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Stephen Ames came from seven strokes behind Sunday to win the Principal Charity Classic and lead Canada to what’s believed to be its first 1-2 finish in PGA Tour Champions history.
The 57-year-old shot 5-under-par 67 at Wakonda Club in Des Moines, Iowa, to race by second-round leader Tim Herron and finish one shot ahead of fellow Canadian Mike Weir. It was Ames’ second victory on the circuit for players 50 and older.
“Everyone else kind of faltered coming in, unfortunately for those, but fortunate for me,” said Ames, whose previous PGA Tour Champions win came in 2017. Starting the day in a tie for ninth place, he finished the 54-hole event at 12-under 204 to come out on top.
Weir, 51, emerging as a star on the senior tour and also seeking his second career title, shot 69 to post his third runner-up finish in just 17 starts.
The victory is a renaissance for Ames, who described 2020 as a “no-show” for him because of the COVID-19 pandemic and his own injuries, which limited him to 11 starts.
“I was quite happy just to get that year kind of done with, then kind of get things kick-started back,” the Trinidad-born Canadian said. “Progressively as the year went on this year, I started to play better, started to play more consistent.”
He had three top-15 finishes in his previous four starts before Des Moines.
For Herron, still early in his PGA Tour Champions career, it was a learning experience, he said, admitting he started the third round “a little nervous” and fell back on his old swing patterns. Still he congratulated Ames, a Players Championship winner during his PGA Tour career and known as a tremendous ballstriker.
“Well, he’s a great player,” the American said. “I’ve always called him ‘The Flusher.’ He hits it really good. When he’s on, he’s on.”
And Ames was on.
The CP Women’s Open has been cancelled for the second year in a row, depriving LPGA Tour players again of their only visit to Canada and a shot at one of the biggest purses in women’s golf.
The lingering COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to restrictions at the Canada-United States border and quarantines for travelers entering Canada, prompted the decision to call off the national championship, which was scheduled for late August at Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club in Vancouver.
“Even with our extensive health and safety plan, we continued to face a number of significant logistical challenges that led to this unfortunate decision for a second year,” said Laurence Applebaum, head of Golf Canada, which organizes the event.
With the earlier cancellation of the men’s RBC Canadian Open for the second year running, the country is left again without its two biggest golf championships.
Shaughnessy has agreed to play host to the 2023 CP Women’s Open instead. Next year’s edition is scheduled, as previously announced, for Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club in the nation’s capital, not far from the home of world No. 5 Brooke Henderson. South Korea’s Jin Young Ko, currently No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings, is the defending champion.
Canadian Pacific Railway also has agreed to extend its title sponsorship an extra year, through 2024, to make up for the cancellations. Golf Canada has not announced the 2024 venue.
Under CP and the preceding title sponsor, Canadian National Railway, the championship has grown to become one of the most lucrative in women’s golf. It’s second to only the Cognizant Founders Cup in the size of its prize pool among events other than majors and the CME Group Tour Championship.
The pandemic-related restrictions are affecting high-profile amateur championships within Canada’s borders, too. Golf Canada says a number of tournaments are moving locations because of interprovincial travel complexities.
The Men’s Amateur is moving to Windsor, Ontario, from suburban Montreal, and the field has been cut in half to 156. The Women’s Amateur and the Junior Girls also are leaving Quebec and relocating to the Alberta cities of Edmonton and Leduc, respectively.
The Men’s Senior is heading to La Malbaie, Quebec, from Nova Scotia and the Canadian University/College Championship has been postponed to October, at a venue to be determined.
Alex Riddell gave up a full-time, upwardly mobile job to enter the unpredictable occupation of caddying, but the gamble has paid off. He is headed to the PGA Tour with his boss, Paul Barjon.
Riddell of Hamilton, Ontario, was working as a rules official with the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada when he met the French professional, who was rekindling his career on the third-tier circuit.
Barjon’s two victories early in the 2019 season earned him a berth in the PGA Tour’s RBC Canadian Open, which coincidentally was held that year in Riddell’s hometown. Barjon needed a caddie and a place to stay, so Riddell stepped in.
“He’s such an easy guy to be around and we had a really good week,” the 31-year-old Riddell recalled. “We finished 20th, tied Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson (and four others), so it was a great start together.”
Barjon’s overall 2019 performance – he led the Mackenzie Tour money list – also got him promoted to the second-tier Korn Ferry Tour for 2020. He invited Riddell to join him for a trial run of six tournaments and the Canadian took the plunge, setting aside a job that he had figured would have led to bigger opportunities higher on the golf ladder.
