The Dartmouth Dodge Nova Scotia Junior Championships wrapped up today, with Myles Creighton of Digby, N.S. and Meghan McLean of Port Williams, N.S. being crowned champions.

In the boys competition, Creighton was victorious after turning in a performance for the ages. He was solid all week, scoring under par all four rounds and turning in a 71 Thursday to finish at 6-under for the tournament. Creighton would end up winning by a whopping 16-strokes over Oakfield, N.S.’s Ian Lewis. However, early on it looked as though it might be a closer finish.

“It was pretty close early on,” explained Creighton. “I made a 20 foot par putt on #2 to par, Ian was playing well and I was thinking I’m going to have to play another good round to win.”

In the end, Lewis would have a rough day, and Creighton was in the driver’s seat to win his first junior title.

The win marked the third individual title for Creighton, who previously won the Midget (now Bantam), Juvenile, and now Junior Championships.

Creighton’s sixteen stroke victory was also the largest since 1950 when Bob Rae won by 18 shots over Clarence “Gabby” O’Hearn at Lingan Golf and Country Club.

Creighton said he hopes to continue his success at the Canadian Junior Boy’s Championship, both as an individual and as a member of Team Nova Scotia.

The Canadian Junior Boy’s Championship takes place July 29-August 1, 2014 at Legends on the Niagara’s Battlefield Course in Niagara Falls, Ont.

Ryan Nowe, a Bridgewater, N.S. native,  finished third and will also represent Nova Scotia in Niagara Falls.

Finishing fourth and earning the final spot on the Nova Scotia team was 14-year-old Shaun Margeson from Oakfield, N.S. who won the two day Bantam Championship on Tuesday as well.

For full results of the Dartmouth Dodge Nova Scotia Junior Boys Championship, click here.

On the girls side, Meghan McLean and Allison Chandler of Chester, N.S. made the Dartmouth Dodge Junior Girls Championship the closest event in recent memory. The pair would finish regulation play deadlocked and would head to a sudden death playoff, where McLean won on the third playoff hole.

Elizabeth Furniss of Berwick, N.S. finished third and will join forces with Meghan, Allison Chandler, and other McLean sister Heather as Team Nova Scotia at the Canadian Junior Girl’s Championship July 29-August 1 at Thornhill Golf Club in Vaughn, Ont.

For full results on the Dartmouth Dodge Junior Girls Championship, click here.

SOUTHPORT, England – Michelle Wie loves that her name is etched on the U.S. Women’s Open trophy forever. She’s looking forward to an introduction on the first tee as a major champion.

Otherwise, the 24-year-old from Hawaii is ready to put her first major championship behind her. Wie is among the favorites when the Ricoh Women’s British Open gets underway Thursday at Royal Birkdale.

Wie says winning at Pinehurst No. 2 doesn’t guarantee she will play well in the LPGA Tour’s next major. But it’s hard to ignore what she has done this year. Wie has been in the top 10 at eight of her last nine tournaments. And she has been in the last group in both majors this year.

Royal Birkdale is where Wie first played the Women’s British Open in 2005 when she was a 15-year-old amateur. She tied for third.

ABERDEEN, Scotland – From Darren Clarke in 2011 to Phil Mickelson in 2013, the last three winners of the British Open have honed their links-course game at the Scottish Open a week earlier.

So perhaps it’s no surprise that trend has lured many top players to the northern tip of Scotland, not just for a tilt at the $850,000 top prize but also for some practice of the type of shots that will be required at the year’s third major at Hoylake.

Mickelson is a Scottish Open regular who won the tournament last year before going on to capture the claret jug at Muirfield.

He will face competition this year from the likes of Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Luke Donald and fellow Americans Jimmy Walker and Rickie Fowler when the tournament gets underway at Royal Aberdeen on Thursday.

The Scottish Open has regained its luster after a couple of lean years with weak fields, which comes as no surprise to Mickelson.

“I think it’s a common-sense thing,” he said in an interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph published Wednesday.

“To win the (Scottish Open) gave me a lot of momentum. It was such a big factor because it allowed me to work on the short shots around the green, in the firm conditions. My short game was very sharp in Open week – a lot of that was due to the week before.”

