MUNDELEIN, Ill. – Through 36 holes, 2003 Masters champion Mike Weir is T14 at 6-under 138 at the Rust-Oleum Championship. Weir’s last top-10 in a PGA TOUR-sanctioned event was a runner-up at the 2014 AT&T Byron Nelson. That finish represents his only top-10 in his last 129 starts on the PGA TOUR.

It’s been a few months, but Maverick McNealy has found himself in a familiar position on the Web.com Tour. After a second-round 8-under 64 at Ivanhoe Club, the 22-year-old Tour rookie takes the lead into Saturday. His 12-under 132 total places him one ahead of Kyle Jones after 36 holes.

On Friday, McNealy got off to a hot start with birdies at 10 and 11. He then played the back-to-back par-5s in 3-under, chipping in for eagle at the 14^th and a routine up and in on 15. Through two rounds, McNealy is 7-under on the par-5s. A recent change in philosophy has helped create more opportunities for the Stanford, California native on the longer holes.

“We were playing to short and to the front of the green,” said McNealy about his approach to the scoreable holes at the start of the year. “I was a little more aggressive, trying to get a balance between the front and back of the green. I think par-5 play has been a key for me and it comes from better strategy and picking good targets.”

In early May, McNealy took a break from the Web.com Tour and competed on the PGA TOUR in Dallas and Fort Worth. He made the cut both weeks and brought that momentum with him to Chicago. The Web.com Tour rookie continues to find comfort on Tour in pressure-packed situations.

“Confidence doesn’t come easily, for me it has to be earned,” he said. “It’s earned through preparation and ultimately through good results. I’m a lot more confident in this position because of what happened at Victoria National and I think I’m a lot more comfortable out here because of the PGA TOUR events I’ve played.”

McNealy took the 36 and 54-hole lead at the United Leasing & Finance Championship but ended the week T3 after a final-round 74. With the help of his caddie, Travis, the former national champion has adjusted his mindset in preparation for the next time he’s in contention.

McNealy has enjoyed success at every level. In college, he won a total of 11 times and collected the Ben Hogan and Fred Haskins Award. The former No. 1 ranked amateur also took home the Nicklaus Award during his time in Northern California. McNealy believes the will to win comes from growing up with siblings.

“I’m incredibly competitive,” he said. “My three younger brothers will attest to that. If you’re not competitive in that household, you don’t really have a place.”

With 36 holes left to decide the outcome, plenty can happen over the next two days. There will be obstacles along the way and McNealy will have his share of frustration over the final two rounds. He understands it’s just a part of the game.

“Golf’s a four-letter word for a reason,” McNealy said. “It’s a frustrating game. It tries you and test you in a lot of different ways. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of it. I’m having fun, I’m learning a lot and I’m just trying to get better every week.”

GALLOWAY, N.J. – Two-time champion Anna Nordqvist shot a 5-under 66 on Friday for a share of the first-round lead with Laura Diaz and Celine Herbin in the ShopRite LPGA Classic.

Nordqvist won the 54-hole event in 2015 and 2016 on Stockton Seaview’s Bay Course and finished second last year. Teeing off Friday in the afternoon when the wind was stronger, the 30-year-old Swede closed her bogey-free round with a birdie on the par-5 ninth.

“Honestly, I have a lot of good memories from here,” Nordqvist said. “It’s a place that makes me happy. I seemed to be striking the ball better today than for most of the year, so I was very consistent, gave myself a lot of chances. I was trying to stay patient out there and I’m very happy to post a good round.”

Brittany Marchand (69) of Orangeville, Ont., was the low Canadian was tied for 28th at 2 under, while Maude-Aimee Leblanc (70) of Sherbrooke, Que., was tied for 49th at 1 under. Quebec City’s Anne-Catherine Tanguay and Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., were tied for 66th after shooting identical even-par 71s.

The eight-time LPGA Tour winner is seeking her ninth career victory, has missed the cut in three of her last five events. She is currently 54th on the LPGA money list with more than $132,000 in earnings.

The 43-year-old Diaz made the field as an alternate. She played in the morning when the greens were smoother and the wind more benign and carded five birdies.

Her 12-year-old son, Cooper, was on the bag for her first competitive LPGA Tour round of the year.

“It’s more special because I have my son with me,” Diaz said. “It was great. He wasn’t nervous. He was perfect. So it’s a calming influence. I think I spent more time worrying about him.”

Herbin, 35, birdied the final two holes.

Lydia Ko, In-Gee Chun and ANA Inspiration winner Pernilla Lindberg were at 67 with Sandra Gal, Su Oh, Beatriz Recari, Amy Yang and Wayne, New Jersey native Marina Alex. Defending champion I.K. Kim had a 68.

Shanshan Feng, at No. 4 the top-ranked player in the field, shot 69.

Leona Maguire, the former Duke star from Ireland, had a 69 in pro debut.

Canadian Brittany Marchand sits T28.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Dustin Johnson wants to sharpen his game for the U.S. Open. Moving back to No. 1 in the world would just be a nice bonus because the only way he can do that before Shinnecock Hills is by winning the St. Jude Classic.

Johnson knows what he wants.

“I just want to win,” Johnson said.

Johnson shot 7-under 63 for his lowest round this year and grabbed a one-stroke lead Friday after 36 holes at the St. Jude Classic. He had four of his seven birdies and an eagle on his back nine for a 29 and finished with a 10-under 130 total.

Ryan Blaum and Andrew Putnam each shot 64 and were tied second, and C.T. Pan (65) and Wesley Bryan (66) followed at 8 under.

Brandt Snedeker shot his best round this year with a 62 that was one stroke off the course record. He was at 7 under.

Irishman Seamus Power, who came in with a one-stroke lead, shot a 69 to reach 6 under. Defending U.S. Open champ Brooks Koepka (69) was at 5 under, and Phil Mickelson (70) was at 4 under.

Two-time defending champ Daniel Berger (71-141) missed the cut.

Johnson spent 64 weeks atop the world ranking until Justin Thomas made the cut at the Players Championship in May and grabbed the top spot to himself. Johnson said the course and not playing only four times in April and May combined prompted his decision to play here before going to Shinnecock Hills.

“Just wanted to play, stay sharp,” Johnson said. “I like this golf course, and I feel like I play it well and wanted to be on top of my game going into next week, too.”

Johnson also had a 63 in the second round of the World Golf Championships-HSBC last October to kick off this season. He won the Tournament of Champions in January and followed with a tie for second at Pebble Beach in February. He has three top 10s and tied for eighth last week at Memorial.

A winner here in 2012, Johnson is back here looking for 18th career title while tuning up for the U.S. Open he won in 2016. He hit everything well from a 3-wood that went 316 yards off the tee to his irons to putter.

“I feel like I’m playing really well,” Johnson said. “I’m swinging the club very well. I know if I can drive it in the fairway that I’m going to give myself a good look for birdie. I felt I did that pretty much all day today and hit a lot of great shots in there and had a lot of really good looks at birdies.”

At 3 under, Johnson opened with a 6-foot birdie putt on No. 10 only to bogey Nos. 12 and 13 after hitting into the rough. He bounced right back by rolling in a 21-foot birdie putt on the par-3 No. 14. He holed out from the right front bunker for birdie on the par-5 No. 16.

His round really clicked into gear after making the turn.

Johnson holed out a sand wedge from 111 yards on the par-4 No. 1 for eagle and nearly holed out again on No. 2 from 114 yards, tapping in from 9 inches for birdie. He two-putted from 29 feet on the par-5 No. 3 and drained a 16-footer for birdie on No. 6. Johnson saved par with a 7-footer after chipping out of the bunker on No. 8.

And Johnson became the first to hit 10 under after hitting his second shot 159 yards on No. 9 to 6 feet for a final birdie .

Snedeker, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, hadn’t played this event three hours away from his home in five years and none of his eight PGA Tour victories have been at the TPC Southwind. Snedeker turned in a bogey-free round with eight birdies needing only 22 putts.

“It obviously went pretty well,” said Snedeker, the 2012 FedExCup champ. “It’s one of those days you like to have. You don’t have them very often out here where the hole looks like it’s the size of a beach ball and can’t miss a putt.”

Canadians: Ben Silverman sits T40 while Corey Conners and Nick Taylor sit T58.

LACHUTE, Que.—  Michael Ikejiani and Daniel George share the lead in the boys’ division and Emily Romancew tops the leaderboard in the girls’ division after the opening round on Friday at the Future Links, driven by Acura Quebec Championship at Club de golf Lachute.

