McCARTHY: Time is now for a Canadian golfer to win another major as Oakmont looms

National Post

a day ago

OAKMONT, Pa. — There has never been a better group of Canadian golfers on the PGA Tour and the final step to cement this generation's legacy would be to win a major championship.
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There are four Canadians in the field this week at the U.S. Open in Oakmont: Corey Conners, Nick Taylor, Mackenzie Hughes and Taylor Pendrith.
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All four of them are PGA Tour winners, all four arrive ranked inside top 50 in the world and all four of them are between 33 and 37 years old.
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After playing a practice round together ahead of Thursday's action, the Postmedia caught up with Canada's two highest-ranked golfers and asked if it ever crosses their mind as the years go by that the time to make something magical happen might be right now.
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'The game feels great. The last few years has been a really consistent good stretch, so yeah, it's time to see what I'm made of,' five-time tour winner Nick Taylor said.
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For Conners, it's about stacking up good results at big events and building confidence, something Canada's only major winner Mike Weir once told the Toronto Sun was key for him in getting over the final hump.
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'Mentally, I've always been fairly mature, but I'm always growing,' Conners said. 'I've gained confidence being out here a number of years and playing in these big events and getting myself into the mix a few times. Using that experience I'm ready to go and do it again.'
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Taylor is firing on all cylinders heading into the torture chamber that is Oakmont. The 2023 RBC Canadian Open champ finished T13 last week at TPC Toronto — taking top-Canadian honours — and finished in fourth place a week earlier at Jack Nicklaus' Muirfield Village, always one of the toughest tests on the PGA Tour. He already has a win under his belt this year in January at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
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'There's no bailout here at Oakmont, there's nothing easy. I think the positive of playing the past two weeks is that obviously Muirfield was extremely difficult and par had a value there as well,' Taylor said. 'You just have to commit. You can't be trying to steer it around here or you'll get in trouble.'
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'I can't get ahead of myself, these events are really challenging,' Taylor said. 'You can come to any event feeling good and a course like this can just get you.'
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With a reputation as a closer on Sundays, Taylor's biggest issue at majors has been making it to the weekend. At the Masters in April, he finally ended a rather shocking streak of nine consecutive missed major cuts. If his game continues to become more consistent, expect plenty of big things from the 37-year-old native of Abbotsford, B.C.