Thunderous Start at PGA Championship of Canada
It was a thunderous start to the PGA Championship of Canada sponsored by Mr. Lube and presented by TaylorMade-adidas Golf Tuesday at Wyndance Golf Club in Uxbridge, Ont.
With 27 of the 32 first-round matches completed late Monday afternoon, thunderstorms rolled through much of southern Ontario suspending play for nearly two hours.
Once the weather cleared, the remaining five matches were finished before darkness set in.
As has been the case since the championship was re-launched in 2011, this year’s championship is contested as a match play event with players from the four brackets—Stan Leonard, George Knudson, Al Balding and Moe Norman—looking to advance through the five rounds to the final championship match.
Of the 32 first round matches, the lower-seeded player prevailed 17 times, including wins by the No.-1 seeded Billy Walsh, No. 3 Dave Levesque, sixth-seeded Eric Laporte, No. 7 Brian McCann and the 10th-seeded Reggie Millage.
However, there were a number of early upsets as well including the second-seeded and last year’s winner Bryn Parry lost 1-down to No. 63 Maxime Barre; No. 4 Mike Belbin losing 1-down to No. 61 Jim Zwolak; the fifth-seeded Danny King losing 3 and 1 to No. 60 Christophe Belair; No. 8 Lindsay Bernakevitch losing on the 19th hole to No. 57 Billy Houle and the ninth-seeded Brad Clapp losing 2-down to No. 56 Ed Maunder.
Other first round winners include George Lacko, Dean North, Louis-Pierre Godin, Matt Peavoy, Paul Schweyer, Walter Keating, Vincent Cacchione, Chris Learmonth, Jeff Gross, Alf Callowhill, Ian Doig, Chris Barber, Marc Hurtubise, Roger Beale, Jerome Blais, Eric Landreville, Keir Smith, Tyler LeBouthillier, Dave Wettlaufer, Brian Hutton and Kevin Senecal.
For the full bracket, CLICK HERE
With 60 PGA of Canada Player Ranking points awarded to the winner of this year’s championship, Walsh, Levesque and Laporte have an opportunity to jump to the top of the rankings pile. However, with a combination of loses by the aforementioned players, Parry still has chance at securing the No. 1 spot.
The player who sits atop the PGA of Canada Player Rankings presented by RBC at the conclusion of the PGA Championship of Canada earns an exemption into this year's RBC Canadian Open at Royal Montreal Golf Club in L'Île-Bizard, Que.
Past champions of the PGA Championship of Canada include Moe Norman, George Knudson, Al Balding, Bob Panasik, Wilf Homenuik, Stan Leonard, Lee Trevino and Arnold Palmer.
The 2014 PGA Championship of Canada sponsored by Mr. Lube and presented by TaylorMade-adidas Golf takes place June 23-27 with the Mr. Lube Tournament for Life Pro-Am kicking things off on Monday, June 23. For more information about the Pro-Am and how to be become involved, CLICK HERE
The first PGA Championship of Canada was contested in 1912 at Mississaugua Golf & Country Club.
Stay up-to-date with this year’s PGA Championship of Canada sponsored by Mr. Lube and presented by TaylorMade-adidas Golf by visiting pgaofcanada.com, twitter.com/pgaofcanada, youtube.com/thepgaofcanada and facebook.com/pgaofcanada