Tough watching Lexi Thompson cough up a five-shot lead at U.S. Women’s Open and more bits and bites from the golf world

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/06/2021 (1915 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bits, Bites and Barbs from around the world of golf:

Bits

Welcome to what should have been RBC Canadian Open week, two years running. Such a shame and still so shocking when you sit back and really think about these last 19 months. . . Those wondering why the men’s and women’s Canadian Opens had to be cancelled while NHL teams will be allowed to cross the Canada-U.S. border for an upcoming Stanley Cup semifinal without its players and staff having to quarantine, keep in mind that a professional golf tournament would require hundreds of people to come north and most of those people are independent contractors. You can’t easily create a bubble for them like you can for a team of two dozen or so . . . People who don’t believe golf is a taxing game both physically and mentally haven’t seen me routinely butcher a course’s final few holes to throw away a good score . . . Tried the Golf Canada app for its GPS capabilities during my first game of the year last week and was quite impressed. It’s super easy to use and you can quickly check yardages to certain targets by dragging the aim line with your finger. You need to do hole-by-hole scoring, which is a bit of a pain but not the end of the world. The bigger issue for me was having to be on my phone so much, even if I was using only the app. I prefer it to stay in my golf bag during a game.

Bites

Watching a golfer collapse in the late going of a tournament is one of the toughest things to see in sports. Lexi Thompson coughing up a five-shot lead at the U.S. Women’s Open on Sunday was particular excruciating given the event’s magnitude and her hard-luck history. She tried her best to smile her way through her struggles, but you could see when the doubt started to set in with Thompson, that smile masking a sense of resignation. She started to steer, rather than smash, the ball, and a player of her immense talent does not chunk a short approach shot like she did on 18 and then leave a must-make, downhill putt short of the hole unless the pressure is such that she’s lost total control. But that’s golf. It can do that. Thompson played brilliantly for some 63 holes but as is often the case, the final nine are all that matters . . . Thompson wasn’t the only golfer to crumble on the weekend. Tim Herron did the same, though with a smaller lead and not in major tournament, at the PGA Tour Champions’ Principal Charity Classic, paving the way for a Stephen Ames come-from-behind victory. See below for more . . . OK, Jon Rahm. An incredibly unfortunate occurrence, him testing positive for COVID-19 after taking a six-shot lead through three rounds of the Memorial Tournament, but such a scenario was possible the minute the PGA Tour returned to play. The tour followed the protocols that all had agreed upon to the letter. It can’t just brush such a thing aside when people are dying from COVID every day. If anything, it makes you wonder why a player whose job requires weekly travel wasn’t already fully vaccinated. The tour is no longer testing players who are.

Barbs

A distant third in importance in North American professional golf last week, the PGA Tour Champions tournament in Iowa certainly became of serious interest Sunday afternoon when Stephen Ames and Mike Weir closed in on overnight leader Tim Herron. With Herron faltering, Ames ultimately prevailed by one shot while his countryman Weir finished second. Two Canadians finishing atop a leaderboard harkened back to the PGA Tour’s 1981 Quad Cities Open, won by Dave Barr in a five-man playoff that also included Dan Halldorson. For Ames, a native of Trinidad who became a Canadian citizen while living in Calgary, and now splits his time between Vancouver and Turks and Caicos, it was his second senior circuit victory and first in four years. For Weir, it was his third runner-up of the combined 2020-21 season, to go along with his victory a month ago. And for Canadian golf it was yet another reason to applaud what’s been an excellent year thus far. Two victories on PGA Tour Champions, one by Brooke Henderson on the LPGA Tour and one by Adam Svensson on the Korn Ferry Tour. There have been no Canadian wins on the PGA Tour this year (yet), but Corey Conners making a run at the Masters, ultimately finishing tied for eighth and memorably making a hole-in-one in Saturday’s third round, was celebrated as such. As has been written here before, this is the norm now, folks. It’s almost more surprising to scour weekend leaderboards and not find a Canadian in the mix somewhere than it is to see one contending. They’re keeping us golf writers on our toes!

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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Obscure thought of the week: It’s nice to know that in an ever-changing world, in terms of technology and everything else, “Sesame Street” will probably still be on TV when my kids’ kids are slurping cereal at the breakfast table.

Jason Logan is the editor of SCOREGolf Magazine and is based in Toronto. He is a contributor to the Star’s Sports section. Follow him on Twitter: @jasonSCOREGolf