PGA TOUR
Ludvig Aberg made a seven-foot birdie putt on the final hole, capping off a stretch of five birdies over his final six holes to win the Genesis Invitational by one stroke. It is his second PGA Tour title, moving him up to No. 4 in the world rankings. Three weeks ago the Swede lost his chance at a win on the same course but at a different tournament when he shared the lead entering the final round only to get violently ill from a stomach ailment and finish with a round of 79, dropping him 34 places. Maverick McNealy, who started the final round with eight birdies in his first 11 holes, had a bogey down the stretch and missed an 18-footer for birdie on the final hole to finish runner-up. After shooting his highest score in almost three years, Scottie Scheffler was 10 shots better on the final day to finish in a tie for third with Patrick Rodgers. The tournament was relocated to Torrey Pines from Riviera due to the wildfires in Los Angeles. ..Nick Taylor picked up his second top-10 result in six starts, equalling his start from a year ago. …Corey Conners earned his third top-30 finish of the year.
| POS | SCORES | TOTAL | |
| T9 | Nick Taylor | 74-71-69-68 | -6 |
| T24 | Corey Conners | 72-74-73-67 | -2 |
| T50 | Taylor Pendrith | 74-74-75-71 | +6 |
| 52 | Mackenzie Hughes | 74-73-74-75 | +8 |
| MC | Adam Hadwin | 83-71 |
NEXT EVENT: Mexico Open (Feb. 20)
CANADIANS ENTERED: Ben Silverman, Adam Svensson
PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS
Justin Leonard birdied five of the last seven holes to win the Chubb Classic by four strokes. It is his first Champions Tour win in his 45th start and first since he last tasted victory on the PGA Tour in 2008. Leonard’s four-stroke win is the largest margin of victory this season. Billy Andrade, who was looking for his first win since 2015, finished runner-up for his best result on the Champions Tour since a second-place finish in 2019. Darren Clarke was third for his 10th top-3 result on tour. Despite finishing 11th after a birdie-less final round 75, Ernie Els took over the top spot in the Charles Schwab Cup standings. …Defending champion Stephen Ames picked up his second top-30 finish of the year.
| POS | SCORES | TOTAL | |
| T27 | Stephen Ames | 72-71-70 | -4 |
NEXT EVENT: Cologuard Classic (Mar. 7).
Filmmakers Brittney Gavin and Amy Mielke’s documentary, “Apex: The Black Masters” features interviews with 44 people. But Gavin says the main character of the film does not have a speaking role.
It’s the community itself.
The Apex Invitational Golf Tournament was the first Black golf tournament in Nova Scotia and began as a small affair in Truro. It’s grown considerably, having celebrated its 50th anniversary last summer after starting with just 10 participants.
Gavin and Mielke and a camera crew were along for the ride.
“I’m happy it came through that we wanted to make the community the main character. So many people have added their little piece, and that’s the reason why (the tournament) has been able to exist for 50 years,” Gavin says.
In Truro, there are three Black communities that are geographically different but socially intertwined – the Island, the Hill, and the Marsh. The film focuses on the Island, as the golf course is in the backyard of the people who live there. The district got its nickname, the Island (not to be confused with Prince Edward Island, as was affirmed and re-affirmed in the film) because it was often isolated by flooding during periods of heavy rain.
“Golf is intertwined into their lives and the community and in the film there are shots that will show (that). The film is about that relationship between the golf course and the community that has evolved quite a bit over time,” Gavin says.
Gavin has a personal connection to the two-day event, having known about it for her entire life. Her birthday is Aug. 9, and says her mother was, at nine months pregnant, at the golf tournament the weekend before Gavin’s birth – since it’s always the first weekend of August. Filming the documentary Gavin was eight months pregnant herself, she said in a recent interview with the CBC, so it was a full circle moment for her.
Gavin, a Halifax-based filmmaker, doesn’t golf. And while the documentary’s main thread is about the golf tournament itself – and it even weaves in results from the 50th playing of the event – the focus is really on the people involved.
With a laugh, Gavin says she “for sure” thought there would be plenty of conversations with golf enthusiasts. But one of the first people she spoke with, Jude Clyke (who is one of the tournament committee members) said – and it is repeated on camera – that he doesn’t “give a damn” about golf.
