weekend due to a human resources matter, according to Golf Canada spokesman Dan Pino. No details were provided.
Hoping for a better weekend are Hughes and DeLaet.
Both will start the third round at Glen Abbey Golf Club at 8 under par, just four shots off the pace set by Tour rookie Martin Flores, who carded his second consecutive 66 to stand alone at 12 under heading into the weekend.
The leaderboard gets crowded after that, with 26 golfers within four shots of the lead, including world No. 1 Dustin Johnson who is tied with Hughes and DeLaet at 8 under. The densely packed field is a product of a rain-softened golf course yielding favourable scoring conditions even as the breeze picked up in the sunshine on Friday afternoon. The scoring average for the field was well under par through 36 holes with the cut line as low as 4 under late in the day before sliding back to 3 under.
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For Hughes and DeLaet, it means they are well positioned to chase the lead, but can’t relax or they’ll be at risk of getting left in the dust.
“I’m within striking distance,” said DeLaet, who played in the morning, hot on the heels of a late-evening eagle at the 18th on Thursday. He followed up on Friday by hitting 12 fairways and averaging 310 yards off the tee while knocking in five birdies against one bogey. “So another solid round tomorrow or something really low, I think I’m going to need two really good ones or one really special to get the win. But I’m in the hunt.”
So is Hughes, who wrestled through a breezy back nine get himself close enough to lead to be considered in contention. He could have been lower – he three-putted on the par-5 16th after getting on in two and couldn’t convert a birdie from a greenside bunker on the 18th, another par 5 with a large crowd just waiting to roar. He did knock his approach to four feet on the 17th for birdie and made two clever par saves at 14 and 15 to keep his round going in front of large gathering of family and friends from nearby Dundas, Ont.
“I did well to manage it. It was kind of tricky out there. The winds were kind of swirling and a little bit gusty at times,” said Hughes, who followed up his first-round 67 with a 69. “So 3 under was a good score. If you gave me that at the start of the day, I probably would have taken it. But I played well enough to shoot 5 or 6 under – I think I made seven or so birdies, something like that. Missed a few shorties that I don’t normally miss, but good chance for the weekend.”
Both Hughes and DeLaet are eager to embrace the crowd support that almost smothers Canadian players when they’re close to the lead at the national championship, the most recent examples being Jared du Toit, who played in the final group as an amateur last year before finishing ninth, PGA Tour veteran David Hearn, who had a two-shot lead on Sunday in 2015 before finishing third, and most famously Mike Weir, who lost a playoff to Vijay Singh in 2004.
“The crowds were huge today,” said Hughes. “I was impressed, walking on to a lot of these greens and getting ovations on a lot of these greens was really cool. Yeah, I’ve been blown away by the support and hopefully it gets even greater for the weekend.
“It can get pretty wild,” he continued. “Even today, there was some pretty unusual comments. Lots of support but a lot of people telling me that I’m the hero and that this is mine; the gold jacket is yours; you’re just going to choke, which is pretty funny.”
Neither Hughes nor DeLaet are trying to pretend it’s just another weekend on Tour. The strategy seems to be to acknowledge the added scrutiny that comes with carrying a Canadian passport at the lone PGA Tour stop and then get down to business.
“I think there’s added pressure,” said DeLaet, who finished tied for seventh when the Open was at Royal Montreal in 2014. “There’s pressure no matter what when you’re coming into the weekend in contention, but you want to play well, more, this week, because it is your national Open. It means a lot to you. I think that’s the key, is to try to treat it as another golf tournament. Just try to stay focused and do what you need to do and obviously feed off the energy when you can.
“[It] would be a feather in your cap obviously to be low Canadian at this tournament,” said DeLaet. “But we’re all here to try to get [rid of] the curse – the Pat Fletcher curse, if that’s what we’re going to call it now.
“We all want to hoist the trophy.”
