Garrett Rank can be forgiven for walking off the golf course last week in the middle of a local qualifying tournament for the U.S. Open.
The Canadian amateur was scoring well enough – he was even-par through five holes at the Pulpit Club’s Paintbrush course near Toronto – but duty called.
Rank, 34, is a National Hockey League referee by profession, and he was summoned mid-round to officiate at a playoff game in Denver between the Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues. He left the course immediately.
Rank of Elmira, Ontario, made his NHL debut as an on-ice official in 2015, has logged 450 regular-season games, and this season is getting his first taste of playoff experience. Scoutingtherefs.com notes he was on the ice for four games in the first round of the NHL playoffs and is a backup referee for the second round.
He balances his hockey job with his elite-level amateur golf career. His golfing highlights include winning the Canadian Mid-Amateur three times in a row and the prestigious Western Amateur in 2019, finishing as runner-up at the 2012 U.S. Mid-Amateur, and qualifying for the 2018 U.S. Open. He was No. 98 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking as of last week.
Hockey comes first, though. The aborted U.S. Open qualifier last week was the second high-profile event this month from which he withdrew in favour of his NHL job. He pulled out of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball in Alabama before the opening round after getting the call to join the officiating crew for games in Washington and then Toronto.
He was scheduled to team up in the Four-Ball with Joe Deraney, a Mississippi amateur who won the Canadian Mid-Amateur twice himself, including in 2019 when Rank was the runner-up. Deraney could have continued solo, but opted not to play, the U.S. Golf Association said.
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Blair leads Canadian qualifiers: With Rank headed to the airport, PGA Tour Canada regular Michael Blair of Ancaster, Ontario, earned medalist honours at the Paintbrush local qualifier, carding 2-under-par 69 on a wet, cool day.
Blair and four other top finishers – Riley Goss, Branson Ferrier, David Li Sheman and Chris Crisologo, all of Canada – advanced to the U.S. Open’s final qualifying stage, which continues into early June.
Rattlesnake Point in Milton, Ontario, is holding one of the final qualifiers, on June 6. The U.S. Open will be played at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, on June 16-19.
Help for top amateurs: Most competitive amateurs have operated on shoestring budgets, as they couldn’t accept prize and endorsement money. But now they’re getting some help.
Governing body Golf Canada is making available 26 grants of $500 each to assist players with travel and other expenses for the country’s four biggest amateur tournaments. The grants will be based on financial need and available for those travelling to the Canadian Junior Boys, Junior Girls, Men’s Amateur and Women’s Amateur championships.
Mary Beth McKenna, Golf Canada’s director of amateur championships and rules, said the grants aim to raise the global prominence of the four events and contribute to the development of more players who might reach golf’s highest levels.
Earlier this year, Golf Canada launched a bold initiative to get 30 players on the LPGA and PGA tours by 2032. (Canada currently has 13 with status on the two circuits.)
The new grant program coincides with loosening rules regarding prize money at amateur events. Golf Canada said the four championships this year also will offer $8,000 purses, with the top-10 finishers cashing in. A player can accept up to $1,200 without affecting amateur status.
Leblanc’s career ascension: Maude-Aimée Leblanc has earned a spot in the U.S. Women’s Open, another encouraging sign in a career-renaissance season for the Quebec pro who briefly quit tour golf a couple of years ago.
Leblanc won a 36-hole qualifying tournament on a gusty day at Morris County Golf Club in Morristown, New Jersey. “I feel like everywhere we’ve played so far this year (on the LPGA Tour) has been super-windy, so I feel like the wind was something I was used to,” she told the New Jersey State Golf Association after shooting a pair of even-par 72s.
The 33-year-old, long-hitting Quebecker was one of more than a record 1,800 women who attempted to qualify for the major. Qualifying tournaments were held at 23 sites in the U.S., plus one each in England, South Korea and Japan.
“I love U.S. Opens. I love how long they play and how tough the courses play.”
Maude-Aimée Leblanc
Teenager Lauren Kim of Surrey, British Columbia, also gained a berth. The 16-year-old, a member of Canada’s national amateur team, finished her qualifier in Washington state in April as the first alternate, but drew into the U.S. Women’s Open when another player already in the field withdrew.
Kim’s early-rising father, Kevin, was the first one to see an overnight email notifying her of her upgrade from alternate to competitor, she told British Columbia Golf. “But he didn’t say anything because I was sleeping,” she said. “Then my mom woke up around 6:30 and she came into my room screaming, ‘You just got in!’ It was a nice wakeup call.”
