SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France – Four-time major winner Rory McIlroy roared back into contention at the French Open on Friday, sinking six birdies in a 5-under round of 66 to join a five-way share of the lead.

The Northern Irishman could have taken the overall lead at the Le Golf National course – which is hosting the 2018 Ryder Cup – but a poor tee shot on the 18th hole led to a bogey.

South Korea’s Wang Jeung-hun matched McIlroy’s 66, while Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand – who was one stroke behind overnight leader Lucas Bjerregaard of Denmark – posted a 1-under 70 for a share of the lead. The other co-leaders, Mikko Ilonen of Finland and South African Brandon Stone, had 68s.

Bjerregaard is three shots behind after four bogeys in a 74.

“I played well. I kept the ball in play, I drove it well, hit fairways, hit a lot of greens. That’s sort of what you need to do around this golf course,” McIlroy said.

“I felt like I putted nicely. There were still a couple of putts that didn’t quite drop but it felt good out there. I need two more days like that over the weekend to have a chance.”

McIlroy was five shots off the lead overnight after an opening round where he struggled with his swing.

“In a way it’s nice to go into contention and not really be thinking about the result,” said McIlroy, currently in the spotlight because of his decision to miss the Olympics over concerns about the Zika virus.

He is using the tournament as a warmup for the British Open, starts July 14 at Royal Troon in western Scotland.

McIlroy announced in April that he was skipping the Bridgestone Invitational to instead play at the French Open for the first time since 2010.

While the five-man leading group has 28 European Tour wins between them, the chasing pack is strong.

Defending champion Bernd Wiesberger of Austria was at four under alongside Nicolas Colsaerts and Anders Hansen, with Joost Luiten, Francesco Molinari, Thomas Pieters and Andy Sullivan a further shot back.

Wiesberger had five birdies in his first eight holes but his momentum was ended by a triple-bogey and a bogey-bogey finish.

There are four qualifying places for the British Open up for grabs They will go to the leading four players, not otherwise exempt, who finish in the top 12 and ties.

TROON, Scotland – Royal Troon voted overwhelmingly Friday to admit female members for the first time in the club’s 138-year history.

The vote at a special meeting came less than two weeks before the British Open is held at the Ayrshire links for the ninth time, eliminating what was likely to be a distraction as more of Britain’s top links courses accept women.

“We have said a number of times recently that it is important for golf clubs to reflect the society in which we exist and the modern world that looks to us,” said Martin Cheyne, the captain at Royal Troon. “It is the right decision for the club today and for generations of golfers that will follow.”

The vote leaves Muirfield as the only links on the British Open rotation that has a male-only policy. The R&A said after Muirfield failed to get the two-thirds majority to change that it will not host another Open under its current policy.

The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which owns and operates Muirfield, has called a special meeting to ask members for new vote by the end of the year.

The R&A said it welcomed the decision by Royal Troon and recognized “the significance for the club.”

“Our focus today is very much on The 145th Open in just under two week’ time, but we can now look forward to many more great championships at Royal Troon in years to come,” the R&A said in a statement.

Royal Troon is the second all-male club on the British Open rotation to open its membership to women. Royal St. George’s in England voted for women members last year, and that followed a vote by the Royal & Ancient Golf Club in September 2014 to have female members for the first time.

The Royal & Ancient, with headquarters at St. Andrews, governs golf everywhere in the world except for the United States and Mexico. Members belong to a club, not a golf course. The Old Course and six other courses at St. Andrews are open to the public.

Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the Masters, was the first to admit female members in 2012.

Cheyne said the vote allows Royal Troon to turn its attention to hosting the Open along with The Ladies Golf Club at Troon, which was founded in 1882.

“We can now all be focused on golf and showcasing this wonderful club and golf course to the huge global audience that this most prestigious championship commands,” Cheyne said in a statement announcing the vote.

Muirfield last hosted the Open in 2013, when Phil Mickelson won the claret jug. In May, only 64 per cent voted in favour of admitting women, falling 14 votes short.

Golf Canada’s women’s participation program, Golf Fore the Cure presented by Subaru, has officially opened for registration.

Entering its 13^th season, Golf Fore the Cure presented by Subaru is aiming to pass the $365,000 mark in 2016—setting the bar higher than last year’s target with hopes of furthering support and participation from Canada’s female golf community.

From a participation standpoint, Golf Fore the Cure presented by Subaru had upwards of 10,000 women involved in 2015. For program coordinator Whitney Gorges, the buck doesn’t stop there.

“I’m very proud and impressed with the effort of all ladies involved in Golf Fore the Cure last season, and I’m hoping we can increase our generous impact even further,” said Gorges. “It’s a fantastic way to add value to a club’s already existing ladies night while contributing to a cause that has impacted all of us in some form or another.”

All funds raised by the 145-plus teams across Canada last season were donated to the Canadian Cancer Society and Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation to assist with national research efforts. Since the program’s inception, over $5.4 million has been raised collectively.

Upon (free) registration, Golf Fore the Cure teams will receive a complimentary kit to assist in their event. Site coordinators are encouraged to structure their event in any format that best suits their interests and desires. Formats that accommodate all skill levels tend to be the most popular choice, as the program is ultimately aimed at increasing participation.

In addition, all registrants are given the option to have additional support from presenting partner Subaru at their local event. The top-three fundraising teams will be flown to the Great Toronto Area (GTA) to participate in the 2016 National Event.

Click here to register.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Defending champion Brooke Henderson shot a 7-under 65 on Thursday to take a two-stroke lead after the opening round of the LPGA Cambia Portland Classic on Thursday.

Picking up where she left off from a year ago, when Henderson shot a 21-under 267 to win her first LPGA tournament, the 18-year-old from Smiths Falls, Ont., hit 16 greens and made nine birdies on a warm, cloudless day at the 6,476-yard Columbia Edgewater course.

Henderson said a combination of factors allows her to feel at home at Columbia Edgewater.

“I love tree-lined courses, and that’s very much what this course is. With the bent grass, which is kind of what I grew up on, I really like it. It suits my eye,” Henderson said. “Then winning here, that gives me those extra vibes and adrenaline, which I think will help as the week goes on. This golf course, being out here in the Northwest, in the beautiful temperature, I like wearing long sleeves and pants.”

Angela Stanford, Demi Runas and Mariajo Uribe each shot 67 to trail Henderson.

Runas, whose best career finish is a tie for 25th, and Uribe are looking for their first LPGA victories. Stanford lost in a playoff in the 2003 U.S. Women’s Open at Pumpkin Ridge, which has previously played host to the Portland Classic. Uribe and Stanford shot bogey-free rounds.

Stanford, who tied for fourth last week in Arkansas, is somewhat of a surprise among the leaders. She hasn’t had much success at the Portland Classic, her best finish a tie for eighth in 12 tries.

“Poana greens are usually not very friendly to me. It’s nice to watch the ball go in the hole here. I haven’t always played well here, so I tried to just put that on the back burner and see if I could carry it over from last week, and it did,” Stanford said.

Carlota Ciganda, Jaye Marie Green, Ayako Uehara and Daniela Iacobelli shot 68. Four strokes back at 69 are No. 18 Suzann Pettersen, Sarah Jane Smith, Lee-Anne Pace, Briana Mao and Jiayi Zhou.

Pettersen is a two-time Portland winner, claiming the 2011 and 2013 tournaments.

No. 15 Anna Nordqvist is among 12 players at 70. No. 9 Stacy Lewis shot even-par 72, as did Austin Ernst, the 2014 Portland champion.

Henderson, starting early in the morning on the back nine, was only 1-under through seven holes. But she birdied three of the next four holes, then finished on fire while playing the front nine, making consecutive birdies on holes 5 through 8. Henderson just missed a fifth consecutive birdie, sliding a 15-foot putt past the left side of the hole at the par-4 ninth.

It was a bogey at the par-4, 391-yard fourth that helped ignite Henderson’s string of four consecutive birdies.

“That was a dumb hole … a hole with my length I could have taken advantage of. The bogey bothered me a little. I knew I had two par-5s coming up, so I tried to focus on them,” Henderson said.

In her last six rounds at Columbia-Edgewater, counting last year’s Monday qualifier, Henderson is 32-under par, all six rounds in the 60s.

Last year, Henderson won the Portland Classic by eight strokes, and became the third youngest champion in LPGA Tour history. Since winning her maiden event, Henderson has soared to become No. 2 ranked, and two weeks ago won the Women’s PGA Championship.

Henderson is attempting to become Portland’s first back-to-back champion since Annika Sorenstam won the 2002 and 2003 tournaments.

Alena Sharp’s even-par round has the Hamilton native tied for 41st. A quartet of Canadians are knotted at 4-over: Team Canada National Team member Naomi Ko (Victoria), Anne-Catherine Tanguay (Québec), Lorie Kane (Charlottetown) and A.J. Eathorne (Penticton, B.C.). Samantha Richdale of Kelowna, B.C., shot 77.

The Portland Classic is normally played in late August, but moved up because the LPGA is taking three weeks off for the Olympics. The Portland stop is typically popular among the tour’s best players, but with the U.S. Open scheduled for next week in California, only 13 of the world’s top 50 entered this year.

The Portland Classic is the LPGA Tour’s longest-running non-major, now in its 45th year. The purse is $1.3 million, with $195,000 going to the winner.

RENO, Nev. – Martin Laird of Scotland made eight birdies to lead the Barracuda Championship on Thursday with more than just a PGA Tour victory on the line.

Because of the West Virginia floods that led to The Greenbrier Classic being canceled next week, a spot in the British Open has been transferred to the leading player not already eligible at the Barracuda Championship.

The British Open is at Royal Troon and Scotland.

He still has a long way to go and plenty of players, including former champion Gary Woodland, right behind him.

Laird has plenty of experience handling the high altitude of Montreux Golf and Country Club because he left Scotland to play golf at Colorado State and has been based out of America his entire professional career.

He finished with 15 points in the modified Stableford scoring that awards five points for an eagle, two points for a birdie and deducts one point for a bogey and two points for a double bogey or worse.

“I played five years at 5,000 feet, so I’m pretty comfortable with the yardages,” Laird said. “It’s hard to make yourself trust it sometimes. I almost know how far I hit my clubs anyway without having to do the adjustments. So that’s a little easier for me. … You’ve got to go with what you think it is and hit your shot.”

Woodland, who won at Reno in 2013, was tied for the lead when he missed a 10-foot birdie putt on the 17th and then hit his second shot with a 6-iron into the water on the par-5 18th, leading to a bogey that cost him a point. That put him at 14 points along with Camilo Villegas and Greg Chalmers.

“Swing like an idiot,” Woodland said. “Really the two bad golf swings I made were on the par 5s on the back.”

Villegas, playing in the same group with Woodland, missed a 7-foot birdie putt on the final hole that would have given him the lead.

“We both had a great day,” Villegas said. “I got going pretty hard from the beginning, and then Gary got going there with an eagle on No. 8.”

The scoring system awards aggressive play. Villegas made seven birdies with no bogeys (that would have been a 65), while Woodland had six birdies and an eagle, offset by three bogeys. In normal play, he would have shot 67. Chalmers also had six birdies, one eagle and three bogeys.

“Made a couple of bogeys, bounced back real quick and got going the right direction,” Chalmers said. “This format is about making a lot of birdies and eagles.”

Colt Knost was in the group at 13 points.

The group tied for 15th at 9 points includes two Canadians in Graham DeLaet (Weyburn, Sask.), who is playing for the first time in a month to sort out anxiety issues of his putting, and Abbotsford, B.C., product Nick Taylor. Carlos Ortiz of Mexico also sits within the group and needs a good week to have any chance of getting into the Olympics.

AKRON, Ohio – Golf in Ohio must bring out the best in William McGirt.

One month after his first PGA Tour victory at the Memorial, McGirt looked just as good two hours up the road at the Bridgestone Invitational. In his World Golf Championship debut, he opened with six birdies and finished with a 45-foot par for a 6-under 64 and a three-shot lead.

An Ohio sweep?

That’s only happened four times, and McGirt guessed right at the answer.

“Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods and Tiger Woods?” he said. “That would be pretty special company.”

He had some decent company behind him after an opening round of warm sunshine and fast conditions at Firestone. Jason Day, the world’s No. 1 player, was among three players at 67, while Jordan Spieth somehow managed to post a 68 despite having only one birdie attempt (he missed) in his first 10 holes.

“I wasn’t supposed to shoot 2 under today,” Spieth said.

U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson had a U.S. Open kind of round – 15 pars, two birdies and a bogey – for a 69. His big celebration was walking off the 11th green to learn that his alma mater, Coastal Carolina, had just won the College World Series for its first national title. His golf wasn’t bad considering that he didn’t practice much last week while celebrating his first major (and his 32nd birthday) in The Bahamas.

“I didn’t expect a whole lot today,” Johnson said. “I always expect to play well, but this golf course is playing tough.”

Only 17 players of the 61-man field broke par. The first round ended with only 58 players.

Daniel Berger withdrew after his opening tee shot with a shoulder injury. Brooks Koepka withdrew after 13 holes with an ankle injury. Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III, playing at Firestone for the first time since 2009, withdrew after a 78 because of what was described as a torn labrum.

The field also was missing Rory McIlroy and Masters champion Danny Willett, among several European Tour players who opted to play the French Open this week.

McGirt had never played in a WGC until he became eligible with his playoff victory at Muirfield Village a month ago. He showed up at Firestone on Sunday, played nine holes and rode in a cart on the back nine.

“I fell in love with the place because length is not everything out here,” McGirt said. “You have to drive it in the fairway. You have to drive it in the correct spots in the fairways to be able to attack pins. I love it because you can’t stand up there and just hit it as hard as you want, go find it and hack it on the green. It’s an old, traditional style golf course, which I absolutely love.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s something with Ohio I like,” he added.

The most peculiar round belonged to Spieth, who said he has been in a lull the last month as he searches for something in his swing, particularly his wedges. It had the look of a score closer to 74 or 75, except that the former Masters and U.S. Open champion kept hanging in there with pars. One shot hit a tree and bounced forward over the water into a bunker. He whiffed on a 7-iron that left him a tough pitch, but he managed to save par from 8 feet.

He ended the front nine with par-saving putts from 20 feet and 25 feet.

It took him until the 15th hole before he had back-to-back birdie putts, and he started converting them. He holed the last four of them.

“I’m really just searching for something that isn’t far off, that’s real simple,” Spieth said. “It really is only taking place on my scoring clubs, but that’s where you need them. It’s close. It’s almost there. And when it clicks, we’re definitely in business the way the short game is.”

Emiliano Grillo and Jimmy Walker also were at 67 with Day, while Spieth was joined by Rickie Fowler, Anirban Lahiri and Charley Hoffman.

Day said he felt a burden lifted by making his announcement not to play in the Olympics because of Zika concerns, but he didn’t think that equated to his golf. It was a tidy round with only one bogey and four birdies, and a pair of tough par saves from a bunker on No. 9 and behind the green on the par-5 16th.

“It was just kind of a weird feeling of a day where I kind of made some good pars, kept the momentum going, and all of a sudden I shot 67,” Day said. “I’ve just got to keep grinding until Sunday is over.”

In 2002, a Canadian loonie buried at centre ice galvanized a nation and inspired a pair of gold medal performances. The Olympic winter games in Salt Lake City saw the Canadian men’s and women’s hockey teams top the podium and capture the titles of Olympic champions. In Rio de Janeiro – 14 years later – another lucky loonie awaits the four Canadian Olympians who will take part in golf’s return to international sport’s grandest stage following a 112-year absence.

Ian Andrew, a course architect based in Brantford, Ont., who worked on the Campo Olimpico de Golf in Rio de Janeiro, stashed the Canadian $1 coin at the heart of the 18^th green.

The hope: to once again rally Canadians from coast-to-coast behind their Olympians to successfully defend the Olympic gold medal won by Canadian George S. Lyon in 1904, the last time golf was part of the Olympic Games.

Click here to read the full story from Garry McKay in the Hamilton Spectator.

The quartet comprising Team Canada for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will be celebrated onsite at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont., on Tuesday, July 19 during the 2016 RBC Canadian Open. Admission onto the grounds of Glen Abbey that day for spectators looking to join in the celebration of Team Canada’s Olympic golfers is FREE.

PORTLAND, Ore. – Brooke Henderson has come a long way since her win last year in Portland.

Back then she didn’t even have LPGA Tour status. She was a Monday qualifier for the Portland Classic, urged to try for a spot in the field by her older sister.

She went on to become just the second Monday qualifier to win an LPGA event, and she did it in decisive fashion, winning by eight strokes.

She was just 17 years old.

“It’s definitely been an incredible 18 months, turning pro at 17 and then didn’t have status on the LPGA tour, and was trying to play my way into events and just trying to see what would happen,” Henderson said. “I really took the best advantage of the opportunities I was given and I won here last year, which really changed my whole career.”

The Canadian teenager has since climbed her way up the rankings, reaching No. 2. She’s third on the money list this year. And she’s got a major championship – she won the Women’s PGA Championship two weeks ago by defeating top-ranked Lydia Ko in a playoff.

Ko opted out of playing in Portland.

With her Portland win last year, Henderson became the third-youngest champion in LPGA Tour history at 17 years, 11 months, and six days. She was the first Canadian to win on the tour since Lorie Kane in 2001.

“It was definitely a huge stepping stone for me,” Henderson said. “Right afterward I did try to soak it all in. Then I moved right into the Canadian Open, where it was a huge celebration all over Canada with Canadian fans and that was really cool. It definitely was a huge accomplishment here and I hope that maybe this year I’ll win by nine.”

SKIPPING PORTLAND: Thirty-seven of the top 50 players are skipping the Portland stop. Many players are opting to take this week off ahead of the U.S. Women’s Open next week in California. Normally the Portland tournament is popular among the women, but it was moved up in the schedule this year because the LPGA is taking three weeks off for the Olympics. For the past 11 years the event has been held in August.

RIO BOUND: The field for the Portland Classic includes 20 players from 16 different nations who are set to play in the Rio Olympics this summer. Henderson will represent her native Canada, and Stacy Lewis is set to play for the United States.

But South Africa’s Lee-Anne Pace announced Wednesday that she is withdrawing from the Olympics over concern about the Zika virus.

“I hope that everyone can understand that this was a very difficult decision to come to, however my health and my future family’s health must come first,” said Pace, who is ranked 38th in the world.

Several PGA players have pulled out of the Olympics citing concern about the Zika virus (including Australian Jason Day and Ireland’s Shane Lowry this week), but none of their LPGA counterparts had until Pace.

YOUTH IS SERVED: Mariel Galdiano earned a spot in the Portland Classic in the Monday qualifier. The 18-year-old, about to start her freshman year at UCLA, said the fact that Henderson won as a Monday qualifier is not lost on her. In fact, the average age of tour winners this year is just over 21.

“(It) definitely shows how young the game is getting and how close we are as junior golfers, how close our dreams are and how good we can become,” she said.

Galdiano comes from Hawaii where she went to the prestigious Punahou School, which boasts famous alumni including Michelle Wie and President Barack Obama.

THE DETAILS: The Portland Classic is the longest-running non-major on the LPGA Tour, now in its 45th year. The 72-hole event at Columbia Edgewater Country Club starts Thursday and runs through Sunday, with a cut to 70 after the first 36 holes. This year’s purse is $1.3 million, with $195,000 going to the winner.

Course superintendents are golf’s equivalent of hockey goalies.

Almost inevitably, when they’re winning, they get little credit. When they’re losing, they get the bulk of the blame.

It’s a tough and often thankless job.

Now imagine if a goalie was prevented from using his stick, then his pads and, eventually, his mask. With no one willing to dole out the dollars to provide him with alternative protection or means of defence.

Unlike goalies, who protect an area six feet wide, four feet tall and 44 inches deep against six other players, superintendents protect hundreds of acres for the enjoyment of tens of thousands of golfers.

Like that hapless, hypothetical, increasingly defenceless goalie, superintendents are being stripped of traditional methods to maintain the near-pristine turfgrass conditions that modern golfers have come to demand. But they, with the support of turfgrass research foundations across the country, are actively pursuing alternatives.

Not surprisingly, those alternatives come at a cost. And that is where Canada’s golfers come in. (That would be you.)