After three years at Castle Stuart in Inverness, the Scottish Open has relocated even further north to the par-71 Royal Aberdeen, founded in 1780. It’s the world’s sixth-oldest golf course.

Mickelson is a big fan of the old Scottish courses – and of Scotland in general. And he has learned to embrace the quirky challenges that characterize links golf, such as playing in fierce winds and dealing with the unpredictable bounce on undulating fairways, which is some feat given his Californian roots.

He mastered it in that stunning two-week stretch last summer, culminating in a 6-under 66 on the final day at Muirfield that allowed him to pip Lee Westwood for victory at a third different major.

“It requires a lot more precision and great flight of the ball, as well as control on the ground and touch around the green. It is just the complete test,” said Mickelson, who has yet to win a tournament in 2014.

McIlroy has had mixed success in Europe this season, winning the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth – the European Tour’s flagship event – but then missing the cut at his home Irish Open a month later. He hasn’t played at the Scottish Open since 2009.

Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open winner, ended a yearlong title drought with a victory at the Quicken Loans National on the PGA Tour two weeks ago.

Former top-ranked Donald won the Scottish Open in 2011 and will partner with Mickelson in the first two rounds this year.

Nick Faldo, a six-time major winner, is also in the field. He will be playing his first regular European Tour event since 2010.

All is set for The Royal Montreal Golf Club to again stage one of the most successful editions of the RBC Canadian Open.

Tournament chair Tom Quinn says everything is ready for the return of the world’s third oldest national open golf championship to the Montreal area for the first time since 2001 and the 10^th time overall on the Canadian Open’s 110^th anniversary.

The only Canadian stop on the PGA Tour is July 24-27 on Royal Montreal’s 7,153-yard, par-70 Blue Course. It has a total purse of $5,700,000 U.S. with $1,026,000 to the winner.

“At this stage we’ve got over 1,200 volunteers, so we will be able to deal with all the issues we have in the different committees,” Quinn said this week of preparations for the 105^th edition of the tournament.

“It would be nice if we had another hundred volunteers or so, but we’re okay to do what we have to do.

Everything is basically organized from player transportation all the way through to the hospitality end of it, so that’s very positive.

“In addition all the corporate properties are gone, with the exception of one or two clubhouse tables that are left,” said Quinn. “But they’ll move this week so that’s a positive, too.”

Royal Montreal was the first permanent golf club in the Western Hemisphere, founded in 1873, and staged the first Canadian Open in 1904 won by John H. Oke of England who earned $60.

This year marks the third time in two decades the championship is at Royal Montreal after previously being played in 1997 and 2001.

The 2001 edition won by PGA Tour veteran Scott Verplank of the United States is remembered as the most successful in the history of the tournament. Upward of 110,000 spectators attended the entire week, including more than 25,000 for final round and the championship recorded an unprecedented response from the corporate community.

While it remains to be seen if that level of interest and response can be surpassed or at least duplicated this time around, Quinn is confident the table is set for Royal Montreal to once again shine.

Quinn said the response from the club’s membership has been steadfast from the time it first considered the prospect of holding another Canadian Open, and seven years after having played host to a hugely successful event in the Presidents Cup (the biennial match play between the International and U.S. teams). He’s extremely grateful for that because support is a key to success.

“That (support) was one of the really fortunate things because when I walked in to do this (position) there was already a base of people who had gone through it two or three times,” said Quinn, who succeeded Mike Richards as tournament chair. “So getting the core committees together and that, everyone stepped up right away. It was really good.”

As for the next step is the days left before many of the best golfers in the world descend on Royal Montreal, Quinn said the task is crystal clear.

“The focus now is trying to ensure we get enough spectators come out and get the opportunity to see these great players. The course can support up to 25,000 people per day, so I think if we end up throughout the course of the week with as much as we’ve done in past opens, it will be fine. It will be a good event.

“And I’m doing all I can to try to make sure we don’t get any rain,” he added.

Ste-Victoire-de-Sorel, Qué. – CN Future Links Québec kicked off its opening round today at Club de golf Continental in Ste-Victoire-de-Sorel. Leading their respective divisions are Kelvin Lim and Jason Chung in the Junior Boys division, and Alyssa Getty on the Junior Girls side.

