Manitoba’s Cockerill hits paydirt on European Tour

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/03/2022 (1405 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the best performance — and biggest payday — of Aaron Cockerill’s career. And Manitoba’s top professional golfer will no doubt get a substantial confidence boost as well following a tremendous weekend showing on the European Tour.

Cockerill, 29, finished tied for second with a pair of fellow competitors at the Kenya Open after firing a final round four-under 67 on Sunday. He finished the event at 12-under, four shots back of China’s Ashon Wu. He takes home 130,000 euros, which equates to approximately $180,000 Canadian.

To put that in perspective, consider the two-time provincial golfer of the year made $37,000 total in 37 MacKenzie Tour- PGA Tour Canada tournaments while grinding it out in the Great White North between 2015 and 2018. Cockerill’s previous best showing overseas with a fourth-place tie at the Joburg Open in Johannesburg in November 2020 which netted him $62,000.

When he teed it up in Nairobi last Thursday, Cockerill was 541st on the official world golf ranking. That will now go up significantly. He previously climbed as high as 381st in late 2000, which is the best any Manitoban has been since former PGA Tour regular Glen Hnatiuk in the early 2000s.

Cockerill’s win also gives him some future job security on the tour and opens doors to gain access to other events. Each season, the top 100 earn full-time status for the following campaign, which includes playing in the biggest-money events where many of the top pros in the world tee it up.

“Just thinking about (2020) when I first started. I’ve played professionally for a while but it’s just a different level. When I first started and how naive I was to the European Tour, to where I was when I finished and having some pretty good results, feeling a lot more comfortable and confident with my game and that I can compete against the boys,” Cockerill told the Free Press prior to the start of the 2021 campaign.

However, Cockerill struggled at times last year, competing in 23 events. He made 13 cuts, his best finish being a tie for 12th, and finished 152nd on the tour money list. He began this current campaign in similar fashion, making two of the first four cuts but was well back of the pack by finishing tied for 42nd, and tied for 62nd.

There was no such inconsistency this past week in Kenya. Cockerill opened with rounds of 70 and 68, then really charged up the leaderboard with back-to-back 67s. His tournament included 19 birdies and two eagles.

Cockerill, whose wife Chelsea now caddies for him, jumps all the way to 28th on the 2022 money list.

The men’s professional golf scene in Canada is healthier than ever, led by PGA regulars such as Corey Conners (ranked 46th in the world as of last week), MacKenzie Hughes (53rd), Adam Hadwin (158th), Adam Svensson (168th), Nick Taylor (213th) and Taylor Pendrith (220th). At one point, Conners, Hughes, Hadwin and Taylor were all ranked within the top 100 in the world.

Winnipeg’s Derek Ingram, the coach of Canada’s national men’s golf team, is also the personal coach to Conners and Pendrith and has done extensive work with Cockerill, who has repeatedly said he’s in no rush to try and qualify for the PGA Tour, given how much he’s enjoying his time combining golfing and globetrotting.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg