REGINA – England’s Georgia Hall can relate to the pressure that Canadian golfers may be feeling at the CP Women’s Open.

Hall won the Women’s British Open earlier this month at Royal Lytham to become the first British player to win the tournament since 2009. She didn’t think about any added tension during her breakout performance and instead focused on the excitement at hand.

“Just enjoy being at home and enjoy having your family and friends come and watch,” Hall said Wednesday. “That’s what I did. Don’t really worry about the outcome. Four days is a lot of golf. So just enjoy it and see what happens.”

Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., headlines the list of 16 Canadians in the field this week at the Wascana Country Club. The world No. 14 has one victory and eight top-10 finishes this season.

Jocelyne Bourassa was the last Canadian to win this tournament, taking the 1973 title in Montreal.

“That’s a long time,” Henderson said. “Yeah, (there’s) a little bit (of pressure). I would love to win this tournament. I don’t know if that’s this year. Hopefully before my career is over.”

Henderson finished in a tie for 12th last year in Ottawa. She has an afternoon tee time for Thursday’s opening round with new world No. 1 Sung Hyun Park of South Korea and Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist.

“It’s kind of like the sixth major for me on the LPGA Tour,” Henderson said. “It’s very meaningful, very important to me, especially being a CP ambassador and playing here in my home country.”

@BrookHendersonGolf will tee it up in Thursday’s opening round of the #CPWO alongside defending champ Sung Hyun Park ( @xxndl) and @A_Nordqvist

A post shared by CP Women’s Open (@cpwomensopen) on Aug 22, 2018 at 12:05pm PDT

Other Canadians include LPGA Tour regulars Alena Sharp of Hamilton, Maude-Aimee LeBlanc of Sherbrooke, Que., Anne-Catharine Tanguay of Quebec City and Brittany Marchand of Orangeville, Ont.

Symetra Tour players include Jennifer Ha of Calgary, Saskatoon’s Anna Young, Augusta James of Bath, Ont., Elizabeth Tong of Thornhill, Ont., and Megan Osland of Kelowna, B.C. Canadian Golf Hall of Famer Lorie Kane of Charlottetown will make her record-tying 28th appearance.

National amateur squad member Naomi Ko of Victoria is also in the field with development squad players Celeste Dao of Notre-Dame-de-l’Ile-Perrot, Que., and Ellie Szeryk of London, Ont. Amateur Grace St. Germain of Ottawa was a late withdrawal.

Vancouver teenager Tiffany Kong is playing on an exemption and Saskatoon native Bobbi Brandon earned a spot with a top-four finish in Monday’s qualifier.

“It’s about time that one of us wins it and it’d be awesome to do it this week,” Sharp said. “(I) just want to have a chance at it going into the weekend.”

Golf Canada’s national women’s head coach Tristan Mullally said it’s possible for players to treat the added pressure in a positive way.

“You can use that if you leverage it correctly,” he said. “I often say, ‘You can sit at the edge of a cliff and you can look down and be scared or you can look out and enjoy the view.’

“I think it’s that perspective. It’s got to be where, ‘These people are rooting for me. I can use that energy.”’

Second-ranked Ariya Jutanugarn of Thailand, China’s Shanshan Feng and Americans Morgan Pressel and Paula Creamer are some of the other big names in the field.

The wind was howling on a warm, sunny afternoon for Wednesday’s pro-am championship. Similar conditions are expected for the first two rounds but rain is in the forecast for the weekend.

There are opportunities to go low on the 6,675-yard course. It’s a flat track with long, narrow fairways, thick rough and fast greens.

Players who are long off the tee – like Henderson – could give themselves opportunities as the course often rewards aggressive play.

This will be Hall’s first tournament since her first major title – and first victory – on Tour. The rookie will play in a group with three-time CP Women’s Open champion Lydia Ko of New Zealand and American Lexi Thompson.

Play continues through Sunday at the US$2.25-million event. The champion will earn $337,500.

