JOHANNESBURG – Ross McGowan opened a three-shot lead after two rounds of the European Tour’s Joburg Open following a sizzling 9-under 62 on Friday.

The Englishman, who regained his place on the tour this season, fired six birdies and two eagles on the par-71 West Course at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington to go 14 under for the tournament. That followed his 5-under 67 on the East Course in the opening round.

McGowan surged clear of Jean Hugo, Haydn Porteous, Anthony Wall and Felipe Aguilar, who were all 11 under.

McGowan lost his European Tour card in 2011 but came through qualifying school last year, and tied for 12th at the South African Open last weekend.

Four-time major champion Ernie Els just survived the cut after carding 70-70 for his opening two rounds.

Calgary’s Wes Heffernan has taken a new direction in his golfing career, transitioning from professional competition to high performance coaching.

Heffernan, 38, recorded nine professional victories in his 15-plus years of competition—five Alberta Open titles and four Canadian Tour victories. In 2015, Heffernan played in five Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada events—making the cut three times while adding another finish on the Web.com Tour.

Heffernan played in two majors – the 2001 and 2011 U.S. Opens, making the cut in 2011.

In his time as an amateur, Heffernan was a two-time Canadian Amateur medalist and an Alberta Amateur Champion.

He also represented Canada internationally on both the professional and amateur level, playing in the 2008 and 2007 World Cup as well as the 2000 World Amateur Team Championship in Berlin, Germany.

A candidate for membership with the PGA of Canada, Heffernan brings years of extensive playing experience to the coaching staff at the Calgary Centre—Golf Canada’s flagship facility.

“The Golf Canada Calgary Centre is certainly thrilled to announce Wes Hefferman has joined our team,” said Chad Rusnak, Director of Golf at the Calgary Centre. “Wes is a teaching professional with a long credible track record of success as a player at both the amateur and professional level and is certainly a positive and welcoming addition to our team. We are currently in the early planning stages and look forward to officially announcing Wes’s decision to join our academy team via a media day in February.”

Click here to book a lesson at the Calgary Centre.

This past fall, after roughly 800 rounds of golf, I witnessed my first hole-in-one. The non-stop flight to the hole touched down on the green a good 10 feet ahead of the target, before beginning a slow, yet steady and methodical, march toward the flag.

Dan Poppers who’d struck the pin-seeking missile had previously bemoaned the ladies seven-iron that had somehow wormed its way into his rental set at Bear Trace at Cumberland Mountain, a beauty of a Nicklaus course an hour west of Knoxville, Tennessee. After finally putting it to good use on the 14th-hole, Poppers was thanking his lucky stars for the club mishap. Still, he miscalculated the extent of his good fortune and missed the magical moment when his ball gently slipped into the jar.

He had figured his rainbow toward the flag was fixing to end up a foot or so short. So Poppers actually had his head down trying to retrieve his tee when it dropped in and he heard us hoot and holler. After Rick, Eric, and myself patted him on the back, Poppers clambered back into his cart and jotted a perfunctory one on his scorecard. He played it off all nonchalant, but this was the first ace this 69-year-old diehard golfer had recorded and nobody was buying the cool as a cucumber act.

When we got back to the clubhouse he was presented with a Bear Trace flag that we all signed and scrawled short messages on with a sharpie to mark the occasion. I wrote: “Poppin’ like it’s hot.” It was then that the enormity of the milestone finally sunk in. When he couldn’t contain his bottled up gusto any longer, he started dialing up his kids and gleefully spilled all the gory details surrounding his glorious one-and-done golf shot.

Just a couple weeks earlier on Sunday morning at The Barclays, Brian Harman airmailed his tee shot on No. 3 priority express into the four and a quarter inch cup 183 yards away. Eleven holes later he gave the gallery at Plainfield Country Club something to really remember by dealing golf’s greatest tee-to-cup parlor trick one more time, carding a 218-yard ace.

Cousin to blue-footed booby bird sightings in the northern hemisphere and buzzer beating full-court swishes in basketball, the one-and-done golf shot is our pastime’s sash-winning spectacle, and a player potting two in one round is almost unthinkable. This was only the third time in PGA Tour history that the mind-blowing deed had been done.

While the tradition calls for a round of drinks at the clubhouse, there’s not much precedent for pulling a twofer so Harman splurged, treating the assembled media to three hundred beers and a bottle of Crown. He cracked wise about it the next day on the Dan Patrick Show: “I wouldn’t wish my bar tab on my worst enemy.”

The odds of pulling a Harman and potting a pair of hole-in-ones in a single round are astronomical. Golf Digest once ball-parked the slim to none occurrence at 67 million to one.

“IN THE HOLE!!!”

To understand the strange confluence of rhyme, reason, and random acts of green rolling kindness that must conspire together to create an elusive ace, I sought the counsel of a business whose viability is dependent upon translating golf luckiness into actuarial tables.

EPA Ultimate Concepts is a Calgary based prize indemnity specialist that insures thousands of hole-in-one contests every year, running the gambit from $2,500 sink-it-and-win-it challenges on up to million dollar shot life-changers.

“We calculate the odds of an average golfer getting a hole in one in a tournament [on a 150-yard hole for men] at 1 in 15,000,” explains Alan Vinet, EPA’s General Manager.

Now in league play, where players play the same course over and over again, the odds improve to around 1 in 10,000.

LUCKY STARS

In the end, it boils down to being really lucky, and that factor often trumps skillset. “I investigate all the hole-in-ones that happen—I not only sell the insurance but I do the claims investigations. You ask what the handicap of the golfer is and it’s all over the board, ” relates Vinet.

Dealing with as many aces as Vinet does, it takes a lot to surprise him. He’s had ones hit a tree and bounce in, or skip across a pond then carom off a rock and rebound onto the green and snake in. Still his mind has been blown on occasion. One particular $100,000 winner floored him. “It was a shotgun start and this guy had rushed into the tournament and barely had time to tie his shoes.”

Winds were gusting to 60 km an hour and the hole ran along a fence that was out of bounds. He hit four-wood, not exactly a common club, and it was heading out of bounds but the mighty winds blessed his shot blowing it back into play. “It rolled something like thirty yards across the green and hit the pin,” exclaims Vinet.

With just under two decades of insuring golf aces under their belt, EPA Ultimate Concepts possesses unique knowledge of rare outlier courses where chances to make a hole-in-one are the best. Despite my incessant pleading, Vinet would not spill the beans.

“There’s one in the East, and one in the West,” he offered coyly.

BUCKING THE ODDS

“The only thing that I know that [rings true] for people to have more hole-in-ones than normal is that they hook the ball,” explains Stephen Johnston, the founding partner of Global Golf Advisors, a consultancy firm laser focused on public courses, private clubs, real estate and resorts. It was formerly KPMG’s golf practice.

Johnston isn’t just guessing, he’s speaking from experience. Aside from being one of the leading authorities on operational analysis and financial solutions in the golf biz he’s also Canada’s Ace King with a jaw dropping 51 attested hole-in-ones to his name.

Johnston got his ace train chugging when he was 12-years-old, just getting his bearings on the game and shooting in the high 90s. The scene was the 12th hole at Whitevale Golf Club, which plays 145-yards from the white tees and you need to clear Duffin’s Creek and a bunker in front to get on the green. Clutching a 4-iron and playing with his father, who had brought two of his friends along, the moment remains crystal clear in his personal highlight reel.

“To me the ball just went in the hole, I had never played a lot of golf and didn’t really understand the significance. My dad and his friends were more excited than I was.”

When it comes to secrets of his ace prowess, Johnston chocks it up to the aforementioned playing a hook and teeing it up really low, barely off the ground on par 3s. While taking dead aim is important, he likes to factor in roll before picking his target.

“When I was younger I would just aim at the flag,” Johnston explain.

“As I got older, because my shots would always land and roll, I would like to figure out if I needed to be right or left of the pin.”

See, nothing to it.

HONOLULU – A month away from turning 53, Vijay Singh showed Thursday in the Sony Open why he doesn’t spend a lot of time with players his own age.

Singh made birdie on his last two holes in gorgeous weather near the shores of Waikiki for a 7-under 63 and a share of the early lead with Ricky Barnes and Morgan Hoffmann. It was Singh’s best score at Waialae by two shots and his lowest opening round in more than three years.

Barnes made four straight birdies at the turn and closed with an up-and-down from behind the green on the par-5 18th, while Hoffman holed a 25-foot eagle putt on his final hole at the par-5 ninth to join the early leaders.

Si Woo Kim of South Korea was another shot back, while Luke Donald and Sean O’Hair were in the group at 65.

Singh won the Sony Open in 2005 when he was No. 1 in the world, a year after the former Masters and PGA champion turned in a nine-win season on the PGA Tour. But he hasn’t won since the Deutsche Bank Championship in 2008, which effectively wrapped up the FedEx Cup.

The big Fijian has been around long enough to realize that a good start is nothing more than that.

“I’ve been playing really well,” he said. “I just haven’t produced the scores. I feel I’m playing well, and see what the next three days bring.”

It helped to hole some long putts, and Singh knocked in a 50-footer for birdie on his third hole. He added a pair of 20-foot birdie putts and a 30-foot birdie putt. More than a good day on the greens, and some solid scrambling at the start, was a book.

He said his body feels better than it has in years, which certainly helps. But he found a book that he has carried with him for the last 20 years that he began reading.

“I haven’t read it for the last 10 years,” he said. “So I picked it up yesterday and started reading a few things that I’ve been doing, and it’s just a different mindset. Golf swing has been the same (so) become a lot more aggressive this year. That’s the plan, to attack the golf course instead of just trying to put it in the fairway and trying to make a good swing.”

The name of the book?

“I can’t tell you,” he said. “I’d have to kill you.”

He laughed.

It was easy to be in good spirits in the warm sun of Oahu and a 63 on his card. Singh is stick around next week for the Champions Tour opener on the Big Island. That’s what of his rare ventures onto the 50-and-older circuit, where he has played only six times since he became eligible in 2013.

Barnes and Hoffman are both trying to win for the first time, and one has been at it a lot longer than the other. Barnes has gone 205 starts on the PGA Tour since he turned pro without winning. He was runner-up at the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, and he’s had three third-place finishes in his career.

He had to return to Web.com Tour Finals to get his card back, but making it through and getting off to a reasonable start in the fall were indications that his game was on the right path. He changed coaches 18 months ago to get away from relying on his athleticism to find something more repeatable.

“Some things would click for a round, and then they would kind of go away,” he said. “But I felt like the stuff we are working on now is here to stay.”

Donald made headlines in Britain recently for sharing his thoughts about wanting to quit the game because of the struggles that knocked him from No. 1 in the world to No. 50. He said he was frustrated at the lack of progress, though his wedge game looked sharp at the Sony Open, and that’s the key to getting back in the right direction.

“Those are some fleeting thoughts seven or eight months ago,” he said. “I was feeling a bit down about my game, and I think I was in Memphis in a hard place. And my wife at the time was in Paris with Michael Jordan. I was just thinking I need to be in a higher place in Memphis right now while she’s in Paris. That was just putting it in context.”

Canada’s David Hearn shot 65 and has a share of 9th.

Tim Clark, in his first event since the anchored stroke for long putters was banned, opened with a 66.

Robert Allenby, returning to the Sony Open after a bizarre episode last year that left him with a bloodied forehead, no wallet or cellphone and no memory of what happened, hit his first tee shot out-of-bounds onto the driving range, made triple bogey and played even par the rest of the way for a 73.

PALM CITY, Fla. – With the Web.com Tour season opener just two weeks away, Young Pro Squad member Adam Svensson added another trophy to the shelf on Thursday with a win at the Palm City Classic—a Minor League Golf mini tour event.

Just one month removed from earning medalist honours at Web.com Tour Qualifying School, the 22-year-old fired an 8-under 63 for a one-stroke victory over Syracuse, N.Y., product Dan McCarthy in Thursday’s 18-hole event at the Martin Downs Osprey Creek in Palm City, Fla.

The Surrey, B.C. native will take home $1000 (USD) from the win, his first Minor League Golf Tour victory in two starts. He tied for sixth earlier in the week on Tuesday at Fountains Country Club in Lake Worth, Fla.

Sharp and focused, Svensson will embark on the next step in his career at the Panama Claro Championship from Jan. 29 – Feb. 1 at the Panama Golf Club.

Click here for full scoring.

JOHANNESBURG – Justin Walters made birdie on the last hole to take a one-shot lead after the first round of the European Tour’s Joburg Open on Thursday.

The South African made his sixth birdie of the day on No. 18 for a 7-under 65 on the East Course at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington. That gave Walters a narrow advantage over six men tied for second on 6 under.

That tie includes English pair Anthony Wall and David Howell, and Zimbabwe’s Mark Williams, who all carded 65s on the easier par-71 West Course.

Also tied for second are Haydn Porteous and Swedes Johan Carlsson and Michael Jonzon.

After missing the cut at the South African Open last week, Ernie Els opened with a 1-under 70 on the West to be tied for 69th.

The health of the game in this country relies on a myriad of factors, most notably, a commitment to put the golfer’s interests above all else. With the golfer in mind, I am sincerely thankful to the many organizations and individuals that drive the success of golf in Canada.

That gratitude starts with the 5.7 Canadians who play 60 million rounds of golf annually. Consumers make tough decisions with how to spend their recreational dollars. Golf as a sport is fortunate to have a strong base of loyal customers and casual enthusiasts that enjoy the game at 2,346 facilities from coast to coast.

Being a customer-centric business means listening to the golfer and searching for innovative ways to create meaningful engagement. It’s encouraging when golfers share their passion for the game. I’m just as appreciative of the customers who share constructive criticism. It means they care and are willing to hold the golf industry accountable.

To the 3,700 PGA of Canada professionals who represent the frontline of our industry—thank you for committing to the golfer through instruction and program delivery at the club level; for helping avid golfers, new enthusiasts, lifelong members, families and juniors get the most out of their golf experiences.

A tip of the cap goes out to the golf course superintendents who put in extremely long days to deliver a golf experience that balances playability, enjoyment and sustainability. Meeting and exceeding golfer expectations can seem insurmountable and I have a tremendous respect for the commitment of maintenance staff that are so much more than experts in growing grass.

Golf is big business. To the course operators, manufacturers and member clubs that represent an $11.3 billion impact to the Canadian economy—thank you for underwriting the risk of the Canadian golf industry. For most of us, golf is a game but for operators, club managers and other industry partners with a financial stake in our game, golf is a competitive business uninsulated from economic uncertainty.

No single factor has a greater impact on the game than weather, so a debt of thanks is owed to Mother Nature for shining a kind eye on the 2015 golf season. Conditions in most regions of the country were exceptional, and it showed with 9.8% uptick in rounds played nationally versus 2014 based on Rounds Played and Weather Reporting from the National Golf Course Owners Association Canada. The highest increase in rounds played was Alberta (13.2%), followed by Saskatchewan/Manitoba (8.4%), British Columbia (6.5%), Ontario (6%) and Quebec (5%). The lone dark cloud was an 11. 6% decline in Atlantic Canada based on an extremely late start to the season. Overall it was a season of sunny skies for course operators which fuels great optimism for 2016.

To the 37,000 charity events held annually at golf courses—thank you for leveraging our sport to raise funds in communities across Canada. Each year, more than $533 million in charitable giving is generated through golf and I applaud participants and charity event organizers for being a part of this wonderful story.

To the talented professionals, competitive amateurs, rising stars and legends of Canadian golf—thank you for inspiring us with your play and for showing the world that Canada can be a force on the international golfing stage.

Volunteers have long been the driving force behind golf in this country and enough can’t be said to thank the tens of thousands of individuals that give their time to make the game better. The same is true for the many sponsors and local supporters that align their brands and their businesses with Canadian golf.

Kudos as well to our closest partners—the staff and volunteers at the 10 provincial golf associations with whom we share a vested stake through membership, program delivery, junior golf and player development. I would be remiss if I did not extend a heartfelt thank you to the staff at Golf Canada for their enthusiasm and commitment to both our sport and our association.

Finally—to the individual members and member clubs that Golf Canada has the honour to represent, a most sincere thank you for supporting golf in this country and for sharing in the celebration of this great game.

HONOLULU – Jordan Spieth has an endorsement with another major company, signing on as a brand ambassador for Coca-Cola.

Spieth is No. 1 in the world and is coming off an eight-shot victory to start the new year. The Masters and U.S. Open champion has his second endorsement with a Fortune 100 company. He also has a corporate deal with Dallas-based AT&T.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Spieth last year rose to the top of golf with two majors and the Tour Championship, which Coca-Cola sponsors, that gave him the FedEx Cup title and a $10 million bonus.

The partnership with Coca-Cola will cross all forms of advertising, including the “6-Pack of Olympians and Paralympians” leading up to the Rio Games. Golf is back in the Olympics for the first time since 1904.

Proud to join Team @CocaCola and partner with such an iconic American brand. https://t.co/Nf3dhz9fCU

— Jordan Spieth (@JordanSpieth) January 13, 2016

When the Kingston & District Sports Hall of Fame welcomes its 2016 class, a long-time member of Golf Canada’s devoted group of volunteers will be among its five honourees.

Barbara Allan – who has volunteered with Golf Canada in several capacities and on a number of committees – has demonstrated a strong dedication to the game, not only in her home province, but also across the nation. For her commitment and service to golf, she will be inducted in the Hall’s builder category.

The former President of the Golf Association of Ontario works diligently at the club, district and provincial levels and is the Chair of Handicap and Rules at Garrison Golf and Curling Club in Kingston. She has served on the duty roster of officials at each of Canada’s National Open Championships – the RBC Canadian Open and the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open.

