Jun 24, 2019
Monday Notes: Canadian caddies win again
Kingston, Ont.’s Nate Blasko carried the bag for Hannah Green as she won the KPMG PGA Women’s Championship last weekend, Bob Weeks writes.
By Bob Weeks
For the second straight week, a Canadian caddie helped his player win a major. After Brennan Little of St. Thomas, Ont., assisted Gary Woodland to the U.S. Open crown a week ago, Kingston, Ont.’s Nate Blasko carried the bag for Hannah Green as she won the KPMG PGA Women’s Championship.
Blasko is relatively new to caddying, having worked for fellow Kingstonian Augusta James before landing the job with Green. In fact, the victory with Green is his first title as a bag-toter.
“I’m pretty much a rookie caddie out here,” Blasko told Michael Collins of The Caddie Network. “This was new to both of us.”
When Collins asked Blasko what the win meant to him, the looper was brutally honest.
“Nothing,” he stated. “I don’t think anything, really. It’s business as usual.”
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Seven Canadians are in the field for this week’s inaugural run of the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, Mich. That includes Mike Weir who was given a sponsor’s exemption.
Weir’s hometown, Brights Grove, Ont., is just a short jaunt from the site of the event and he’s expecting a large contingent of supporters from the Sarnia area. It will mark his fourth PGA Tour start in the last six weeks.
Weir is excited to play close to his home and also in the city of his favourite NHL team, the Detroit Red Wings.
The other Canadians in the field are Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, Roger Sloan, Adam Svensson, Ben Silverman and Nick Taylor.
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Speaking of Weir, he shares a golf instructor with last week’s PGA Tour winner, Chez Reavie. Mark Blackburn has been guiding both players and the results speak for themselves.
Reavie had a tie for third at the U.S. Open prior to his win at the Travelers Championship, while Weir’s game is finally showing signs of returning to form.
Reavie, the 2008 RBC Canadian Open champion, has other ties to Canada too. One is a continuing sponsorship with juice and smoothie company Booster Juice. The native of Wichita, Kan., wears the company’s logo on his sleeve and has done so for more than a decade.
He also wore clothing from the now-defunct Canadian men’s wear company Quagmire.
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On Olympic Day, it’s appropriate to recognize Alena Sharp’s improvements so far in 2019. The 2016 Olympian has been playing steady golf this season and seeing improvements in her overall game. She finished tied for 53rd at the KPMG PGA Women’s Championship over the weekend.
Sharp’s scoring average through her first 11 starts is 71.65, almost a stroke lower than her average for the 2018 season. She’s also posted nine rounds in the 60s, a vast improvement over the 10 she fired all of last year. Two of those rounds came two weeks ago at the Meijer LPGA Classic where Sharp finished tied for ninth, her second top 10 on the year.
With the next Olympics just 13 months away, Sharp is working on her game with an eye on another appearance at the Games, representing Canada in Tokyo next July.