Ziemer's B.C. Golf Notes: Osland beats the heat to win on Women’s All Pro Tour in Texas; Heart-breaker for Hadwin at Rocket Mortgage Classic; Ewart top-20s in Alberta
BC's Megan Osland - Image Credit Bernard Brault/Golf Canada
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Kelowna’s Megan Osland not only had to beat her opponents, she had to beat the heat to win the Oscar Williams Classic on the Women’s All Pro Tour. The 72-hole event was held in Anna, Tex., during what has been an epic heat wave in parts of the southern U.S.
“I would say most of the days it was between 40 and 45 degrees Celsius, plus the humidity,” Osland said over the phone. “I had a 7 a.m. tee time one day, so I got to the course just before 6 a,m. and I got out of the car and I just started sweating. At 6 a.m.! It was crazy. The heat was definitely a battle in itself.”
The other battle came in the final round against Elizabeth Wang of San Marino, Calif. Osland trailed Wang by one shot heading into the final round and the two were tied heading to the back nine.
“I think the turning point was on the 14th hole, a par 3,” Osland said. “She stuck it two feet and I hit it to 30 feet. I knew she was going to make her two-footer, but I drained my 30-footer for birdie. That was a clutch putt for sure.”
It came down to the 18th hole, which Osland parred and Wang bogeyed. Osland, who closed with a two-under 70 to finish the event at 10-under par, earned $10,000 for the win.
“It is huge,” the former San Jose State collegiate player said of the win. “I felt like I had been getting close the last couple of weeks. I had been doing a lot of good work with my coaches and everything was just starting to come together. I have been playing solid, but I felt like it was going to come together sooner rather than later. And it did.”
The win moved the 30-year-old Osland into a tie for sixth place on the APWT’s points race with Mary Parsons of Delta. Parsons tied for 14th in Texas. The top five players after the next three events advance directly to the second stage of LPGA Tour qualifying school.
“That is a huge carrot,” Osland said of the prospect of skipping stage 1 of Q-school.
SO CLOSE: He tied the course record with a nine-under 63 in the third round and closed with a bogey-free five-under 67 on Sunday. But Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin is still searching for that elusive second win on the PGA TOUR. Hadwin made a clutch two-putt birdie on the 17th hole that got him into a three-man playoff with Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa. But after missing his 20-foot for birdie on the first playoff hole, he watched as Fowler broke a victory drought of his own by sinking his 12-footer for birdie to win the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit.
Hadwin, whose lone PGA TOUR win came back in 2017 at Valspar Championship, earned $783,200 for his tie for second place and moved up to 35th on the FedEx Cup points list. Hadwin’s career earnings have now topped $18 million. “It was a lot of fun,” Hadwin said.
“Obviously, I would have liked to have made a couple more putts. The putt in the playoff looked really good, was just a little bit hard. But I did a lot of really good things and I am proud of the way I kept going, had some fun with it, stayed loose and tried to just enjoy the moment. Hopefully, this is a sign of good things to come.”
Adam Svensson of Surrey tied for 40th in Detroit and made $33,000. Svensson, Hadwin and Abbotsford’s Nick Taylor are all scheduled to play in this week’s John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill.
TOP-20 FOR EWART: Coquitlam’s A.J. Ewart tied for 16th at the PGA Tour Canada’s ATB Classic in Sherwood Park, Alta. Ewart closed with an even-par 72 on the Northern Bear Golf Course to finish the tournament at nine-under par, nine shots behind winner Davis Lamb of Bethesda, Md., who became the first Monday qualifier to win on PGA Tour Canada. Other British Columbians who made the cut included Richmond’s Chris Crisologo (T40), Jared du Toit of Kimberley (T47) and Aidan Goodfellow of Parksville (T50). After a one-week break, the PGA Tour Canada circuit resumes July 13-16 with the Quebec Open in Bromont.
SEASON OVER: Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald tied for 22nd at the season-ending PGA Tour Latinoamerica Tour Championship in Tulum, Mexico. Macdonald finishes the season 20th on the points list. That means he will be fully exempt for the new PGA Tour Americas circuit that starts next year and replaces the current PGA Tour Canada and Latinoamerica tours. Macdonald will likely now head north to Canada and play some PGA Tour Canada events this summer before this fall’s Korn Ferry Tour qualifying school. Macdonald has one other much bigger event on his schedule this summer. He and his wife, Carly, are expecting their first child in mid-August.
BAYONET BATTLE: James Lee, who is defending his B.C. Junior Boys title this week at Prince George Golf & Curling Club, had a terrific result at last week’s Bayonet Amateur in Seaside, Calif. Lee, a dual citizen who divides his time between the San Francisco area and Whistler, lost on the fourth-hole of a sudden-death playoff to Stanford University recruit Kush Arora. Both players had finished the 54-hole event at four-under par, four shots clear of the rest of the field.
JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT: Richmond’s Cadence Ko and Thomas Zhang of Vancouver were the winners at the recent Marine Drive Junior Invitational. Ko won the girls’ division with a 36-hole score of five-over par. That was seven shots better than second-place finisher Charlotte Tam. Ko and Tam are both junior members at Marine Drive. On the boys’ side, Zhang finished one-over par and beat Marine Drive clubmate Hyunjun Lee by two shots.
CHIP SHOT: Delta’s Jace Minni tied for 27th in his defence of the Washington State Amateur Championship he won in 2022. Minni, who is playing collegiate golf at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., is in the field for this month’s B.C. Amateur Championship at Morningstar Golf Course in Parksville.