The championship will be held at Pine Needles in North Carolina on June 2-5. Leblanc, who will join superstar Brooke Henderson and Kim in the Canadian contingent, said she relishes the opportunity to play in the major for the first time since 2016.
“I love U.S. Opens,” said Leblanc, who has two top-10 finishes on the LPGA Tour this year. “I love how long they play and how tough the courses play.”
Among the hopefuls who came up short of qualifying was 11-year-old Léonie Tavares of Saint-Jérôme, Quebec. She was the youngest of all 1,874 entrants.
Canadian veteran Alena Sharp finished high enough at her qualifier to be an alternate. She has a chance to get in if enough other players withdraw.
Stone Ridge survives: Stone Ridge Golf Course, the latest Ontario municipal course to survive a threat of possible redevelopment, has opened for the 2022 season.
Elliot Lake’s administration recommended selling the money-losing muni for $1.5 million to a developer who has renovated other commercial and residential properties in the northern Ontario city. But the city’s elected council rejected the proposal, citing resident opposition to a sale and the $8 million invested in the 17-year-old course designed by Ted Baker.
“This is not just a piece of land,” Councillor Chris Patrie said, as reported in the local newspaper, The Standard. “This is a facility and asset owned by the taxpayers of Elliot Lake that paid dearly for this facility to be built and brought into play.”
The developer, whose offer was unsolicited, had said it would keep Stone Ridge as a golf course for at least four years.
Stone Ridge is among a raft of municipal and public courses to be under threat recently. The owner of high-profile Glen Abbey backed off its plans to build housing on the Toronto-area course that has hosted 30 Canadian Opens. The City of Toronto was also examining the future of its five municipal courses, with selling or repurposing the properties as options, but decided this past winter to reimagine and rejuvenate them instead.
New boss at PGA of Canada: Gordon Percy has been named the 49th president of the PGA of Canada, an association that has represented the country’s club professionals since 1911.
Percy, who learned the game as a child from his babysitter, is the general manager and head pro at Smiths Falls Golf and Country Club near Ottawa and a past head pro at nearby Carleton Golf and Yacht Club.
In introducing the 25-year industry veteran at the PGA of Canada’s annual meeting, daughter Paige Percy noted her father’s dedication to encouraging more people to participate in the game, including juniors, women and veterans. And she noted his quest to improve the work-life balance for other club pros, who often work long hours for little pay.
But perhaps his most unique contribution to the game may have been in giving LPGA Tour star Brooke Henderson one of her signature idiosyncrasies, at least according to Percy family lore. Percy once fit Henderson’s older sister, Brittany, for Ping clubs, which she eventually passed on to a young Brooke.
“Brooke went on to use an old 46-inch extra-stiff driver with his (Percy’s) name imprinted on it that she had much amateur success with,” Paige said. “He jokes it’s his fault she chokes up on her clubs.”
Brooke later used a 48-inch driver, also choking up, until rule changes this year forced her to switch to a 46-inch model.
Women’s Golf Day: The Women’s Golf Day event in Toronto has a new, albeit familiar, sponsor this year. The day of golf and life-skills training for girls and women will be held June 7 at Scarboro Golf and Country Club in the city’s east end. A clinic, nine holes of golf and a panel discussion featuring Canadian LPGA Tour legend Lorie Kane are planned.
Royal Bank of Canada is the new sponsor, and it also has signed on as a global partner in the Women’s Golf Day movement. The Toronto event will be held two days before the start of the PGA Tour’s RBC Canadian Open, also sponsored by the bank and in Toronto.
The Women’s Golf Day movement began in 2016 and has expanded to 1,000 locations in 80 countries.
Junior revival: Junior golf competition in Canada is back in full swing after a couple of years of pandemic-related interruptions, with the country’s most-played tour opening its season and an upstart series kicking off the first of its six events.
The Maple Leaf Junior Golf Tour opened with six tournaments across the country. Alexis Card, an 11-year-old who won her age division at Augusta National’s 2021 Drive, Chip & Putt competition, was among the age-group winners at the tour’s first stop in Ontario.
Meanwhile, The Road to TPC Toronto launched its second season in Kingston, Ontario. The series features five qualifying tournaments from which the top performers advance to a finale at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley, a club that’s also the host venue for a PGA Tour Canada event.