Manitoba’s Cockerill can play with the big boys

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This article was published 12/06/2022 (1547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — Aaron Cockerill’s first-ever PGA Tour experience concluded with a US$22,567.80 payday on Sunday. Not too shabby for the self-taught pride of Stony Mountain, who was only teeing it up at St. George’s Golf and Country club because of a sponsor’s exemption.

In reality, it’s impossible to put a price tag on just how valuable the past week at the prestigious Canadian Open will be going forward in Cockerill’s young career. He’s quickly proven he can play on the biggest stage in his sport, and hang tough with some true heavyweights.

Consider this: Rounds of 70-68-73-69 on a truly tough track left him even-par for the event and in a tie for 48th place. He was also just one of six Canadians (out of 21) who made the cut and got to play the weekend and cash a cheque. The other five (Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, Nick Taylor, Adam Hadwin and Adam Svensson) are all PGA Tour members.

Cockerill’s performance is even more impressive when you look at just how deep and talented the 156-player field was, including four of the top nine ranked players in the world among the competitors.

“It was great. It was fun to play in, a really great atmosphere. And a great learning experience for me,” Cockerill told me following his final round Sunday, which ended with an impressive birdie to get in the red for the day.

Always the perfectionist — what golfer isn’t? — Cockerill quickly switched gears.

“I played OK. Not my best, definitely,” he said. “But it’s good to know that if I do play well I think I can compete out here. Just take all the positives from it.”

One of those is that he’s opened some eyes within the golf community and made plenty of new fans, both in his home province and beyond. Having followed him every step and every swing of the tournament here in Toronto, I heard plenty of spectator chatter that confirms it.

You won’t find a more genuine, salt-of-the-earth human than Cockerill, who has no air of ego or entitlement and seems to always have a smile on his face and a laugh in his belly. I saw that first-hand as the Free Press sent me on an epic adventure the past two weeks — first to Hamburg, Germany, where I watched Cockerill play against his current European peers, and then here in Toronto where he made his PGA Tour debut and did something truly special with the opportunity.

That’s 144 total holes of golf on two continents, along with countless hours spent with Cockerill on shuttle rides, airplanes, restaurants and hotels.

His story is a compelling one, from losing his birth father (and grandfather) in a tragic plane crash when he was just three months old, not even showing a real interest in golf until his early teens and never taking a single formal lesson in his life, somehow emerging from our little frozen tundra to be, as of this past weekend, the 312th top-ranked golfer on the planet. That’s the highest any Manitoban has been since Glen Hnatiuk was a PGA Tour member more than two decades ago.

Cockerill’s ranking, by the way, should go up when the weekly numbers are released Monday based on his most recent showing.

Now the question is where, exactly, does he go from here?

The short answer is home, as he boarded a plane late Sunday evening along with his wife, Chelsea, mother Kathy and step-father Doug. Take a breather, kid. You’ve earned it. There’s some yardwork to do at their new Winnipeg home including laying sod, a long-overdue bridal shower for Chelsea (the couple tied the knot last September) and likely a few rounds of golf with friends before he flies to Munich next Monday for his next tournament.

Cockerill is a member of the DP World Tour over in Europe, the only Canadian who is currently taking that route. It’s been a successful detour after four mostly mediocre years on the Mackenzie Tour in Canada between 2015-18 in which he made approximately CDN $47,000 total in 37 coast-to-coast events and was starting to consider transitioning to a life other than professional golf, considering that wouldn’t have even come close to covering his expenses.

But after securing his European card in 2019, he’s truly taken off overseas this year with a tie for second in Kenya and a tie for third in Spain, putting him 42nd-overall on the season rankings (the top 120 get their full tour card for next year) and padding his bank account to the tune of more than CDN $320,000 this year alone.

After Germany next week will come tournaments in Ireland and Scotland, which runs through the fall. Cockerill is also entered in a British Open qualifier in early July, likely to be held in England, where he’ll try to fight his way into the field.

No doubt this showing back on more familiar soil may be giving him and his camp some additional things to ponder.

He’s recently hired an Ontario-based agent, Jeff Dykeman, who was also on scene this past week to get an up-close look at his new client. Dykeman’s task is now trying to open some additional doors for Cockerill, whether it be in terms of sponsorship, marketing and perhaps some additional PGA Tour invites in North America.

As Cockerill was playing his final hole Sunday — it was actually the eighth at St. George’s, the result of players going off both the first and ninth tees due to expected rain and storms in the area — there was no big gallery waiting for him, no huge eruption from fans packed around the green when his tee shot on the par-three came within nine feet of the hole and he sunk the ensuing putt for the closing birdie.

No, the majority of the thousands who had flocked to the award-winning course were focused on the final group, where Rory Mcllroy outlasted Tony Finau and Justin Thomas to win his second straight Canadian Open.

Cockerill could hear the roars from the masses at numerous times during his round, as the talented trio went a combined 20-under on the day. You could almost see the wheels turning in his head, thinking about how much closer he just got this past week to that sort of scene perhaps becoming his reality one day.

The possibilities, it would appear, are endless.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg