golf. Among the top moments for men: Michael Gligic of Burlington, Ont., winning on the Korn Ferry Tour to earn a PGA Tour card for the first time; Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont., winning twice on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada to earn a promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour, Richard Jung of Toronto and Justin Shin of Maple Ridge, B.C. winning on PGA Tour China; and Drew Nesbitt of Toronto winning on PGA Tour Latinoamerica. Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., also represented the International team at the Presidents Cup earlier this month in Australia. At 49th in the world, Hadwin ended the year as Canada’s top-ranked male golfer and will earn a spot in the Masters in 2020.
On the amateur circuit, full-time NHL referee Garrett Rank of Elmira, Ont., won the 117th playing of the Western Amateur, while Brigitte Thibault of Rosemere, Que., won a collegiate event and participated in the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., had the best season of any Canadian. She notched two wins this year and had 13 top-10 finishes, the most on the LPGA Tour. Henderson’s second win came in June when she was just 21. It was the ninth of her LPGA Tour career, making her the winningest Canadian of all time on the PGA or LPGA Tour. “To become the all-time winningest Canadian golfer on both the LPGA and PGA Tour is amazing,” said Henderson. “This was a great year for many Canadian golfers. It’s fun to be part of this trend and I’m excited to see it continue and get better in 2020.” [video_embed id="89383"][/video_embed] Laurence Applebaum, the CEO of Golf Canada, declared 2019 as a year of “real celebration.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of 2019 as we look back and say it was a year we were celebrating golf and we were championing some of the best players in the world,” said Applebaum.Applebaum points to the success of the RBC Canadian Open in Hamilton and CP Women’s Open in Aurora, Ont. The two national championships had more than 175,000 people in attendance combined, a record for the organization. Both events were also finalists for ‘Tournament of the Year’ by their respective tours at their year-end award ceremonies. “We played at two epic tracks in 2019 and had world-class champions,” said Applebaum. Both the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour’s 2019 players of the year – Rory McIlroy and Jin-Young Ko, respectively – won in Canada. “In 2020 we’re going from strength to strength in St. George’s (in Toronto for the men) and Shaughnessy (in Vancouver for the women), two of the greatest golf courses and clubs in our country,” Applebaum said.
