It was the shot that was heard across Canada.
Looking to end his country’s nearly 70-year losing streak at the national championship, the RBC Canadian Open, Nick Taylor got into a playoff fight with England’s Tommy Fleetwood on Sunday night at the Oakdale Golf and Country Club outside of Toronto. And on the fourth playoff hole, the par-five 18, Taylor paced from 221 yards — and after a divot in the first cut — and sank a 72-foot eagle putt to seal the dramatic win and the first Canadian to win the Canadian Open since Pat Fletcher in 1954.
“I can’t even describe it,” Taylor said afterwards. “It’s the most incredible feeling.”
Later in his press release, Taylor, who played 18th four times on Sunday and did so in 4 Unders, went over the winning putt in detail.
“Of course it took a long time,” he said. “We knew the finish line would be the best way to putt. We knew about the last 15 feet because I had them in the second playoff hole. Of course, once the rain subsided, we knew it would be slow. It’s so easy to leave the putt 10 feet behind my distance. It was of course a bit of a surprise, to be honest, that we got him there. But I felt like we learned something from that second putt that we generally knew what would do. It’s lucky that it goes in the hole. The speed is all I thought about. Tommy was probably around 12ft and I expected him to make it almost like the first playoff hole. So I tried to get as close as possible to basically knowing he had to make it or miss it to continue. It was a big but amazing surprise that that didn’t happen.”
He was then asked if the putt alongside Joe Carter’s home run to win the 1993 World Series for the Blue Jays and Sidney Crosby’s goal to win the 2010 Olympic hockey gold for Team Canada might have been Canada’s best “Where Have You Been?” moments could count .
“I don’t even know how to answer that,” Taylor said, “because those other moments were for me, like where was I when Sidney met Crosby? I was watching with college friends down in Seattle. That’s a really tough question.” Answer, because to think that I’m the person that people are thinking about is kind of breathtaking.
“So yeah, I think it’s going to take some time to grasp what just happened.”
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