Thornhill’s Kelvin Lim, 12, and Jason Chung, 15, fired opening rounds of 2-under-par 70 to share the lead, while Brendan Seys, 16, of Port Lambton, Ont. and Raphael Lapierre-Messier, 17, of St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Qué. scored even-par rounds to follow in a tie for third.

In the Junior Girls Division, Alyssa Getty, 17, of Ruthven, Ont. leads after carding three birdies and one bogey for an opening 2-under-70. Céleste Dao, 13, of Notre-Dame Ile Perrot, Qué. sits in second after a 2-over 74, while Jasmine Mussani, 15, of Greely, Ont. follows in third by one stroke.

Gabriel Gringas, 17, of Chelsea, Qué., provided the highlight of the day after acing the 145-yard eighth hole with a nine iron.

The top six competitors in the Junior Boys division of each of six regional CN Future Links Championships being held in 2014 earn exemptions into the 2014 Canadian Junior Boys Championship to be contested July 28 – August 1 at the Legends on the Niagara’s Battlefield Course in Niagara Falls, Ont.

The Junior Girls champion from each 2014 CN Future Links Championship earns an exemption into the 2014 Canadian Junior Girls Championship, which runs July 28 – August 1 at Thornhill Golf and Country Club in Thornhill, Ont.

The second round of CN Future Links Québec takes place tomorrow, beginning at 7:30 a.m. EST. For complete scoring and information, click here.

I recently spent a fantastic week in California culminating at the Kraft Nabisco Championship, the first major on the LPGA Tour season. I was there coaching Brooke Henderson, a 16-year-old member of Canada’s National Amateur Team, who finished in a tie for 26th. It was a very impressive performance but I can assure you there was a ton of preparation.

In the week leading up to the event we played several practice rounds. During those first few days we took notes, tried different shots and talked about how each hole may play differently from different tees or during changing weather conditions. We formulated a basic plan of A to B but with discussions about C and D. All of this practice was to be PREPARED for any possible situation during the event.

On the Wednesday the LPGA Tour hosted a pro-am, which meant we did not have access to play the golf course. We could, as many players do at their home course, have spent the day beating balls mindlessly at the driving range and counting down the hours but we didn’t. We used that time to gain more knowledge of the course by walking several holes and by watching other players. We also hit balls and spent time on the short game area. Every single shot practiced was with the tournament in mind and on the range we practiced by visualizing the golf course using our notes. You can prepare just like we did; it just takes a little imagination!

Visualize Success!

1. Consult your notes. If you don’t own a yardage book for your golf course either buy one or start creating your own. Write down carry distances rather than clubs selected as they will vary based on conditions on any given day.

2. Think of the hole you would like to play; imagine how wide the fairway would be and pick two targets that represent the

width of the fairway. Vary the angle and change up the width of the targets to best represent the shots you will actually need to hit.

3. Imagine you are on the golf course and execute the shot.

4. Depending on the result, continue playing the hole from where you think you may have landed. If you are under the trees, play a low shot or a chip out. If you are in the rough, plan your lay up to the green. You really are in control of how deeply you choose to visualize.

5. Remember to chose parameters or widths and pick a target between these points. Golf is a game of borders; hit between the edges of the fairway and you are on the fairway, hit between the pin and the edge of the green and you are on the green.

Going through this routine will not only expose you to more of the shots you are

likely to encounter on the course but also give you an idea of how well you are playing before you ever get to the first tee.

Fast facts

Garrett Rank qualified for U.S. Men’s Amateur on Monday. The 26-year-old Elmira, Ont. native will join the field at the Atlanta Athletic Club (Highland Course) in John’s Creek, Ga. starting Aug 11^th. Rank is also set to play in the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship next week.