“That had to make the film, of course,” Gavin says, smiling. “There are people who go to the tournament who have never played golf, don’t care about golf. But for them, and the folks that attend year after year, it really is about that community homecoming.”
Over five decades the tournament itself has evolved, of course, and now includes a very important scholarship portion to the weekend’s festivities. Local community members have raised $113,000 for students in the area to help with post-secondary education. More than 140 scholarships have been given out.
“If nothing else, knowing that your community backs you in your future endeavors is just so important. The committee is very proud of the scholarship fund. It’s very much a priority of the tournament now and has become a piece (that has made it) more than about golf.”
The film intertwines stories of the past with a lookahead to the future. But, perhaps, the most poignant of all is a full-circle moment when the club – founded in 1905 – holds a reconciliation ceremony with the community and makes Darrell Maxwell, the founder of the tournament and who is now 74, just the 16th honorary member in its history.
The Black community was originally barred from playing the course. That could have held them back, but Maxwell – and so many others – would, for example, just go to the course and play as many holes as they could starting at 5 a.m. before it opened officially. Even now, Gavin says, some of the older-generation golfers drive right-handed but putt left-handed – because a left-handed putter was all that was available to them to use.
“I can’t even imagine how long overdue that must have felt. Just from my perspective as a filmmaker we weren’t sure if the golf course would be interested in telling the story as it happened. It was obviously unflattering. The president had to take accountability for policies he obviously wasn’t a part of. I was just happy that the golf course wanted to tell the same story as us, and the golf course wanted to tell the history as it happened,” Gavin says. “With the Black community, we’re often used to those topics being skirted around. For someone to affirm it, that was incredibly positive.
“For a lot of folks from the Island, it felt long overdue.”
The documentary, which is now streaming on CBC Gem, was both a passion project and an important piece of history for Gavin. And she’s so thrilled that the main character, the community, got its most-deserving spotlight.
“We did those 44 interviews […] I’ve never experienced that in the film world and people who were able to speak so naturally to the camera,” Gavin says. “But when you really care about something and you’re passionate about something it just comes easy.”
How does the No. 1 Ball in Golf continue to get better year-after-year?
Well, 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the iconic Titleist Pro V1 (with its sibling product, the Pro V1x not far behind) and it’s a product that continues to out-perform itself with each passing season – in the most impressive of ways.
A quarter-century of breakthrough ball innovation came with the new Titleist Pro V1 and Pro V1x (which was introduced in 2003) golf ball launch in October. The balls have, over the last 25 years, been played in competition on the PGA Tour more than six times the nearest competitor. The challenge for the Titleist R&D department over the last two-plus decades, however, has remained constant: How do you make the best performing, most consistent golf balls in the game even better?
The team works through a collaborative process that has no beginning or end – it’s rooted in continuous feedback, rigorous testing, world-class manufacturing, and then performance validation.
“If you look at the early success of players who achieved record-setting performances, the results spoke for themselves.”
The new Pro V1 and Pro V1x is the big equipment story for Titleist, a long-time Golf Canada partner, in 2025 and the new golf balls are chalk full of little improvements to help golfers – no matter their skill level.
They’re both engineered to deliver more speed off the tee, more spin with the wedges, and more control with the irons. All the new models boast a faster high gradient core – re-worked to maintain low long-game spin, increase ball speed, and add spin on shots into and around the greens.
Both the Pro V1 and Pro V1x have similar durability (and are very similar off the tee) but the Pro V1x spins more on iron and wedge shots into the green and the Pro V1 has a softer overall compression (Pro V1x is firmer because of its dual core construction).
“The golf ball has to do everything,” says Frederick Waddell, Titleist’s Director of Golf Ball Product Management. “Each of our golf ball models is optimized for distance off the tee, and with 2025 Pro V1 and Pro V1x in particular, we’ve realized a speed gain while unlocking even better iron and wedge performance. All of which will help players shoot lower scores.”
Other new products from Titleist in the early part of 2025 include new Scotty Cameron Studio Style putters (12 models available and dubbed the, “most significant re-design” of the Scotty Cameron blade putter offering in recent history) and the launch of the all-new GT1 driver, fairway wood, and hybrid (an ultra-lightweight configuration designed to deliver fast ball speeds, high launch, and increased stability), while new Titleist irons are set to come out in August.