Michael Ikejiani from Minesing, Ont. and Daniel George from Richmond Hill, Ont., both carded a 2-under 70 each bogeying hole 6 and 14 while also birdying 12 and 18.

“I hit the ball solid, could have made more putts but I hit the fairway a lot, I hit my driver well.” said Ikejiani.

Remi Chartier, Olivier Ménard, Frédéric Rousseau and Brandon White all sit T3 after shooting par.

In the junior girls’ division, Emily Romancew, from Pierrefonds, Que.,topped the leaderboard after posting a 2-under par 70. She came out of the gate birdying hole 2 and bogeying hole 8 but finished strong–other than a bogey on hole 10–firing 3 birdies on the back nine.

“I’m really happy with my round today,” said Romancew, “especially with the winds blowing so hard. I made a few good putts and that always feels good when they hit the cup.”

Élizabeth Labbé is sitting three strokes behind the lead after she shot a 1-over 73 while Haley Yerxa (75) and Heather McLean (75) sit T3, rounding out the girls division.

The top six finishers in the junior boys’ division will earn exemptions into the 2018 Canadian Junior Boys Championship on July 30-Aug. 2 at Medicine Hat Golf & Country Club in Medicine Hat, Alta. The top six finishers in the junior girls’ division will earn exemptions into the 2018 Canadian Junior Girls Championship on July 31-Aug. 3 at Beach Grove Golf Club in Tsawwassen, B.C.

Current results can be found here.

Saturday’s pairings.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Canadian Mackenzie Hughes got the strong start he was looking for. The 27-year-old notched a 4-under 66 in Thursday’s opening round to sit in a 11-way tie for second, one stroke off the pace.

Hughes posted five birdies against one bogey at TPC Southwind and will go off in his second round at 7:50 a.m. local time. The Dundas, Ont., native will play in next week’s U.S. Open, alongside fellow countryman Garrett Rank of Elmira, Ont.

Phil Mickelson also opened the event on a positive note. Steve Stricker is having too much fun to just stick to the senior circuit.

Mickelson and Stricker shot 4-under 66 on Thursday in the St. Jude Classic, leaving them in an 11-player tie for second – a stroke behind Seamus Power of Ireland. Mickelson matched his best opening round in relation to par this season.

“Oh, it was a great start for me,” Mickelson said. “I ended up finishing off the round. I had a nice little stretch there in the middle where I went birdie, eagle, and I was able to finish it off with some pars after some poor tee shots.

“It’s a good start. It’s not like you’re trying to win the tournament on Thursday. But it’s nice not to put myself too far behind so I’m playing catch-up. So another good round tomorrow will put me right in it for the weekend.”

Power birdied his final hole for the lead over Mickelson, Stricker, U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka and others. He went to No. 18 tied with seven others atop the leaderboard and took the lead himself with his second birdie over his final three holes.

The 51-year-old Stricker had a long day Monday qualifying nearby for the U.S. Open. He played only six holes Tuesday and a nine-hole pro-am Wednesday to rest up. He turned in a bogey-free round Thursday and capped his day chipping in from 34 feet for his fourth birdie. He has two top-25 finishes in seven tournaments on the PGA Tour this season, and Stricker said he wants to show he can finish off an event.

“I still feel like I should play out here. I belong out here. I’m trying to stick with that,” said Stricker, a two-time winner this year on the PGA Tour Champions.

Koepka is preparing for his U.S. Open title defence next week at Shinnecock Hills.

Second-ranked Dustin Johnson was at 67 with Retief Goosen, Scott Stallings and seven others.

Two-time defending champ Daniel Berger bogeyed three of his first five holes and finished with five bogeys and five birdies for a 70.

Mickelson won in March in Mexico for his 43rd career victory, and he has tied for second at the TPC Southwind twice with a tie for third since 2013. He is looking for his first win here while tuning up his game for the U.S. Open. He matched the 4-under par 68 he opened with at the Houston Open in April with three birdies, an eagle and one bogey.

This tournament at TPC Southwind will become a World Golf Championship event in 2019, and Mickelson said this course is tough for anyone to shoot really low. That makes limiting mistakes crucial.

“If you don’t make any, you don’t lose too much ground and you can make it up quick,” Mickelson said. “It’s just a course that’s hard to go really low on. That’s something I’ve picked up on this golf course over the years. There’s a lot more big numbers on this course than you think. Water comes into play. There’s just some challenges. So I ended up eliminating the big numbers and fortunate enough to salvage par on No. 9 and 12 in today’s round.”

