Cabot Cliffs has retained its distinction as the best course in Canada, according to ScoreGolf magazine’s latest ranking. The second course at the Cabot Cape Breton resort in Inverness, Nova Scotia, has topped the biennial list since having opened in 2015.
Cabot Cliffs’ hold on No. 1 is the latest accolade for the Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore-designed course that Golf Digest in June also lauded, ranking it 10th best in the world.
ScoreGolf released its 2022 top-100 ranking, Canada’s benchmark list, last week. For all the attention the courses on the list received, one conspicuous absence also garnered attention.
The National Golf Club of Canada, the No. 1 course before Cabot Cliffs knocked it off its perch in 2016, is nowhere to be seen on the 2022 list. The new owners of ScoreGolf deemed that clubs with gender-exclusive memberships would not be eligible. The National allows only men to join.
“As golf continues to shed its reputation as a sport of exclusion, ScoreGolf has made the decision to disqualify any clubs that are not gender inclusive in their membership policies from eligibility for the top 100,” magazine publisher Jordan Bitove said in a note to readers accompanying the online publication of the ranking. “The game is not yet where it needs to be on this matter, but it is getting there, and we are evolving with it.”
Though Bitove did not mention The National by name, the suburban Toronto club undoubtedly was affected by the new criteria.
ScoreGolf’s new eligibility standards would have made the women-centric Ladies’ Golf Club of Toronto ineligible, too, but the course wouldn’t have cracked the top 100.
The National’s membership policy also has kept its 47-year-old course, considered Canada’s sternest test of golf, out of the running for playing host to the RBC Canadian Open. PGA Tour rules require non-discriminatory membership policies at its venues.
The National has been under pressure to allow women to join, especially since Augusta National began admitting female members in 2012. Scotland’s famous Muirfield, once an all-male bastion, also has begun admitting women.
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Mickelson National debuts at No. 20: The other high fliers in ScoreGolf’s 2022 ranking were otherwise the usual suspects, with some minor jockeying within the top 10. Rounding out the top five: St. George’s in Toronto moved up two spots, to No. 2; followed by Fairmont Jasper Park in Alberta; Hamilton in Ontario; and the original course at Cabot Cape Breton, Cabot Links.
The most impressive debut was Mickelson National in Calgary, which entered at No. 20. The two-year-old course is the first Canadian layout by legendary six-time major winner Phil Mickelson and his design partner Rick Smith.
British Columbia’s Sagebrush, a trailblazing course in minimalist design that opened in 2009 but shut down for several years amid ownership troubles before reopening last year, returned to the list at No. 13.
Other newcomers were Talking Rock (No. 62) in British Columbia, Waskesiu (No. 83) in Saskatchewan and Royal Montreal-Red (No. 89) in Quebec.
Canada has about 2,300 golf courses. The magazine’s top-100 list is based on the opinions of its 100-plus ranking panelists. (Disclosure: I am a panelist.)
Henderson takes aim again: Brooke Henderson treated herself to a week off after winning the Amundi Evian Championship, her second career major women’s title.
The Canadian superstar skipped the Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open last week but plans to play in the AIG Women’s Open this week at Muirfield in Gullane, Scotland, setting up the possibility of winning majors in consecutive starts.
Henderson birdied the last hole at the Evian in France in late July to grab her 12th career LPGA Tour title and become the first Canadian, female or male, to win two major championships. The U.S. $1 million first prize took her season earnings to more than $2 million, the most in her seven-year pro career.
Once an iron woman, playing practically every week, Henderson has had a somewhat lighter schedule this year (although one extended break was largely because of an undisclosed illness). Rest seems to do her good. She has won twice since coming back from the illness.
The rest also sets her up for a busy stretch that includes not only this week’s Women’s Open but the CP Women’s Open on home soil, contested this month in Ottawa, near her hometown of Smiths Falls, Ontario.
Maude-Aimée Leblanc was the lone Canadian in the Scottish field. The long-hitting Quebecker shared third place after the third round at Dundonald Links, in contention for her first LPGA Tour title. But she stalled in the final round and, like the other top contenders Sunday, was bypassed by surging Japanese rookie Ayaka Furue, who shot a course-record 62 to win by three shots.
For Leblanc, 33, who returned to the LPGA Tour this year after having retired in 2019 and then resuming her career on the lower-tier Epson Tour, her tie for eighth place was her third top-10 result of the season. It should go a long way toward her securing LPGA playing rights for 2023.
Pendrith builds momentum for playoffs: Taylor Pendrith has shown little rust in returning to the PGA Tour from a longer-than-expected injury break. The long-hitter from Richmond Hill, Ontario, tied for 13th place at the Barbasol Championship last month and was two spots better the next week at the Barracuda Championship.
He continued the momentum at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, holding at least a share of the lead through each of the first three rounds before finishing in a tie for second place on Sunday. It was his best result in 27 career starts on the PGA Tour and assured Pendrith that he will finish the season within the all-important top 125 in the FedEx Cup season standings and keep his card. (The top 125 after this week’s Wyndham Championship qualify for the playoffs and guarantee their playing privileges for next season.)
Pendrith, 31, missed about three months with a broken rib – an injury that he initially expected would keep him out of action for a month. He then tested positive for COVID-19 as he was about to return at the John Deere Classic.
One of the events that he had to forgo was the RBC Canadian Open in Toronto, but he saw the Rocket Mortgage Classic as another "home game." He and his wife, Meg, drove to Detroit for the tournament, and he was buoyed by fan support from Ontario and Ohio, where he attended Kent State University. Despite coming up short against final-round playing competitor Tony Finau on Sunday, Pendrith not only gave his fans something to cheer but also added to his confidence as he strives to join the game's elite players.
"When I'm healthy, I can compete with the best," he said earlier in the week at Detroit Golf Club.
Conners commits to PGA Tour: Corey Conners, Canada’s highest ranked male golfer, says he has no interest in joining the exodus to the LIV Golf Invitational Series. The world No. 32 (as of last week) told Postmedia recently that he’s happy on the PGA Tour and hasn’t given thought to jumping to the upstart circuit that’s financed by Saudi Arabia. “It’s not right for me,” he said.
“It’s not right for me."
Corey Conners on LIV
No Canadians have joined LIV. Some of the country’s other top players, including Mackenzie Hughes, also have stated that they will stay put on the PGA Tour.
Last week, the LIV Golf released an outline of its 2023 schedule, which will feature 14 main tournaments around the world. Events are planned in “the Americas,” according to a tour news release, but a Canadian stop wasn’t specifically mentioned.
DeLaet, retired? Hardly: Graham DeLaet may be retired from tour golf, but he’s staying close to the game, expanding his work as a TV analyst. The Saskatchewan native was part of Canadian broadcaster TSN’s on-air team at the major championships this year, and last week he joined the PGA Tour Live booth for the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, Michigan.
DeLaet, who retired this year after repeated efforts to overcome back injuries, is also keeping busy with his beer business, Prairie Baard, and the charitable foundation to assist children that he runs with his wife, Ruby.
Kwon rolls to Canadian Junior Girls title: Yeji Kwon, the 16-year-old from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, won the Canadian Junior Girls Championship last week by nine shots at The Marshes Golf Club in Ottawa despite opening the 72-hole tournament with a 3-over-par 75. Her nearest competitor was 12-year-old Lucy Lin of Vancouver.
Kwon, a member of Canada's national junior squad, began the second and third rounds of the championship with a hole-out eagle on the par-4 first hole. Both times, she had the same distance (76 yards) and used the same club. She said her reaction was even the same: "I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ ”
Top: Cabot Cliffs in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, has become a fixture atop Canada's course ranking.