“We are dedicated to sustainable golf,” says Sean Gunn, President of the Ontario Turfgrass Research Foundation. “Without healthy turf, there are no golf courses. We, more than anyone else, understand that we have to move away from synthetic, chemical solutions to turf diseases.

“We, as an industry, are making great progress, but we need a lot more money to continue that progress.”

Gunn is the superintendent at The Country Club, a 45-hole facility in Woodbridge, Ont. His vision is to elevate the importance of turfgrass research in the minds, and wallets, of golfers.

It’s a tough sell.

Unlike other very worthwhile but more heart-touching golf-related fundraising efforts which feature cute kids, current research efforts by the Canadian Turfgrass Research Foundation and its regional counterparts include causes such as “the effect of snow cover and anti-transparents on the persistence of snow mould fungicides,” “rolling and resistance, a means to reduced fungicide usage on golf course greens, “selection and management of creeping bentgrass for improved resistance to Fusarium Patch under current and future conditions,” etc., etc.

Cute? No. Essential? Yes.

For example, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency recently asked for input on the use of chlorothanlonil, a chemical used to control various agricultural diseases, including the chronic and pernicious “dollar spot” fungus on turfgrass. Gunn thinks the outcome of their evaluation will be the banning of its use on courses.

“Dollar-spot control costs the average 18-hole course about $15,000 every year,” says Gunn. “Dollar spot on a golf course is like the common cold for a human. It’s inevitable. Obviously, if we could discover a natural antidote or preventative, we would prefer to use that from an environmental and budget perspective. But that takes research and research takes money.”

Currently, OTRF research priorities include pesticide alternatives, environmental considerations, nutrient management, drainage improvements, and athletic field management.

Healthy turf, whether on a golf course, soccer field, park or lawn, offers myriad benefits. It reduces runoff, prevents erosion, replenishes oxygen and carbon, and so on. And it makes for that perfect lie in the fairway, a true roll on a quick green … or deep, lush rough.

“Donating to turfgrass research is an investment in the game of golf,” says Gunn. “We have good support from the industry but we need financial donations from the golfing public to continue to grow the game, literally and figuratively.”

To find out more about turfgrass research in Canada, visit www.turfresearchcanada.ca. Or, check out your regional association below.

Ontario Turf Research Foundation
Debbie Conrad
328 Victoria Rd South
Guelph, Ontario N1H 0H2
dconrad@otrf.ca
Website – www.otrf.ca

Western Canada Turfgrass Association
Jerry Rousseau
P.O. Box 698
Hope, BC V0X 2L0
exec.director@wctaturf.com

Alberta Turfgrass Research Foundation
Cory Mossing
4500-50th Street
Olds, Alberta T4H 1R6
cmossing@oldscollege.ca

Quebec Turfgrass Research Foundation
Benoit Huot
294 Rang St-Paul Sud
Sherrington, Quebec J0L 2N0
bhout@ojcompagnie.com

Atlantic Turfgrass Research Foundation
Kevin Wentzell
P.O. Box 2063 Fall River
Nova Scotia, B2T 1K6
Kevin_wentzell@yahoo.ca

In 2015, Golf Canada and the PGA of Canada partnered with the University of Ottawa to develop a Life Skills model for junior programming, designed to place added focus on core values learned through golf, and their relevance to social and peer-to-peer environments.

An important feature of the Life Skills model is the philosophy that youth should be provided with opportunities to develop both intrapersonal and interpersonal life skills through golf. Intrapersonal skills refer to skills that are more internal in nature whereas interpersonal skills refer to skills that are more useful during social interactions. In the model, four intrapersonal skills and four interpersonal skills are included to ensure a balance between these two areas of focus.

The eight Life Skills in the model are focus, sportspersonship, perseverance, goal setting, emotional regulation, honesty, teamwork and respect.

The Life Skills were first integrated into the Golf in Schools teacher-friendly learning resource, and have since been added to Canada’s junior golf program, CN Future Links, through its feature Learn to Play offering.

Lesson plans include relevant life examples, learning outcomes, and specific skill-related drills.

To find a junior opportunity in your area at golfcanada.ca/juniors