Johnson hit into the water for a double-bogey on No. 9. A winner here in 2012, Johnson also had the shot of the day on the par-4 No. 12. With his ball near the water, Johnson took off his right shoe and rolled up his pant leg before stepping into the water. He chipped in from 40 feet.

“It wasn’t a very easy shot, and I actually didn’t hit it very well,” Johnson said. “I just got lucky and it went in the hole.”

Koepka got to 5 under with a string of four straight birdies but his second bogey cost him a share of the lead.

“I didn’t play well at all to be honest with you,” Koepka said. “We hit some pretty poor shots. We were kind of all over the place, but hope to figure this out for the rest of this week.”

Power played in college across the state at East Tennessee State, the 31-year-old Irishman came into this event ranked No. 345 in the world. Teeing off in the morning and starting on No. 1, Power birdied two of his first three holes before dropping a stroke with a bogey on No. 4. He bounced right back with a birdie, and his sixth birdie came after hitting his approach from 128 yards to 3 feet to match his low round of the year.

“I played here last year and it kind of suits my eye, so I kind of feel good going out,” said Power, who tied for 27th here in 2017.

Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., is 2 under while Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C., and Ben Silverman of Thornhill, Ont., opened with 70s. David Hearn of Brantford, Ont., shot a 2-over 72.

MUNDELEIN, Ill. – Calgary, Alberta native, Ryan Yip, sits T17 on Thursday after the first round of the Rust-Oleum Championship. He recorded a 3-under 69 after firing three birdies on the back nine.

Andrew Novak made 10 birdies at Ivanhoe Club and posted a 7-under 65 to take the first-round lead. The Web.com Tour rookie grabbed the first 18-hole lead of his career and heads into Friday’s second round one clear of Wes Roach and Jacques Blaauw.

With the mentality of a Monday qualifier, Novak was aggressive on the Dick Nugent design en route to his best start of the season. The 23-year-old from Raleigh, North Carolina ended the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament T73 and was left with conditional status to start 2018. Forced to Monday qualify each week, Novak has found success in the format successfully navigating the challenge twice on the PGA TOUR and three times on the Web.com Tour.

“It’s all just going low and not being afraid of making your seventh, eighth or ninth birdie,” said Novak. “I think the Mondays have taught me that, which has helped.”

The change in mindset has yielded favorable results the past several events. In five starts this season, the former Wofford Terrier made three cuts and entered the week No. 141 on the money list. Not knowing when you will get your next opportunity to compete can be difficult, but Novak has taken his lumps and remained resilient.

“It’s tough not knowing each week if you’re going to get to play,” he said. “It’s nice to know that I’ve earned it that way, but it’s tough.”

Each time Novak successfully qualified for an event, he felt pressure others didn’t. The need to perform so he wouldn’t be in this position the next week loomed over his head and made it difficult to post scores. Each shot was more important than it needed to be because he was in constantly in limbo. This week began differently as Novak got into the Rust-Oleum Championship on his number after the reshuffle.

“My first few events when I would Monday in, I knew I needed a good finish or else I’d be back trying to Monday,” said Novak. “I was definitely putting extra pressure on myself. Pressure that others may not have felt. I didn’t have status or the opportunity to play every week. It’s definitely different now, knowing that I shuffled in and can play every week.”

Novak has persevered through the tough times. The go-for-broke nature of the qualifiers has molded him into the competitor that posted a career-low 65 on Thursday afternoon.

While in Spartanburg, Novak admitted that he would let off the gas when he found himself a few shots under par. Since turning pro last summer, his conservative attitude on the course has shifted to a more aggressive style that yields more competitive scores on the Web.com Tour.

“I think what I learned is that I can go low,” he said. “The Mondays taught me how to go low. This is a birdie Tour and you have to be able to make a lot of birdies, so I think that was big for me.”

“I’ve had a lot of fun, even while doing the Mondays,” continued Novak. “It was still fun going out and competing and getting to play because this is what I want to do.”

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada — Taylor Pendrith, a highly touted Canadian golfer who finished the 2015 season as the third leading money winner on the Mackenzie Tour order of merit, shot his lowest professional round since 2015 with Thursday’s 64 after the first round of the Bayview Place DCBank Open at Uplands Golf Club.