Corey Conners, a Listowel Ont. native, made it all the way to the match play finals at the Men’s North & South Championship in Pinehurst, S.C. before losing to American Michael Cromie on Saturday. Fellow National Amateur member Chris Hemmerich of Kitchener, Ont. dropped out in the round of 16.
Leaderboard

Naomi Ko, a member of Team Canada’s Development Squad, won the B.C. Junior Girls Championship last Friday, winning by two strokes. The Victoria, B.C. native was thrilled to take home the title after finishing in third at last year’s event.
Full story

Jaclyn Lee, 17, won the Alberta Amateur last Thursday over fellow Team Canada member, Jennifer Ha. Lee, a Calgary native, took home the trophy with a 3-stroke margin at 4-under par (68-71-73). She will look to ride that momentum into next week as she hopes to capture her second consecutive Alberta Junior Girls Championship.
Full story

The week ahead

Three men and three women of Team Canada’s National Amateur Team will be in play at the Investors Group Ontario Amateur Championship from Jul 8-11 at the Club at North Halton. The men are represented by Corey Conners (Listowel) Taylor Pendrith (Richmond Hill) and Chris Hemmerich (Kitchener). Brooke Henderson (Smiths Falls), Augusta James (Bath) and Brittany Marchand (Orangeville) will make up the women.

Team Canada will also be represented by two boys from the Development Squad, Carter Simon (Sutton) and Tony Gil (Vaughan). They are both coming out of the World Junior Championship in Japan, where they helped Canada finish in seventh overall.
Men’s Leaderboard
Women’s Leaderboard

Garrett Rank and Adam Svensson will be in Bluffton, S.C. for the week to play in the prestigious Players Amateur – play gets underway on Thursday. The event features some of the best amateurs in the world and boasts past champions such as Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Bill Haas, Matt Kuchar and other current PGA stars.
Learn more

Team Canada’s Tanguay duo – Anne-Catherine and Valérie – will tee-it-up at the NIVO Québec Women’s Amateur Championship from Jul 7-9. Anne-Catherine, a National Amateur Team member, hails from Québec City and Valérie of the Development Squad is based out of St-Hyacinthe.
Leaderboard

Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee and Sabrine Garrison will tee-it-up once more at the Alberta Junior Girls Championship at the Bearspaw Country Club from Jul 8-10. Both girls just finished competing in the Alberta Amateur one week earlier, with Lee taking home the title.
Leaderboard

Surrey, B.C.’s Taylor Kim of the Development Squad will join teammate Naomi Ko in the field at the B.C. Women’s Amateur from Jul 8-11 at the Kamloops Golf & Country Club.
Leaderboard

Josh Gardner

Josh Gardner never expected to be rescuing anything more than some bad golf swings when he went to work as head pro at Canyon Meadows Golf and Country Club this past weekend.

However, the Calgarian got the shock of a lifetime when, mid-lesson, a minivan lost control and traveled onto the course and into one of the ponds.

“I heard a bang and then I saw it go airborne, through the air, right into the middle of the pond,” he told the Calgary Sun.

Gardner instructed his students to call 911 as he tried to yell for the man’s attention. When he didn’t respond, Gardner says he “just made the choice to go into the water,” which he later described as his “natural instinct” in the situation.

Gardner took action as the van started sinking, “I didn’t think twice, I just knew he was going down and someone had to get in the water and help him,” he added in his interview with the Sun’s Jenna McMurray.

The van had traveled about 20m out into the center of the pond and was sinking in water he estimates to be about 12 meters deep.

Gardner got the man free from his seatbelt, as the water rapidly passed his chest level, and swam him toward the shore where bystanders were ready to help him onto land.

Belief that someone else might have still been trapped in the van sent Gardner out into the pond again, but fortunately there was no one else inside the van as it submerged.

Divers from The Calgary Fire Department’s Aquatics Rescue team arrived and confirmed there was no one else inside of the vehicle.

The rescued driver, a man in his 40s, was taken to hospital and the cause of the incident was under investigation.

“It’s a great feeling, but really I just did what anybody would do,” he coyly added.

SOUTHPORT, England – Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson says that Tiger Woods will be on the U.S. team if he’s healthy and playing well.

But what if he’s healthy and not playing at all?

Woods is at No. 209 in the FedEx Cup and needs to get to No. 125 to qualify for the playoffs. This next month of three tournaments – the British Open, Bridgestone Invitational and PGA Championship – ultimately will decide if he’s in Gleneagles for the Ryder Cup the last weekend in September.

“He’ll be considered less of a pick then if he didn’t have a track record going into the Ryder Cup,” Watson said last week. “He’d be the first to tell you, `I haven’t been playing.’ How he’s been playing and if he’s healthy, those are the two factors that I’ll weigh in choosing him. That’s just common sense, in my opinion.”

Here’s a common-sense way to look at the next month:

-If Woods qualifies for the FedEx Cup playoffs, he’s on the team. He’ll have played good golf to get there.

-Even if he comes close to the playoffs, Watson might consider that reasonable form to be one of three picks.

-If he doesn’t feature in any of the three tournaments, and doesn’t come close to making the playoffs, Woods will have two weeks out of golf (unless he chooses to play a Web.com Tour event) before Watson has to make his picks.

“I’ll be watching Tiger as he plays,” Watson said. “He’ll be playing at The Open Championship. Hope to get together with him there and tell him my feelings. … Right now, he’s way down the list as far as points. But who wouldn’t pick Tiger Woods to be on your Ryder Cup team? That is the question to everybody. Who wouldn’t pick him?”

Fred Couples reached that conclusion three years ago for the Presidents Cup, except the timetable was different. Woods missed two majors in 2011 because of injuries and didn’t qualifying for the playoffs. Couples declared him to be on the team a month before making his picks.

“There is no reason for me to wait,” Couples said. “He’s the best player in the world forever.”

Those matches, however, were not played until November. Watson might not have that luxury.

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STACY’S MEMENTO: Stacy Lewis keeps most of her old golf clubs in the garage at home in Florida, except for three special clubs that are upstairs in a Solheim Cup bag.

One is her 5-iron that she hit into the 17th hole at St. Andrews last year, the signature shot of her victory in the Ricoh Women’s British Open. The other two are putters that produced wins – except one of those putters wasn’t meant to be there.

The first putter is what she used to win the Kraft Nabisco Championship for her first major, and then she eventually changed putters.

As for the other?

“And then the one I had most my wins – all of my wins – in 2012, I decided to bend,” she said. “I was able to bend it back, but it was not quite right.”

The smile suggested there was more to the story, and there was.

The putter was not bent for technical reasons.

“This was an `accident’ bend,” she said.

Toward the end of last year at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, Lewis was going through a spell of mediocre putting when she walked off the fourth green and slammed her putter against the bag.

On the next hole, she noticed it was bent and she could no longer use a damaged club. She went to a sand wedge to putt with the leading edge, eventually switched to a pitching wedge and even made a couple of 20-footers. She went to a pro shop and found an Odyssey putter – the Callaway staff estimated it to be 8 years old – and had it prepared to her specifications. Lewis went on to tie for second.

She learned to putt with a wedge in an emergency. She has not slammed her putter against the bag since. And while she was sentimental toward that bent putter, the new one is working out OK. Lewis already has won three times this year and is No. 1 in the world.

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OPEN PRIZE MONEY: The British Open will have the largest purse in major championship history, a record that will last for all of three weeks.

Part of that is because of a strong exchange rate in the UK, which currently is about $1.71 per British sterling.

The Open has increased its prize fund to 5.4 million pounds, which is about $9.24 million and nearly $250,000 higher than the U.S. Open and Masters this year ($9 million each). That will be topped at the PGA Championship, which this year features a $10 million purse.

The winner of The Open will receive 975,000, or about $1.67 million.

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RYO IN THE CLUTCH: Ryo Ishikawa won last week on the Japan Golf Tour for the first time in 20 months, and timing could not have been better.

By defeating Koumei Oda in a playoff, Ishikawa moved up to No. 76 in the world ranking.

The ranking this week is used as the alternate list for the British Open, and when Steve Stricker withdrew Tuesday, Ishikawa took his spot at Royal Liverpool.

Ross Fisher is the next alternate, followed by David Hearn of Canada, Daniel Summerhays and Seung-yul Noh of South Korea.

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LEHMAN & SONS: Tom Lehman has played the British Open every year since winning in 1996 at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. That streak ends this year so Lehman can spend time with his family – specifically his two sons, and he’ll be plenty involved with golf.

Lehman’s two sons, Thomas and Sean, are both playing competitive golf this summer and have two tournaments during the British Open at Hoylake and the Senior British Open in Wales. Lehman has withdrawn from both championships to support his sons in their tournaments.

