For Canadian golfers, victory in their national open is a long time coming

No Canadian golfer has won on home soil in more than 60 years, but the likes of Adam Hadwin and Corey Conners look to change that this week at the RBC Canadian Open

For Canadian golfers, the year 1954 is like a specter haunting them every year when they come to the RBC Canadian Open.

It was 65 years ago when Pat Fletcher became the last Canadian to win their national open. Since then every generation of Canadian golfer has come up short. Mike Weir, the country’s only major champion, could never do it. Neither could George Knudson or Stephen Ames.

When the Canadian Open begins on Thursday at Hamilton Golf and Country Club, there will be 26 Canadians in the field looking to pull off what their predecessors never could. Canadian golf has arguably never been in a better place.

Listowel, Ontario’s, Corey Conners won the Valero Texas Open in April. Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, British Columbia, won the Valspar Championship in 2017, and earlier in that year shot only the ninth round of 59 in PGA Tour history.

Nick Taylor and Mackenzie Hughes have also become champions on the PGA Tour in recent years.

If a Canadian was ever going to win, why not this year? For Hadwin, it would be a victory that would rival even a major championship.

“It’s certainly right up there. It’s one that, being Canadian, would mean a lot to win,” he said during his Wednesday press conference. “You can almost make an argument that it would be more valuable than a PGA (Championship) to a Canadian…Certainly might be more valuable than a WGC event, for sure.

“I’ve been in here probably four, five, six years in a row now and all we’ve talked about is 1954. So until one of us does that, I think it’s going to hold a lot of value for us.”

Just because a Canadian hasn’t won on home soil in more than six decades doesn’t mean they haven’t had their chances. Weir lost in a playoff to Vijay Singh in 2004.

Four years ago David Hearn took a two-shot lead into the final round before finishing in third place, two shots back of champion Jason Day. Hadwin had his first taste of PGA Tour success with a fourth-place finish in this tournament in 2011.

As more Canadians like Hadwin and Conners experience success on tour, they’ve noticed the increase in fan support from their home country.

“The support that they have, there’s getting to be more Canadians on tour so I think that’s helping to excite the golf fans and giving people more to talk about and more to cheer about,” Conners said.

“We’ve had a lot of success this year and I think there’s a lot more to come. Canadian fans know that, so it’s great to be a part of.”

The Canadian contingent in the field isn’t the only thing fans have to be excited about this week, however.

This is the first Canadian Open played under the PGA Tour’s revamped schedule and with the U.S. Open coming up next week several marquee players have made the trip up north to get into playing shape for the year’s third major.

Defending champion Dustin Johnson is in the field, as is PGA Champion Brooks Koepka. And for the first time Rory McIlroy is playing the Canadian Open, as is Justin Thomas.

In previous years, the Canadian Open was held immediately following the Open Championship. Few star players were willing to make the long trip back across the Atlantic to play a week later.

The event lost the prestige it once had when Arnold Palmer won his first PGA Tour title here and Jack Nicklaus finished runner-up seven times.

That appears to finally be changing. And for the fans who will pack Hamilton Golf and Country Club for the next four days, nothing would make the event more of a success than if the likes of Hadwin, Conners, Hughes and Taylor could make 1954 a distant memory.