In 2014, Golf Canada presented Allan with its Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her tireless efforts and boundless passion in the promotion of Golf. This year, she will once again Chair the Amateur Championships Committee and will act as Tournament Chair for various Golf Canada championships.

Since its first induction class in 1996, the Kingston & District Sports Hall of Fame has welcomed the area’s most gifted athletes and its most earnest builders to commemorate their contributions to 33 sports and sport-related fields.

With the induction ceremony for its 21st class on May 6 at Our Lady of Fatima Parish Hall, the Hall of Fame’s membership will grow to 163.

Allan will become the 11th member of the Hall to be inducted in the sport of golf, joining:

• Allan Douglas Atkins – 2000 – Builder
• Ronald Brown – 1998 – Athlete
• Katherine Cartwright – 2000 – Athlete/Builder
• Jennifer Ellis – 2015 – Athlete
• Richard H. Green – 1996 – Athlete
• Jim Halliday – 2008 – Athlete
• Robert Londry – 2006 – Athlete/Builder
• Caroline Mitchell – 1996 – Athlete
• Katherine O’Neill – 2006 – Athlete/Builder
• Anne C. Turnbull – 2006 – Athlete/Builder

Motivated by his growing family and feeling better than he has in more than a year, Graham DeLaet is happy to be back on the PGA Tour.

The Canadian golfer will be in the field this week at the Sony Open in Honolulu, along with countrymen David Hearn, Nick Taylor, and Adam Hadwin.

DeLaet, who turns 34 this month, played three events in late 2015 as part of the PGA Tour’s Fall Series – the official start of the 2015-’16 PGA Tour season – and earned US$52,795.

After his final putt dropped at the Sanderson Farms Championship in November, the native of Weyburn, Sask., rushed home to more important matters. His wife, Ruby, gave birth to twins – Roscoe Fawce and Lyla Victoria – on the Tuesday after the tournament concluded.

DeLaet admitted he wasn’t grinding on the driving range after his kids were born, but he has played a few rounds with friends near his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“The last couple of weeks when I was home, my wife and I talked and I was like, ‘`I have to get working again, it has to happen,”’ DeLaet explained. “My game is feeling pretty good. Right after Christmas is when I got pretty serious again and did a lot of work in those few weeks.”

Now, DeLaet begins a new routine as both a professional golfer and a father. His trip to Hawaii was the first without his children.

“I was so lucky that they were born when they were and I was able to hang out with them for the first two months of their lives. It was tough to leave them, that’s for sure,” he said. “It’s pretty fun though. You have to be selfish as a professional golfer, and for the first time in my life I’m not being selfish and it’s pretty nice.”

DeLaet has also been able to recover from injuries he suffered last summer. A thumb injury forced him to withdraw from the RBC Canadian Open, miss the PGA Championship, and cause him to limit his schedule to 22 events – his lowest total since 2012.

He earned $988,349 for his efforts in 2015 with three top-10 finishes. But it was the first time since 2011 (when he suffered a serious back injury and only played in two tournaments) that he didn’t crack the $1-million mark.

“It was frustrating for sure,” he said. “It was not ideal timing by any means. It was disappointing for it to happen when it did.”

Now fully healthy, DeLaet said his biggest goal of the year is to represent Canada at the Olympics.

“It would be amazing, honestly,” he explained. “No matter who goes for Canada, it’ll be a great team. But I want to be on that team, 100 per cent.”

He sits second in the qualification standings behind Hearn, who is coming off his best season on the PGA Tour. The top two Canadian men in the Official World Golf Rankings at a certain point later this year will be Rio-bound, along with the top two women.

Taylor and Hadwin admit they have similar Olympic aspirations. Both sit within shouting distance of Hearn and DeLaet’s current standing.

“(The) Olympics are definitely a huge goal for me this year,” said Taylor. “I put myself in a position to make a run up the world rankings and hopefully have a chance heading into the summer. It would be an amazing experience.”

Hadwin concurs.

“(I want to) go out each week, put myself in contention and see what happens from there. If the Olympics happen for me this year, then I know I’ll be having a great year,” he said.

Hadwin and Taylor state they feel confident this year – their second season as full-time Tour members. Hearn and DeLaet, meanwhile, are both entering their seventh year on Tour.

And with a renewed sense of excitement on and off the course, DeLaet is eager to get things started.

“There’s a lot of pressure no matter what when you’re playing on the PGA Tour, but I know it’s going to be a lot easier if I play a poor round and my wife is there with our two kids and I can pick them up and hold them,” he said. “I think it’ll erase how bad rounds might feel pretty quickly. I want to play well for them.”