Aaron Cockerill is eyeing the prize of Freedom 55 Financial Canadian Player of the Week after finishing the first round as co-low Canadian alongside Taylor Pendrith. The Winnipeg, Manitoba, native opened with a 64 which included a chip in on the 18^th hole for his fourth birdie in a row to close out the round.

Wes Heffernan from Calgary, Alberta, sits T8 just three strokes behind the lead.

When you’re on, you’re on and Zach Wright didn’t lose any momentum on the ferry ride across the pond from Vancouver to Victoria.

Wright was near perfect during the first round making nine birdies and just a single bogey to fire an 8-under 62.

“I hit a couple close again and just had to tap it in,” said Wright, coming off a second-place finish at last week’s Freedom 55 Financial Open in Vancouver. “My putter got going on my seventh hole, I made one and then it just kept going.”

The 24-year-old kept it simple early on, making birdie on his second hole of the day before giving the stroke back when he failed to get up-and-down on the par-3 14^th hole. From there in, Wright played flawless golf, making three straight birdies from 7-9 to finish the front in 32 strokes, and added another on his 10^th for four in a row.

The 2016 Louisiana State University grad polished off his 62 with another stretch of four-straight birdies from 14-17 to sign for his lowest ever score on the Mackenzie Tour.

“I hit a bunch of fairways today which made it easy because it’s a short course,” said the Phoenix, AZ, native. “If you put yourself in the middle of the fairway you’ve got wedges in and you can attack the golf course.”

Wright made eight starts on the Web.com Tour last season, and after making only a single cut, appears to be on a mission in Canada to reclaim status with his improved golf game.

“When you’re playing well you don’t really think about the score, you’re just looking for your next birdie, per se, so I was just trying to hit good shots and make putts,” added Wright. “playing well, it’s easy to come in here with confidence.”

New in 2018, the National Development Squad program will feature a centralized component, which will be based out of Bear Mountain Resort in Victoria, B.C.—Team Canada’s official training centre since 2015.

Cam Cole seems to have this retirement thing down pat.

“I am playing way more than I ever have in my life,” he says over the phone between rounds at his new home course, The Harvest, in Kelowna. “I am probably playing three or four times a week. The game has not become less a part of my life after retirement. It has become even bigger. I am enjoying that.”

For many years, so many Canadians enjoyed Cole’s beautifully crafted columns from golf’s major championships. By his count, Cole covered 66 majors, along with seven Ryder Cups and six Presidents Cups, nine (RBC) Canadian Opens and several (CP) Canadian Women’s Opens before retiring in December 2016 after an exemplary 41-year career as one of this country’s top sportswriters.

Cole is receiving Golf Canada’s Distinguished Service Award for his contribution to the game. He will receive that award at a June 4 ceremony at Bear Mountain Golf Club in Victoria. A round of golf will follow, which should suit Cole just fine.

“I don’t seem to be getting any better at it, but I still love it,” says Cole, a left-hander who boasts an eight handicap despite playing with a set of Ping Eye 2 irons that are 30 years old. “The Harvest has this reputation of being a really wide open, easy golf course. But scoring there for me seems really difficult. I have had a few rounds close to par, but then I’ve also had some 84s and 85s in there. It just depends, if you miss it in the wrong place you are still going to be struggling. And those greens are really slopey and tough.

“I have enjoyed it there, there’s good group of guys to play with and it’s a very friendly kind of atmosphere.”

Cole, of course, covered much more than golf. He was a fixture at Stanley Cup playoffs, covered many world figure skating championships, Super Bowls and Grey Cups. He attended 16 Olympic Games.

But golf was perhaps his favourite assignment, in part for a selfish reason.

“I enjoyed golf more probably because they can’t play it at night,” Cole says. “As you know, deadlines are the least fun thing about the job. It is so much easier on the brain having a couple of minutes to think before you have to commit it to print. I think generally speaking it makes for better writing if you have some time to think and execute a line or a paragraph without having to just rush into it.”

Michael Farber, Cole’s longtime sportswriting colleague, worked alongside Cole at many big events and paid his friend the ultimate compliment in an interview from his Montreal home.

“I would rather read Cam Cole writing about golf than just about anybody writing about anything,” says Farber, a Sports Illustrated special contributor who also does essays for TSN.

“He is multi-talented and covered so many sports so well, but I think he was such a great golf writer because he was a such a great golfer, at least by the fairly low standards that we mortals have. He had a higher IQ for golf than most of the people writing about it.”

Cole has many great memories from all those golf majors he covered, but says Tiger Woods’ first and last major wins are among the most memorable.

“I think it was my fourth or fifth Masters when Tiger won in 1997 and just blew away the field,” Cole says. “I think he shot 40 on the front nine the first day and we were going, oh dear, and then he shot 30 on the back or something and was off to the races. And then his last major —  I hope it’s not his last, but it might be — the one he won at Torrey Pines (in 2008) on one leg. Those two bookends to his majors career were pretty damn special to watch.”

Cam Cole at Augusta National

Cole also mentions the last Open Championship he covered in 2016 when Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson staged their epic duel at Royal Troon in Scotland.

“I thought was the greatest golf I had ever seen between two guys,” he says.

But Cole says the best memory of his time spent covering golf came in Kelowna, now his home, when he caddied for Jack Nicklaus at the official opening of The Bear Course at Okanagan Golf Club.

“That,” he says, “was pretty special.”

Cam Cole and Dave Perkins

So was the fact that Cole got to play several of the major venues he covered. His name was drawn three times to play Augusta National on the Monday morning following the tournament.

Cole hasn’t missed writing as much as he thought he might.

“I haven’t and that shocks me a bit. But I think it’s just that in the last two or three years with shrinking staffs, a lot of the fun kind of went out of the newspaper game towards the end .

I have had a few opportunities to write this or that, but just haven’t been moved to do it.”

Watching those majors at home on TV also hasn’t been as difficult as Cole thought it might be.

“I am a little bit wistful sometimes. Last year, I would have loved to have been there to watch Sergio (Garcia) win the Masters because he has been such a story through the years, but you know, in general, I just love watching golf and to be honest when you are at a major probably half the time you are sitting in front of a TV monitor anyway while you are writing. It’s not like you have never seen it before on TV. It’s kind of nice to just sit back in the living room with a beer at my elbow and watch these things.”

Cole will miss not being at Carnoustie for this summer’s Open Championship, but he will be there to visit a friend in June.

He and his wife Jan are taking a three-week driving trip through Northern Ireland, Ireland, Wales, England and Scotland. And yes, some golf will be played.

They plan to play, among others, Rory McIlroy’s old home course, Holywood, in Northern Ireland.

“I wanted to play courses I have never played before for the most part,” says Cole, who figures he has teed it up at more than 100 courses in Britain.

Cole is no stranger to receiving recognition for his work. Last fall, he was inducted into the media wing of the Hockey Hall of Fame and he is a two-time recipient of the Sport Media Canada Award for Outstanding Sports Writing.  Cole says he never feels completely worthy of the accolades.

“As a general sports columnist, every time you get nominated for something like this for a specific sport you never feel like you deserve it. A golf recognition for me is like, really? What did I ever contribute to golf? I am way more of a taker than a giver of this game. It has been really good to me. But it’s a really nice surprise and a really great honour.”

Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member Sandra Post turns 70 this week and celebrates another milestone this month as well – the 50th anniversary of her first LPGA Tour win.

Reflecting back, Post, who has had a lengthy list of accomplishment in her career including winning the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s athlete of the year, twice winning the Canadian Press Female Athlete of the Year, and appointed to the Order of Canada, says winning the LPGA Championship, a major in her first try, is what’s been the focal point of her on-course legacy.

But with 50 years now passed, Post realizes she had a greater mission off the course to help promote and advance the status of women in sport.

“It wasn’t just sport,” she says. “I knew that early on. I knew there was other issues to it.”

Post says she hasn’t grasped how monumental her major win was until this anniversary has come up. She won a couple of tournaments later in her career that have since become majors (Post won the ANA Inspiration twice, when it was known as the Colgate-Dinah Shore Winner’s Circle and not yet a major) but didn’t realize then that majors really define one’s career.

“Those moments live with you,” she says. “If you’re a U.S. Open champion or an LPGA Champion… it really is fabulous.”

Post was just 20 years old when she teed it up in the 1968 LPGA Championship at Pleasant Valley Country Club, about an hour outside Boston.