Notes: There won’t be a domestic television broadcast or simulcast this year as all four rounds will air on The Golf Channel. LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said both he and Golf Canada CEO Laurence Applebaum would like to rectify broadcast plans either next year or by 2020. … The 2019 CP Women’s Open will be held at the Magna Golf Club in Aurora, Ont.

Click here to visit the CP Women’s Open website.

VICTORIA, B.C. – Garrett Rank heated up an otherwise calm, windless day at Victoria Golf Club after he shot a 5-under-par 65 to lead the Canadian Men’s Mid-Amateur Championship after round one on Tuesday.

The Elmira, Ont., talent started the day on the back nine and didn’t waste any time before recording an eagle straight out of the gate on his first hole.

“I got off to a great start, eagled the first hole, made a nice putt for birdie on my third hole and it was off to the races. I made a few mistakes in the middle of the round but had a lot of really good putting today,” said Rank, whose 2016 Men’s Mid-Amateur win made him one of only three players to record three consecutive titles in the tournament’s history. “65 is a great score and I’m pleased with it, but definitely going to need to be a bit sharper if I’m going to take it home.”

After his eagle, the 30-year-old Team Canada Amateur Squad graduate would go on to card five birdies against two bogeys to lead the field. He has made quite the splash in amateur golf this season, most recently at the 114th Canadian Men’s Amateur Championship where he finished in third and was the low Canadian at the tournament by seven strokes.

“I’m in love with the game of golf and love playing golf,” added the NHL referee, when asked about competing in his fourth event in a row and his intense amateur golf summer schedule. “If this is what I get to do in the summer, then I need to play in events.”

Two B.C. players sit in second place as Jordan Caron of Victoria and Jay Snyder of Vancouver shot matching 3-under-par 67s. Both players played consistent golf throughout the day. Caron, who calls Victoria Golf Club home, registered four birdies and a sole bogey while Snyder, who earned an exemption into this week’s tournament after winning the 2018 B.C. Mid-Amateur Championship, carded five birdies and two bogeys.

Todd Fanning, the defending Men’s Mid-Amateur and Mid-Master champion from Winnipeg, Man., leads the over-40 Mid-Master division by two strokes.

“We had the afternoon draw and neither of us threw grass or discussed the wind direction with our caddies one time,” said the 50-year-old. “Only getting one practice round on a course this difficult and with the greens this tricky, I felt like I was thinking pretty conservatively and was just kind of unsure of a few different shots. All-in-all, I think that a 69 is a good way to start.”

Canadian Golf Hall of Fame Legend and seven-time Canadian Men’s Mid-Amateur Champion Graham Cooke from Hudson, Que., is in second alongside four other golfers —Senan Foley (Calgary, Alta.), Sandy Harper (Nanaimo, B.C.), Craig Doell (Victoria, B.C.) and Glenn Robinson (Middle Sackville, N.S.)— at 1-over-par 71.

Defending champion Team Ontario leads the inter-provincial competition in large part due to Rank’s low-round of the day. Fellow teammates Dave Bunker (Brampton, Ont.) and Patrick Forbes (Toronto, Ont.) have Ontario at the top of the leaderboard by a comfortable four-stroke margin at 7 under par.

Team British Columbia is in solo second at 3 under while Team Quebec is in third at 3 over.

In addition to the Canadian Men’s Mid-Amateur title, the 2018 champion will receive an exemption into the 2019 RBC Canadian Open at Hamilton Golf & Country Club in Hamilton, Ont.

REGINA – It’s a golf swing that is by no means of the textbook variety.

Brooke Henderson uses a long driver, grips down on it and rotates her body quickly, using impressive core strength to maintain the necessary stability and balance as she brings the club down.

The torque is intense, but it’s a motion that allows her to get every last bit of energy and power from her slight, yet taut, five-foot-six frame.

It can sound like a gunshot when the clubface meets the ball, which usually rockets down the fairway.

Henderson’s power game has always been there. Her short game has not been as consistent, but is showing signs of improvement entering this week’s CP Women’s Open.

“I feel it’s in a really good place right now – at least the last few weeks,” Henderson said after Tuesday’s practice round at the Wascana Country Club. “Golf is sort of weird and (the) short game is really weird. You can putt great one day and putt terrible the next.

“It’s all about energy and staying positive and kind of believing that you can make everything. I feel like I’m getting closer to that spot, so I’m excited.”

Henderson’s putter was hot at last week’s LPGA Tour stop in Indianapolis. She closed with a 9-under-par 63 to finish tied for seventh.

It was her eighth top-10 result of the season.

“(I) made a lot of putts and it was cool to make a lot of birdies and kind of get that feeling back again,” she said.

The 20-year-old native of Smiths Falls, Ont., averages almost 270 yards per drive, good for seventh among all LPGA Tour players. Her driving accuracy is so-so at 71.79 per cent (69th overall) but she hits over 75 per cent of greens in regulation (third overall).

However, she averages 29.70 putts per round (54th) and her sand save percentage is a mediocre 40.98 per cent (104th).

Henderson will have plenty of opportunities this week on the 6,675-yard course, which plays long in spots, but can reward players who are aggressive.

Home sweet home ??? #CPWO

A post shared by CP Women's Open (@cpwomensopen) on Aug 21, 2018 at 11:20am PDT

That could work into Henderson’s hands as she tries to become the first Canadian to win this tournament since Jocelyne Bourassa won at Montreal in 1973.

“The way (Henderson) scores is she can go on a tear of like four of five birdies in a row,” Canadian golf legend Sandra Post said in a recent interview. “She’s not afraid to go low when she plays.”

Henderson earned her lone win of the season last April in Hawaii for her sixth career LPGA Tour victory, leaving her two behind Post for most all-time wins on Tour by a Canadian.

She has managed to maintain a solid world ranking position of No. 14 even though it has been a challenging season at times. Both of Henderson’s grandfathers died earlier this year.

“It’s been a really crazy and weird and kind of tough summer, for sure,” Henderson said. “But I feel like once I get inside the ropes I can kind of let that go and know that my two grandpas that did pass away, they’re always cheering me on and looking on from heaven. That kind of gives me that little bit (of an) extra boost.”

Henderson leads an impressive field that includes defending champion and world No. 1 Sung Hyun Park of South Korea, second-ranked Ariya Jutanugarn of Thailand, American Lexi Thompson and China’s Shanshan Feng.

On the coaching front, Henderson works with her father, Dave, and gets tips from her sister, Brittany – who also serves as her caddie. She has also worked with Golf Canada’s national women’s head coach Tristan Mullally in the past.

Kevin Haime, a past winner of the PGA of Canada national teacher of the year award, hosts a junior golf event in the Ottawa area that has featured Henderson and her sister. He regularly uses a video demo of Brooke’s swing for his students.

“There’s about six different things that you could say don’t make a lot of sense there,” Haime said. “But she’s such a wonderful athlete with wonderful timing, she drives the ball better than (almost) anybody on the LPGA Tour.”

As strong as Henderson can be off the tee, she can really be a force when the putter is going.

“When it’s on, she really goes low,” Post said. “But she’s got tremendous spirit, tremendous desire and will. I always find that’s the one thing that can’t be taught. You have to have all those other things.

“But it’s almost like that unknown – if you’ve got that in you – to sort of step up.”

Henderson said the friendly competition with her sister – who’s now 27 – during their formative years in the sport also helped give her game a big boost.

“I was always trying to beat her, be as good as her,” she said. “She was always a lot taller, a lot stronger, so I tried to hit the ball, outdrive her, which didn’t happen for a long time. But I think that’s why I didn’t have that unique strength, because I was just trying to use every ounce of my body to get the ball out there.

“I feel like she really pushed me to be better at a younger age.”

Henderson will return to the par-72 course on Wednesday for the championship pro-am competition. First-round play begins Thursday morning.

Saskatoon native Bobbi Brandon picked up one of four final exemptions in Monday’s qualifying to boost the number of Canadian players in the field to 16.

