Toronto Star’s Pick ’Em Golf Contest winner has a connection with the top Canadian at the Masters

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/04/2021 (1997 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Corey Conners wasn’t the only golfer with a connection to Listowel, Ont., who was celebrating after the Masters.

Brian Weiler, 72, won the Toronto Star’s Pick ’Em Golf Contest on Sunday. Weiler is from Palmerston, Ont., about 10 minutes from Listowel and lives around the corner from the home Conners grew up in.

And he plays golf every Saturday with Conners’s father at the Listowel Golf Club.

“I know Corey quite well,” Weiler said.

Weiler’s picks included Conners, of course. But he also selected eventual champion Hideki Matsuyama and runner-up Will Zalatoris, who played with Conners on Sunday, plus Xander Schauffele (third for third), Jon Rahm (tied for fifth), and Brian Harmon (tied for 12th). His final selection was Trevor Immelman, a past winner at the Masters who didn’t play this year, but that one mattered little. The rest of his picks were high enough on the leaderboard.

Weiler won a $1,000 gift card to Golf Town along with a foursome at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley. Weiler said he has been playing golf since he was 25 — almost 50 years ago — but has never won a golf pool before.

“I was excited, but I thought, ‘This had to be a joke or something,’ ” Weiler said about getting the call saying he won. “I couldn’t remember exactly who I had picked but we watched every minute of the Masters to see Corey play.”

Conners eventually finished tied for eighth and earned an invitation to next year’s Masters. The town of Listowel “would have been overjoyed” if Conners ended up winning the green jacket, Weiler said.

The Tim Hortons in town even created the “Corey Conners Hole-in-One” doughnut, which was trending on social media Tuesday after the iconic coffee shop posted about it. The doughnut has green sprinkles and a powdered-sugar Timbit in the hole, representing a green and a golf ball.

“It would have been perfect (if Connors took the green jacket),” Weiler said.

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Instead of a Conners victory, however, Weiler had his own win.

The closest Golf Town to Listowel is in Kitchener and Weiler is excited to be able to load up for this year’s golf season. He said he doesn’t know who he is going to bring with him to TPC Toronto, a course he has never played before, but he knows it will be a great experience.

“When (the Masters) finished, I said, ‘I had quite a few of those guys in the Star’s pool,’ but I didn’t realize I won,” Weiler said.

April 14, 2021 — Clarification: This story has been updated to add that the contest winner Brian Weiler won despite picking Trevor Immelman as one of his entries. Immelman, a past winner of the Masters, didn’t play this year.

Adam Stanley is a freelance golf writer based in Toronto