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DIVOTS: Baltusrol has been selected to host the U.S. Junior Amateur in 2018, the 16th time the New Jersey course will have staged a USGA championship. That matches the second-highest number of USGA championships by any club. Merion has hosted 18 USGA events. Baltusrol, The Country Club and Oakmont are next at 16. Oakmont gets its 16th when its hosts the U.S. Open in 2016. … The R&A has appointed Mark Lawrie as its director in Latin America, where he will be involved with the Latin America Amateur Championship. He previously was head of the Argentina Golf Association. The Latin America Amateur is run by the R&A, Augusta National and the USGA. … Brendon Todd has five top 10s in his last six tournaments, starting with his win at the Bryon Nelson Championship. The exception was a tie for 17th in the U.S. Open.

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STAT OF THE WEEK: The last three British Open champions played in the Scottish Open the previous week.

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FINAL WORD: “I felt like a doughnut fresh out of the fryer, rolling around in the sugar.” – Michelle Wie, on winning the U.S. Women’s Open.

I’m giving up driving. Cars are too expensive.  Look, I just read that a new Bugatti goes for about $2.5 million. Who can afford that?

And I now realize I will never own my own house. They just cost too much. For example, the newspaper just said there is a condo in Toronto’s trendy Yorkville selling for $12.9 million.

Ridiculous logic, right? Laughable, really. Everyone knows there are much more affordable choices in cars and housing for folks in just about every income bracket. If most Canadians really want to drive a car or own a house, they can probably find a way.

But that same ridiculous, laughable logic is used by those, particularly in the media, who say golf costs too much for the average person. To bolster their phoney hypothesis, they cite the most expensive club memberships, greens fees in the $200 range, sets of clubs costing thousands of dollars. They obviously have an agenda; that being to further the erroneous and irresponsible myth that golf is an elitist sport, too costly for the hoi polloi.

They are wrong. And not just simply wrong. “As wrong as wrong can be,” as my dear old mom used to say.

First, golf club membership fees are not all in the five-figure range and annual dues are not all in excess of $5,000. (Truth be told, those are the rare exceptions.) If membership at one club is your preference, there are many across Canada where the membership/initiation fee is nominal or even waived altogether, and annual dues are well under $2,000. If you’re at the stage in life where you are fortunate enough to be able to play a lot of golf, this may be the best route. For example, if you are retired and play 60 or so rounds a season, that can work out to about 30 bucks a round. Add in the camaraderie, social and golf events, and the other amenities that accompany a membership, and I call that a bargain.

If you prefer to play a variety of courses rather than join just one, there are plenty of choices. Many courses are offering specials so it’s worth checking your local courses’ web sites regularly.

Many municipalities from, literally, coast to coast own courses where the green fee is very affordable. And if you think these are all goat pastures, you’re sorely mistaken.

Vancouver has the Fraserview, Langara and McCleery courses, plus some terrific little pitch-and-putt layouts. Fraserview, for example, is a Tom McBroom redesign with a great practice facility and a real West Coast feel. You can play it for as little as $30 for 18 holes, $21 for seniors, and $15 for juniors. In Newfoundland, the provincial capital of St. John’s has 27 holes in Pippy Park: Captain’s Hill, the original nine-hole course in the park, and Admiral’s Green. The latter is a Graham Cooke design that has hosted the PGA of Canada and both the Canadian Women’s Amateur Championship and Canadian Junior Championship. When I checked today, you could play Admiral’s Green for about $35, with the chance of sighting a whale or an iceberg thrown in for free.

In between those two coastal extremities, there are many other “munis” in centres large and small: Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Hamilton, Woodstock (Ont.), Thunder Bay, Stratford, Mississauga, Kitchener-Waterloo, Windsor (Ont.), Prince Albert (Sask.), Halifax, London, Yorkton (Sask.), Stony Plain (Alta.), Frankford (Ont.)…   the list is long. A lot have hosted provincial and national tournaments, many have historic significance, some are the products of renowned designers.

So now that you have a place to play, how about some implements? At bargain pricing, of course.