She finished at 2-over after 72 holes, tied with Kathy Whitworth – one of her idols and who, up to that point, had won 27 times on the LPGA Tour (she would go on to win 88 times in her career, the most ever) – and there would be an 18-hole playoff to decide the champion on the Monday.

Post remembers calling her father back in Toronto to say there was going to be a playoff the following day and he caught the last flight to Boston on Sunday along with some members of the Canadian press corps who had just finished covering Bob Charles win the Canadian Open at St. George’s.

Post wasn’t able to sleep that night, so she jumped in her car and drove to Boston to pick up her dad. The members of the press who were also on the flight couldn’t believe Post, who was about to play the biggest round of her life, was there at midnight to drive the two-plus hours back and forth from Boston, but she says she had nothing else to do so decided to make the trip.

At a dinner earlier that night, she remembers sitting with Mickey Wright (World Golf Hall of Fame member and 82-time LPGA Tour winner) and Susie Berning (four-time LPGA Tour major winner) and asked what would she need to do in order to beat Whitworth the next day.

“I remember Susie saying, ‘fire everything you’ve got at her, right off the top. And I go, ‘Really? Ok.’ I’ll never forget those words,” says Post.

“I didn’t really have a strategy but I was thrilled to death I was going to finish second at the LPGA Championship,” she continues with a laugh.

Huge crowds had showed up for this David vs. Goliath match-up, Post says. She remembers her caddie being a young teenager, maybe 14, and their combined ages barely eclipsed Whitworth’s age of 29 at the time.

Post started the day with three straight birdies, but Whitworth made an eagle and a birdie in the first four holes and they were tied.

“I looked up on the hill after the fourth hole and I saw Susie and I said, ‘That’s all I got! Now what do I do?” says Post. “She just put her hands up.”

As the day chugged along, it looked like a foregone conclusion that Post was going to be the champion, extending her lead to five shots at one point.

But Wright was already one of the winningest golfers on the LPGA Tour, and Post wasn’t going to count her out. However, late in the round it was all but settled Post was going to win.

Post had dunked her approach from 90 yards out on the par-4 15th for a birdie to get to 7-under for the day. When they got to No. 17, Whitworth ended up in the trees with her tee shot. She couldn’t make it out, made quadruple bogey, and Post would go on to win by seven, finishing at 5-under to Whitworth’s 2-over.

Post won a “whopping” US$3,000 in first-place prize money, the most she had ever won at one time. She says she still has a copy of that cheque.

“I had a bonus with Spalding too. I got in my car and went down the road to Baltimore (where the next event was) thinking I was pretty rich,” she says, laughing.

Looking back on that victory 50 years ago, Post says there were a ton of great memories on the course, but it was off the course where she really learned her place in the world.

She knows they were playing for money and needed money to make a living, but all the women on the LPGA Tour at the time were trying to elevate the status of women in sport, and says they were all very conscious of their role in that.

Post says the voting for the Lou Marsh Trophy in 1968 was a big point in her realization that she needed to do more for the advancement of women in professional sport. She finished fifth in the voting that year.

“I took that very seriously. I was Rookie of the Year, I had won a major, and I was the first Canadian woman to really play golf professionally and get to that level. For a woman to play any sport professionally, and to see I was ranked fifth… I didn’t ever think it wasn’t fair, but I knew I had so much more work to do,” she says. “I had to get the message across to our country.”

Post says it was an honour to pass the baton in Canadian professional golf to Gail Graham and Dawn Coe-Jones, and then to see them pass it along to Lorie Kane and A.J. Eathorne, who then passed it to Alena Sharp and Brooke Henderson.

She’s happy to see there has been more done in women’s golf on the scholarship side and with purse increases on the LPGA Tour, and has no doubt Henderson is going to end up passing the baton sooner rather than later, given the talent on the LPGA Tour is getting younger and younger each year.

“I see the social issues and I see so many things we’ve been able to achieve. Absolutely we have a lot of work to do with the disparity of the purses and all that, but I tend to look more on the positive side,” she says.

At 70 Post remains as sharp as ever. Her victory half a century ago was the turning point for Canadian women’s golf and opened the door to many others who followed. And although she was a “young 20” when she found the winner’s circle, she says being a part of that group of women was something she’ll never forget.

“When I look back I have such admiration for those founders of the LPGA Tour and what they accomplished. Talk about pure pioneers of not only golf, but of women. To help move the needle for women,” she says. “I would not trade my time for any other time.”