The homegrown talent was on full display in the opening round of the RBC Canadian Open on Thursday with both Adam Svensson and Taylor Pendrith impressing among the morning wave from the TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley.
Svensson fired an opening-round 5-under 65 to grab a share of second place on the leaderboard, while Pendrith signed for a 4-under 66 for a T10 from the Caledon, Ont. course.
Svensson, a native of Surrey, B.C., played a clean round with no bogeys through the first 18 holes at the national open. He went out in 33 with birdies at the 12th and 16th, before adding more red numbers to his scorecard at the first, second, and fifth to come in with a 32.
This ties the second-lowest round of Svensson’s season through 12 starts, and is also just the second time this year that he has made it through the opening round without dropping a shot.
The 2022 RSM Classic winner gained strokes on the field in all four categories during his opening round, while hitting 15/18 greens in regulation.
Svensson has made just three cuts at the Canadian Open in nine starts dating back to 2013, but now appears to be in position to challenge his best career finish, a T21, coming in 2022.
Pendrith, of Richmond Hill, Ont., did not quite get off to the start he was looking for Thursday after finding the drink with his approach on the first hole of the day.
He would brush off the ugly start though, dropping in birdies at each of the next four holes to quickly get back down to 2-under.
He would match Svensson’s front-nine 33 before making the turn, and would add another two birdies on the back to set himself up nicely heading into Friday’s round.
Pendrith was ranked first in the field with 3.466 Strokes Gained: Putting on Thursday, a massive improvement from his season-long ranking of 138th.
Amateur golfer Eric Zhao (North York, Ont.) also found himself among the names in the mix at 3-under, while Ben Silverman (Thornhill, Ont.) and Roger Sloan (Calgary) both came in at 2-under.
American Sahith Theegala held the clubhouse lead at 6-under as the afternoon wave took to the course.