The US$2.25-million tournament will wrap up Sunday.

After shooting the round of his life to preserve his PGA Tour status, Canadian golfer Nick Taylor chose to mark the achievement with a modest celebration.

He and his wife, Andie – who just turned 30 – went to Wendy’s for ice cream.

“It was a roller coaster week, let alone day,” Taylor, from Abbotsford, B.C., said in a phone interview. “We were just so exhausted.”

A winner on the PGA Tour in 2014, Taylor was outside the top-125 on the FedEx Cup standings going into last week at the Wyndham Championship. His 7-under-par 63 Sunday (his low round of the year) helped move him to 119th. That allows him to pick and choose his schedule on the PGA Tour next year.

“I knew just making the cut and getting to the weekend wasn’t what I needed,” said Taylor. “I needed a top-25 finish at minimum. I feel like that helped me. If I just tried to make the cut I might have been a little tighter and a little more defensive.”

Taylor said his season was an interesting one. He had three straight top-25 finishes in the first three events, but through March and into May he missed six straight cuts. He began working with new swing coach Mark McCann in May after The Players Championship and things have turned around favourably since.

“There was a different eye and different opinion and that helped,” said Taylor. “It kind of saved the season.”

Taylor will now play The Northern Trust at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey, the first FedEx Cup playoff event. Fellow Abbotsford golfer Adam Hadwin, who was 70th in the FedEx Cup standings, is also in the field.

Taylor said he feels like he’s got “nothing to lose” this week.

“I’m playing with house money a little bit,” he said. “I’m still trying to win and move on, but definitely not as much pressure as last week.”

Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont., and David Hearn of Brantford, Ont., finished outside the top 125 and will play the four-tournament Web.com Tour finals to try to improve on their PGA Tour status for next year.

Conners (130th), Silverman (136th), and Hearn (138th) will play out of the category for golfers 126-150 on the FedEx Cup standings and have partial status.

Hearn was in that category this season and still played 21 tournaments.

Graham DeLaet of Weyburn, Sask., finished 185th on the FedEx Cup standings but will start next year on a major medical exemption after having back surgery on August 3.

DeLaet’s agent, Danny Fritz, said in an email to The Canadian Press “all went well” and he is “resting and on the road to recovery.”

Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., is fully exempt next year after his win at The RSM Classic in 2016.

REGINA – Canadian golfer Alena Sharp will be supporting the Humboldt Broncos this week.

The LPGA Tour veteran has a special golf bag and towel this week for the CP Women’s Open, featuring the Broncos’ logo.

Sixteen people were killed after the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team’s bus collided with a transport truck in April.

The Hamilton golfer said she’ll donate the bag to the Jim Pattison Children’s Hospital in Saskatchewan after the event.

Excited to show my support for @HumboldtBroncos and @theSJHL with my new bag for the week @cpwomensopen ! This tragedy really hit home as it did for so many. I will be donating my bag to @PattisonKids after this week. Thanks @rbc for teaming up on this and Ken Hill @jukasaradio pic.twitter.com/LuwCQArcq4

— Alena Sharp (@AlenaSharp) August 21, 2018

REGINA, Sask. (Golf Canada) – Saskatoon native Bobbi Brandon was one of four golfers to claim the final exemptions into the 2018 CP Women’s Open via Monday’s qualifying event at Royal Regina Golf Club.

Brandon, a PGA of Canada Professional who works out of Moon Lake Golf & Country Club, carded a 2-over-par 74 to sit T2 among the 11-player field. This will be Brandon’s second appearance at the CP Women’s Open. She competed in Canada’s National Women’s Open in 1998 at Essex Golf and Country Club in Windsor, Ont., where she missed the cut.

Sweden’s Louise Stahle fired a 2-under par 70 to earn medalist honours.

American Jennifer Hahn (74) and Japanese amateur Kasumi Kuniyoshi (76) earned the final two spots.