Just about every negative media mention takes perverse glee in citing top-level equipment prices: $499 drivers, iron sets for $1,299, $70 for a dozen balls, etc. Again, that is irresponsible headline-seeking misdirection. If you want new clubs, try a chain such as Canadian Tire or Costco where you can get a full set of name-brand clubs, including head covers and bag, for about $250. Used sets are available on Kijiji, ebay.ca or on forums such as torontogolfnuts.com for a fraction of their new price, as are recycled top-notch golf balls.

And don’t worry about having the latest golf apparel. Many courses are relaxing their dress codes and, in any case, outlet stores such as Winners have great golf-appropriate clothing at discounted pricing.

Think golf instruction is just for the pros or for the more affluent golfer? Wrong again. Those same municipal courses often offer group instruction and clinics (sometimes free). So do most public and semi-private courses.  Check out the local library for golf instruction books and DVDs. One great inexpensive solution for beginners is the program offered at www.getgolfready.ca.

If you can afford to drive that Bugatti and live in Yorkville, good for you.  Strangely, the mainstream media don’t assume that financial extreme is the norm.

I sure wish they wouldn’t assume that about golf.

Oakville, Ont. (Golf Canada) – Dave Levesque of Montreal and Roger Sloan of Merritt, B.C. have been extended exemptions into the 2014 RBC Canadian Open being contested July 21-27, 2014 at The Royal Montreal Golf Club in Île Bizard, Que.

Levesque recently won the PGA of Canada’s PGA Championship of Canada contested at Wyndance Golf Club in Uxbridge, Ont. With the win, he climbed into the No. 2 spot on the PGA of Canada’s Player Rankings presented by RBC.

Levesque will join fellow PGA of Canada professional Billy Walsh of Markham, Ont. in the field for the 2014 RBC Canadian Open. Walsh, who lost to Levesque in the match play final of the PGA Championship of Canada, earned his own exemption into the 2014 RBC Canadian Open by topping the PGA of Canada Player Rankings presented by RBC following the conclusion of the PGA Championship of Canada.

Levesque, who teaches the game at Pure Golf Experience, also captured the Quebec Open this past weekend. The 40-year-old picked up his second prestigious professional golf title in just two weeks at Golf de La Faune in Charlesbourg, Que. The 2014 RBC Canadian Open will be Levesque’s second PGA TOUR appearance (missed cut in 2000), an experience made even more special being contested in his home province.

Levesque wasn’t the only Canadian to pick up a winners’ cheque over the weekend and punch a ticket into Canada’s National Open Championship.

Roger Sloan earned his first Web.com Tour title with a playoff victory at the inaugural Nova Scotia Open in Halifax, N.S. The 27-year-old former Texas-El Paso player topped the field at Ashburn Golf Club’s New Course to move from No. 80 to No. 14 on the Tour’s money list through 14 of 21 regular season events.

The exemption into this year’s championship will mark Sloan’s third RBC Canadian Open appearance. In 2013 at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont. he tied for 52^nd at 2-under 286 after missing the cut in 2011 at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club in Vancouver.

“Together with our partners at RBC we are pleased to welcome Dave Levesque and Roger Sloan into the field for the 105^th playing of Canada’s National Open Championship,” said RBC Canadian Open Tournament Director Bill Paul. “Both of these talented players are riding the momentum of tremendous results and are deserving of an exemption to compete for Canada’s National Open title.”

Levesque and Sloan join a slew of other Canadians already confirmed into the 2014 RBC Canadian Open field. They are Graham DeLaet, David Hearn, Mike Weir, Stephen Ames, Brad Fritsch and Adam Hadwin; regional qualifiers Michael Gligic and Beon Yeong Lee; PGA of Canada Player Rankings leader Billy Walsh; and two-time Canadian Mid-Amateur champion Kevin Carrigan.

The Canucks will join a field that includes PGA TOUR stars such as Matt Kuchar, Dustin Johnson, Luke Donald, Jim Furyk, Hunter Mahan, Ernie Els, Charl Swartzel, Chris Kirk and recent French Open champion Graeme McDowell as well as defending RBC Canadian Open champion Brandt Snedeker.

Additional player announcements for the 2014 RBC Canadian Open will be made in the coming weeks.

For a full listing of players confirmed for the 2014 RBC Canadian Open, click here.