“Definitely a change and definitely a lot of adjustments,” said Riddell, who had been involved in the game for years as a scratch player and club pro before transitioning to officiating, but had little experience caddying.
Barjon lost in a playoff in the duo’s fifth Korn Ferry event together, but the runner-up result cemented a working relationship that has had plenty of other highs since then, including qualifying for the 2020 U.S. Open and a breakthrough Korn Ferry victory in May. (Barjon also has qualified for this year’s U.S. Open.)
Barjon’s win in Alabama guaranteed him a promotion to the PGA Tour for the 2022 season, which begins in September, and it also assured Riddell that he made the right decision. He’ll be inside the ropes on a regular basis in the fire of competition at golf’s highest level.
“That’s what I’ve always wanted is to be part of that with golf, especially being a hockey guy and team-oriented,” he said. “You see golf as an individual sport but there’s definitely a team there.”
Henderson is just 23 and still in full flight in her competitive career, but she already is starting to receive legacy honours. The PGA of Canada, which represents club professionals, said last week it is naming an award after her.
The Brooke Henderson Female Player of the Year Award will go to the club pro who performs the best throughout the year in the organization’s national and regional championships. Henderson, a 10-time winner on the LPGA Tour, said she’s “blown away” by having her name on the new award and she hopes it will “help put a spotlight on the top female players in the country.”
The PGA of Canada is also naming the winner’s trophy at the DCM PGA Women’s Championship after Lorie Kane, the LPGA Tour veteran and a five-time winner of the event.
“It always seemed to bring out the best in me as a player,” Kane said of the PGA of Canada’s biggest event for women.
The Lorie Kane Trophy will be awarded for the first time at the championship’s 2021 edition, which is scheduled for this summer at Oshawa Golf and Curling Club in Ontario.
Alena Sharp shared her story of coming out last week to mark the beginning of Pride Month and to encourage others to “be true to yourself, whatever your sexual orientation.”
In a personal essay for lpgatour.com, the 16-year veteran of the LPGA recalled how she grew to understand her orientation during her teenage years but didn’t come out to her friends until she was in college, to her parents until she was 23 and to the media until 2017. The quiet Canadian from Hamilton, Ontario, feared a backlash among her Catholic family members, sponsors and others, but she found support and love at each step of the way.
“Life is too short,” wrote Sharp, who married her partner and caddie, Sarah Bowman, last November in the backyard of their Arizona home. “To try to hide who you are is not a way to live. You cannot imagine the weight that is lifted, and the love you will feel, when you open yourself up to your personal truth. That is my story. I hope it helps.”
Graham DeLaet has set his sights on returning to the PGA Tour in the fall, as the 2022 season begins. The native of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, who has battled back injuries for years and underwent his latest surgery in February, told an Idaho radio station recently that he’s “day-to-day,” but not yet sturdy enough for the weekly grind on tour of four to five rounds a week. “I’m kind of shooting for the fall,” he told Idaho Sports Talk on KTIK.
DeLaet, 39, returned to the PGA Tour last fall after a nine-month injury break, missing the cut in his first four starts before withdrawing partway through the fifth, citing his back. He hasn’t played on tour since, but has kept busy in the broadcast booth as he recovers, commentating with Canada’s TSN at the Masters and, most recently, the PGA Championship.
He also continues to pursue another passion – barbecuing. He has teamed up with the Turkey Farmers of Canada on their “Think Turkey” marketing campaign, contributing recipes for grilling the bird. Texas-style turkey breast and smoked turkey legs are among his recipes.
“Growing up in Saskatchewan, my summers were happily spent golfing and grilling,” DeLaet said in a news release last week announcing the collaboration and kicking off National Turkey Month.
Jeff Mingay is one of Canada’s busiest golf course architects, but one of his latest jobs forced him to take some time off.
The Toronto restoration specialist had to cross the Canada-U.S. border a few times to complete his reworking of Inglewood Golf Club in Kenmore, Washington. The course, originally designed by A.V. Macan and launched in 1919, reopened for play in late April.
Mingay did three long stints in Washington during the project but he faced COVID-19 tests and two weeks of quarantine each time he returned home to Canada, to comply with pandemic-related safety measures.
“The quarantine effectively added 42 additional out-of-commission days on top of the 88 days I was away in the United States,” he told the Golf Course Architecture journal.
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