Brandon will be the 16^th Canadian in the field at the CP Women’s Open. All are trying to become the first Canadian to win an LPGA Tour event on Canadian soil since Canadian Golf Hall of Fame honoured member Jocelyne Bourassa won La Canadienne in 1973.

Click here for full scores from 2018 CP Women’s Open Final Qualifying at Royal Regina Golf Club.

NORTH PLAINS, Oregon – The first 25 of 50 available PGA TOUR membership cards for the 2018-19 season were secured on Sunday at the Web.com Tour’s final Regular Season event, the WinCo Foods Portland Open presented by Kraft-Heinz, contested on the Witch Hollow Course at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club.

Canadian Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., finished the regular season at No. 14 thanks to four top-10 finishes and one victory at the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic.

South Korea’s Sungjae Im, who has led the money list each week this year after winning the season-opening Bahamas Great Exuma Classic at Sandals Emerald Bay, posted rounds of 65-66-68-67—266 (18-under) to win by four shots over John Chin. The $144,000 first-place check pushed Im to $534,325 in earnings and allowed him to join Martin Trainer as the only players on Tour to win twice in 2018.

The 20-year-old Im, along with the other 24 card earners, will carry over earnings to the Web.com Tour Finals, where positions on the priority ranking list, used to set PGA TOUR fields each week, will be finalized.

An additional 25 cards will be awarded following the conclusion of the four-event Finals, which begin next week in Columbus, Ohio, with the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. The final three events consist of the DAP Championship (August 30-2), Albertsons Boise Open presented by Kraft Nabisco (Sept. 13-16) and Web.com Tour Championship (Sept. 20-23). The second set of 25 cards will be based on money earned solely in the Finals.

The battle for the 25^th and final card came down to rookies Hank Lebioda and Kevin Dougherty, with Lebioda securing the last spot by $1,923.

Lebioda finished up a final-round 71 nearly two hours before Dougherty finished, and was forced to wait and watch the projected money list to see what his fate would be.

Dougherty birdied the par-4 17^th and had to birdie the par-5 18^th to earn his PGA TOUR card, but fell to his knees in disbelief as his birdie chip from just short of the green narrowly missed going in. The closing par left the former Oklahoma State golfer at No. 26 on the money list, and in turn vaulted Lebioda to the TOUR this fall.

The top 25 who secured their 2018-19 PGA TOUR membership are:

*=PGA TOUR rookie in 2018-19

The top 25 will be joined at the Finals by those PGA TOUR players who finished 126-200 in the FedExCup standings (less those with exemptions), plus non-members who earned enough equivalent FedExCup points to finish within the 126-200 range.

The 50 graduates will join the PGA TOUR for the 2018-19 season, which opens the week of October 1-7 with the Safeway Open in Napa, California.

Seventeen of Sunday’s 25 card earners will be rookies on the PGA TOUR in 2018-19.

REGINA, Sask. (Golf Canada) – The final four spots into the 2018 CP Women’s Open field will be determined in Monday’s final qualifying event at The Royal Regina Golf Club.

A total of 17 competitors will challenge for one of four spots into the field for Canada’s National Women’s Open Golf Championship. The Final Qualifier features 18 holes of stroke play with the low four competitors receiving an exemption into the 2018 CP Women’s Open field. If necessary, a hole-by-hole playoff will be conducted immediately following the conclusion of play.

Click here for pairings, start times and results from Final Qualifying on Monday, August 20. Results will be available as players complete their rounds.

Tournament week for the 2018 CP Women’s Open kicks off Monday, August 20 at The Wascana Country Club as the stars of the LPGA Tour make their first-ever visit to the province of Saskatchewan.

In addition to practice rounds in the morning, the Canada Day All-Star Pro-Am gets underway with a shotgun start at 12:30 p.m. The All-Star Clinic will feature LPGA Tour winner and recent Canadian Golf Hall of Fame inductee Gail Graham conducting live interviews with LPGA Tour stars including Alena Sharp, Lydia Ko, Morgan Pressel, Pernilla Lindenberg and Paula Creamer along with Canadian Golf Hall of Famer Lorie Kane.

