Corey Conners’ comfort with top players is key to his success heading into the Tokyo Olympics

Opinion

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This article was published 28/07/2021 (1508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TOKYO—In the meritocracy that is the world of professional golf, it’s safe to say there are hundreds of players who, on any given week, send their name to the top of a leaderboard.

Few, mind you, can do so consistently. While it’s one thing to discover world-class form occasionally, it’s quite another to make oneself at home among the world’s best players. Which, with a breakthrough season on the PGA Tour, is precisely what Canada’s Corey Conners has spent a lot of this year doing.

The last time the Olympic golf tournament was contested, back in 2016 in Rio, Conners wasn’t in the conversation to represent Canada. While that honour went to Graham DeLaet and David Hearn, who finished 20th and 30th, respectively, Conners spent a lot of the year toiling on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica. He finished 2016 ranked 624th in the world. A year later, he ranked 647th. So it speaks to his impressive rise that on Thursday morning he’ll be at Kasumigaseki Country Club wearing a maple leaf as the world No. 35 — Canada’s top-ranked player.

A little more than a year since his breakthrough win at the Valero Texas Open, the 29-year-old from Listowel has been on the cusp of contending on the sport’s biggest stages. He’s finished tied for 17th or better in three of golf’s four major tournaments this year, including eighth at the Masters. And now here he is, among a select field of 60 players vying for an Olympic medal among a group of players he’s coming to accept as his peers.

“Corey’s just getting more comfortable being one of the best players in the world,” Derek Ingram, Conners’ longtime coach and the head coach of Team Canada at the Games. “He believes he’s one of them, and he is. And that’s a really good thing.”

Feeling comfortable at the Olympics has involved some customization for the two members of Canada’s men’s golf team, the other of whom is Dundas’s Mackenzie Hughes, the world No. 53 who, speaking of coming up big a majors, played in the final group of the U.S. Open before finishing sixth at the Open championship. Since the Olympic course lies about a 90-minute drive from the athletes village, both Conners and Hughes have opted to stay at a hotel closer to the first tee. Which isn’t necessarily a field-standard decision; Tommy Fleetwood, from the British team, is staying in the village; Norway’s Victor Hovland said earlier this week that, although he’d been staying in a hotel, he was keen on moving there.

But for the Canadian golfers, the arrangement makes sense. While player entourages are limited here by COVID rules, it helps that Conners and Hughes are content using the same coach at these Games. Ingram, along with being the head coach of the national team, has been Conners’ personal coach for more than a decade, and he filled that role for Hughes until recently, too.

And though Hughes has since moved on, Ingram said he considers Hughes family — “like a son or a brother.” So there’s harmony in the Canadian camp, some of it matrimonial. While athletes aren’t technically permitted to bring family to these Games — outside of a concession made to nursing mothers — Hughes and Conners were able to use part of the Team Canada’s allotment of support personnel to bring along their wives. So in this spectator-limited Olympics, Malory Conners and Jenna Shaw figure to be some of the few people spending the week roaming the property, both wearing the “P” Olympic credential typically reserved for managers and personal coaches.

“Yeah, they’re our personal coaches,” Hughes said. “Oh, yeah. There’s lot of on-course instruction out there. I know that my wife only expects the ball to go in the hole from anywhere on the golf course. So it doesn’t matter where I am. It needs to go in the hole or it’s not up to par. So I’m working on it. Working on being perfect out there.”

If the team personnel could raise eyebrows, let’s face it: This isn’t actually a team event. Though some of the holes are decorated with the famous five rings — and while Conners and Hughes are playing for their country — the truth is the guy wearing your country’s flag amounts to another competitor, no more, no less.

“It does feel like we are a part of a team and it feels like we should help each other out or whatever. But in reality, I hope I beat those guys’ brains in,” Justin Thomas of the United States said Wednesday, speaking of teammates Colin Morikawa, Patrick Reed and Xander Schauffele. “It’s like, it’s odd.”

Thomas did eventually allow that, if he didn’t find himself in contention for a medal, he’d happily pull for a compatriot to win one. Still, in an every-man-for-himself sport — and the women get underway here a week from Wednesday — there’s still something to be said for expanding one’s circle. Speaking of Conners’s quest to make oneself at home among the world’s best players, Ingram said he’s pushed his player this year to mix up his practice-round companions on tour

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“He’s been playing a lot with Webb Simpson, who’s got a major, and Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler, just to get himself out of his comfort zone,” Ingram said. It’s easy to play with your standard group all the time. I think playing with some of the better players has helped him to get a little more comfortable. And those players are starting to go, ‘Oh my god, this guy is really, really good.’ They kind of knew it, or heard it, and now they’re playing with him going, ‘Wow. This guy’s a great player.’”

Said Conners: “(Mixing up the practice-round rotation) is definitely important. When you’re in the mix in big events, you want to be as comfortable as possible, and being a little more friendly with some of the top players who are going to be there, it helps.”

At this point Conners, realizing he might be disrespecting present company, glanced over at his Olympic teammate and smiled.

“Not to take anything away from Mac — I like playing with him as well,” Conners said. “I like getting into his pocket … But just added comfort with some of the best players on a more personal level kind of helps.”

Dave Feschuk is a Toronto-based sports columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @dfeschuk