HAMILTON, Ontario – Step right up, folks, and see if you, too, can make a 72-foot putt!
Here, north of the border, they refer to it simply as “The Putt.” Amid a steady rain, the 72-foot eagle bomb at Toronto’s Oakdale Golf and Country Club by Abbotsford’s own Nick Taylor on the fourth hole of a sudden-death playoff ended a 69-year drought of a Canadian not winning its national open.
“Still can’t believe it’s been a year,” Taylor said on Wednesday in his pre-tournament interview ahead of his title defense at Hamilton Golf & Country Club. “It’s been a fun ride.”
When his long-range bomb dropped, Taylor tossed his putter into the air and leaped into the arms of caddie Dave Markle, a former teammate on Canada’s amateur team, after the longest made putt of his PGA Tour career.
“My distinct memory is seeing Dave charge at me, kind of his face. Then the rest of it is kind of a blur,” Taylor recalled. “I’ve seen the replay enough now that I kind of have that visual almost now instead of my own perception. Yeah, I’ve seen so many angles now, it’s really cool to see different people’s reaction. I feel when my wife and I see it we find a different person to look at and see how they reacted, which is pretty fun.
Golf Canada is giving every spectator at this week’s RBC Canadian Open a chance to see if they can duplicate Taylor’s feat.
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So, yes, step right up and try your luck at the RBC Community Junior Golf 72-Foot Putt Challenge. For $20, fans receive two chances to hole a putt of the same length as Taylor’s iconic championship winner. Nail it like Nick and you’re rewarded with a new Scotty Cameron putter and upgraded passes for that day at the Open. (At press time, 22 contestants had holed it, including nine on Friday!)
Proceeds from the contest benefit the First Tee program that brings golf into elementary and middle school phys-ed classes in Canada.
After Taylor finished his pro-am round on Wednesday, he stopped by the challenge hole to help some First Tee kids give his long-range bomb a shot. One nearly made it.
Then it was Taylor’s turn. His first attempt slid right and a little long. His second stopped about a foot wide to the left. Turns out 72 feet is as hard as it looks.
“You don’t have a whole lot of 72-footers in practice or in tournaments,” Taylor told the Hamilton Spectator. “It was a one-in-a-million type shot.”
While he couldn’t pull it off this time, he rediscovered the magic at a charity event back home in his native British Columbia a few months ago.
Make that a 1-in-500,000 type putt.