A full field list of players confirmed to compete in the 2018 CP Women’s Open is available by clicking here.

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — With a different day brings better weather, and that was very good news on Saturday at the FireKeepers Casino Hotel Championship. August James sits 2 strokes behind the lead with a share of sixth. She fired five birdies and one bogey on Saturday to head into Sunday’s round 6-under for the tournament.

The weather wasn’t the most important factor of the day though, but rather who could sink the final putt to take over first place through two rounds of play.

Janie Jackson held the lead at 7-under prior to her 2:25 p.m. second-round tee time on Saturday, but her lead didn’t last for long. There was a 6-way tie for first place heading into the latter portion of the afternoon. Between Jackson, Karolina Vlckova, Linnea Johansson, Casey Danielson, Kendall Dye, and Maia Schechter, nobody could pull away to take over solo possession of the lead.

Schechter was playing lights out, marking five total birdies on the day, compared to a lone bogey on her card. However, it was experience over tenacity that changed the leaderboard late.

Former LPGA Tour player Silvia Cavalleri decided it was her time to shine.

Cavalleri got off to quite the rough start, starting her day with back-to-back bogeys in her first two holes. She quickly bounced back from her issues, and birdied the third hole.On the 15th hole, she tallied her third birdie of the day, which put her in a tie for first at 7-unde-parr. Her fourth birdie of the day came at just the right time on hole No. 17, as it pushed her into the sole possession of first place at 8-under-par.

With the lead in her hands, Cavalleri needed to par the 18th to maintain sole possession of the lead heading into Sunday’s final round. She was lyingtwo on the fringe in front of the green, and needed to two-putt to finish with the lead. With her short game consistently having her back all day long, she decides to putt from nearly 25 feet away, and ended up just about a foot short of the hole.

Cavelleri tapped in to preserve the lead, and will head into the final day of competition one stroke ahead of the field.

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Canada—James Love and Michael Gligic enter Sunday in a tie for ninth at 13 under overall to lead all Canadians in the field. Love shot a 2-under 70 Saturday while Gligic carded a 1-under 71.

Tyler McCumber has been in this situation before. Twice, in fact.

For the third time in four weeks, the 27-year-old will take a lead into the final round on the Mackenzie Tour, as a 7-under 65 propelled him to a one-shot advantage over Drew Weaver Saturday at The Players Cup. McCumber won in both previous instances, which came in consecutive starts at the Osprey Valley Open and Syncrude Oil Country Championship.

“Today was definitely my best day,” he said following his round at Southwood Golf & Country Club. “I was a little more relaxed, a little more in the flow, in the zone. I was hitting good shots and really, just really not as anxious today. Just went out there and kind of freewheeled it.”

McCumber, who also finished third last week at the ATB Financial Classic, carded consecutive birdies on Nos. 3, 4 and 5, then added a fourth birdie on No. 9. He pulled into a tie atop the leaderboard with an eagle on the par-5 No. 16, then took the lead for good with a birdie on the 18th hole. He was bogey-free for the second straight day.

“It was nice to kind of get some momentum and pace,” said McCumber, the top-ranked player on the Order of Merit. “I felt like today it was easier to get good mojo going and keep the momentum. I’m looking forward to that tomorrow. Obviously twosomes will play pretty quick.”

The University of Florida graduate will play in Sunday’s final pairing once again with Weaver, who he also paired with in the fourth round at the Osprey Valley Open. Weaver finished tied for third that day and will look to earn his first victory on the Mackenzie Tour since the 2015 Freedom 55 Financial Open.

“I finally converted one on the ninth for eagle, and that’s a big boost, obviously,” said Weaver, who also shot 7-under 65. “But once I got a piece of momentum, I just kind of ran with it. And that’s what I’ve tried to tell myself most of the summer, is that if I could just get a little bit of momentum in any way, shape or form, that I’m going to do my best to build on it.”