Familiar faces for Henderson at Ottawa Hunt

Brooke Henderson isn’t the only individual from Smiths Falls displaying personal drive this week.

Twenty-five members of the Smiths Falls Golf and Country Club, where the 19-year-old superstar learned to play the game, have signed up for four shifts each as volunteer marshals for the LPGA Tour event at the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club.

A handful of them will be among the first faces Henderson and half of the 156-player field see in the opening round Thursday from their positions on the first hole, an assignment granted to them by Kim Leclair, vice-chair of the marshalling committee. The other 78 women will tee off on No. 10, which is where Henderson is to begin her Friday round.

“People from Smiths Falls all know her well because we’re a small town, eh,” Larry McIntosh, captain of the marshalling crew, said Wednesday. “They’re on a firstname basis with a lot of people.”

The commute to Ottawa Hunt is 45 to 50 minutes for most of the Smiths Fallsians, according to McIntosh, but it’s about 75 minutes for him and his wife Theresa from their residence on Big Rideau Lake.

Vice-president of the Smiths Falls club, McIntosh said the spectacular success of Henderson, including four LPGA Tour titles in the past two seasons, had been good for it and the community overall.

Besides the roadside signs showcasing Smiths Falls as the hometown of Brooke Henderson and her older sister Brittany, herself a former national amateur team member and now Brooke’s caddy, the golf club building now has a Brooke Henderson Junior Room complete with television and lockers and McIntosh said there was a showcase area with a hologram awaiting the arrival of a Brooke Henderson golf bag.

“When you go to the golf club, everybody is, ‘How is Brooke doing?’” McIntosh said. “If she’s in a tournament, there’s always somebody on their (smartphone) saying, ‘She’s on the third hole.’ It’s constant.”

Those on duty as marshals Thursday have been told they won’t be allowed to display any overt favouritism to their hometown favourite, but it probably won’t take much to see their extra-wide smiles when the young woman who put Smiths Falls on the sports map steps to the first tee.

“What we’ve noticed is that it has brought the town together,” McIntosh said. “They did a welcome back for her when she went to the (2016) Olympics and all that and it’s just amazing the spirit that lifts the town by having somebody to watch. It creates conversation among everybody.”