Goodbye, hello and welcome home: Generations of Canadian golfers converge in Ottawa
It takes loads to put on a Maple Leafs jersey in Ottawa and get cheered for it.
However that is precisely what occurred when Lorie Kane pulled on the blue-and-white sweater on the seventeenth gap, dubbed “the rink” on the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Membership on Friday on the CP Girls’s Open.
Kane, 57, was within the midst of hitting the ultimate pictures of her iconic profession on the match, which began in 1991 and was about to come back to its official shut.
Then, because the Charlottetown native headed down the 18th fairway, she snuck a glimpse to her proper.
“I used to be catching Brooke [Henderson] happening 16, so I used to be specializing in the leaderboard and attempting to get a glimpse of how she did it. So it was particular,” Kane mentioned.
In entrance of Kane had been two grandstand’s price of individuals, plus many extra lining the skin of the inexperienced, ready to cheer on the Canadian golf legend.
WATCH | Kane says goodbye to CP Girls’s Open:
4-time LPGA winner, and Canadian Golf and Canadian Sports activities Corridor of Fame member Lorie Kane of Charlottetown was teary-eyed as followers saluted her on the 18th gap, as she performed her closing skilled spherical on the CP Girls’s Open on Friday in Ottawa.
In the meantime, again on the tenth, 12-year-old Lucy Lin was simply making ready to start her second spherical, with an out of doors shot at making the lower.
A complete of 19 Canadians converged within the nation’s capital for the 2022 nationwide open, the place the previous met each the current and the long run.
“I feel there’s lots of actually constructive issues occurring in younger ladies’s golf right here on this nation,” Kane, who missed the lower, mentioned after her spherical on Friday.
“And once more, it is as a result of we’re placing cash, pardon the expression, the place our mouth is and getting what help must be gotten or given to younger golfers.”
Henderson at 5-under
Henderson is the star individuals got here to see in Ottawa — sadly, on Thursday, it was solely these in attendance who may see her, as none of her spherical made it to dwell TV in Canada.
By Friday, the problem was rectified, as TSN aired Henderson’s whole spherical.
“I really feel like that is simply kinda progress within the ladies’s recreation,” Henderson mentioned. “Right here in Canada I really feel like I am so beloved and supported and I really feel just like the followers actually have my again, in order that’s fairly cool.”
For the second straight day, Henderson exited the course with a bogey on her final and feeling like she may’ve executed higher. She made a buzzer-beater birdie on the second gap, rolling in a putt simply because the horn sounded to droop play attributable to rain. The delay pushed the top of the second spherical to Saturday morning, when play will resume at 7:15 a.m. ET.
However with the Smiths Falls, Ont., native sitting at 5-under, and chief Narin An of South Korea at 13-under, the hill to rivalry is steep.
“Not the place I needed to be in, however I am taking part in the weekend and I’ve superb crowds and superb followers out right here cheering me on, so I really feel like if I could make a pair birdies early I can journey some momentum,” Henderson mentioned.
WATCH | Henderson lingers in Ottawa:
Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont, carded a 3-under 68 to take a seat at 5-under par heading into the weekend on the CP Girls’s Open in Ottawa.
If An, the Tour rookie, holds on, she’d change into the third Korean winner within the final 4 editions of the match, after Jin-young Ko in 2019 and Sung-hyun Park in 2017.
“I haven’t got expertise successful within the U.S., however I do have some expertise in Korea, so it is not an unfamiliar feeling proper now. I hope to place up good outcomes the subsequent two days,” An mentioned.
Maddie Szeryk, of London, Ont., is prone to progress to weekend play after taking pictures a 3-under 68 on Friday. The 26-year-old mentioned on Thursday that the highlight on Henderson helped ease among the stress.
“I feel you cheer for all of the Canadians. You need everybody to do effectively,” she mentioned.
Toronto newbie Lauren Zaretsky made good on Thursday’s hole-in-one by additionally possible taking part in her manner into the weekend, alongside fellow Canadian Rebecca Lee-Bentham, who was proper on the cutline at 2-under. In the meantime, Sarah-Eve Rheaume sits slightly below the cutline at 1-under.
Canadian celebration
Whereas an LPGA match that includes loads of huge names and high gamers was at stake, the occasion additionally represented a celebration of kinds for the Canadian contingent.
That was more true for Kane than anybody, who made a transparent effort to soak within the ambiance, even bowing to the group at one level because the skies appeared to open up simply in time for her closing gap.
Kane was grouped with the 41-year-old Sharp, who like Henderson wore footwear with the Maple Leaf on them.
“A kind of Canadians that you simply simply wish to root for and I needed to assist,” Kane mentioned of Sharp. “I feel she’s received a lot recreation left, it is not humorous. And so I informed her she must maintain going and maintain working onerous.”
Vancouver’s Lin performed in a bunch with 33-year-old Maude-Aimée LeBlanc of Sherbrooke, Que., who lately earned a top-10 end on the Scottish Open.
Monet Chun, the Richmond Hill, Ont., native who got here into Ottawa having simply reached the ultimate of the U.S. Girls’s Newbie Open, additionally was unlikely to play into the weekend.
You might name it the golden technology of Canadian golf — actually, Henderson’s numbers alone (12 wins, together with two majors) get you many of the manner there.
On the boys’s aspect, two Canadians may make the Presidents Cup workforce, made up of one of the best non-American, non-European gamers, for the primary time ever. Corey Conners has already secured his spot, whereas Mackenzie Hughes and Adam Hadwin are firmly within the hunt.
Mixed with rising newbie curiosity all through the pandemic, the game has perhaps by no means been in a greater place.
Separated by 45 years, it was goodbye for Kane and hi there for Lin in Ottawa.
And within the center there was Henderson, welcomed again by a crowd keen to look at their hometown hero.
