SKY’S THE LIMIT FOR ST-GERMAIN AT OPEN
Local golfer prepared for tournament with team practice, extra rounds — and skydiving
Grace St-Germain has done the things elite golfers are expected to do to prepare for the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open. She has played practice rounds at Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club and practised on her own and with Golf Canada women’s amateur squad teammates.
It’s virtually certain that skydiving wasn’t on the list, but the Orléans resident took that leap anyway, attached to a qualified expert.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do since I was little,” she said after another practice round Monday.
“I guess I’ve always been a little bit of a daredevil. For my 19th birthday (Aug. 3), my parents and some family friends set up that she would take me skydiving. I guess it was just a little bit of a relaxing day, sort of, before the event.”
Though St-Germain always hoped she would receive an invitation to play, her entry was only confirmed on Aug. 14 for the first LPGA Tour event in Canada’s capital since the 2008 Women’s Open, also at Ottawa Hunt.
“I spent the whole week out here, watching everything,” said St-Germain, who was then only 10, “and I was like, ‘I want to do that one day,’ and to be here, playing the same event that I watched, is really cool.”
This won’t be St-Germain’s first inside-the-ropes experience with professional golf — she shot 72 and 79 in the Manulife LPGA Classic in June — but that tournament site was in Cambridge, Ont., and this one is less than a halfhour’s drive from home.
The other three amateur team members in the field this week have all played at least one previous Canadian Women’s Open. One of them, Jaclyn Lee, was the leading amateur in last year’s tournament near her hometown of Calgary.
Maddie Szeryk of London, Ont., who played Monday with StGermain and South Korean pro Hyo-Joo Kim, the winner of the 2014 Evian Championship and two regular LPGA Tour events, is in her third Canadian Women’s Open. In 2015, she missed the cut at Priddis Greens Golf and Country Club (73-72) and at Vancouver Golf Club (75-74) in Coquitlam, B.C.
“You just have to think of it as another tournament,” Szeryk said. “It’s still golf. We’re still hitting the same shots. Just kind of focus on what you’re doing and just kind of take it shot by shot and go from there. It’s still golf. Just soak it in and have fun with it.”
National team head coach Tristan Mullally said playing in an LPGA Tour event on home soil was a treat for these golfers because it was a low-risk developmental opportunity to assess themselves against top-calibre competition and to get a taste of the environment they’d be in if they become tour professionals.
“It’s kind of a free-for-all this week for them because they get to come and have fun and go and see where they’re at, but there’s no pressure on them,” Mullally said. “They’re not trying to make money (like tour pros). If they do fantastic, well, that’s great. If they do average, well, that’s OK, too.
“There’s no real expectations on them when they come here.”
Maybe not, but it would be nice to play well enough to survive the cut to ties for 70th or better after the second round, scheduled for Friday. Playing on the weekend would also fill in two more days on St-Germain’s calendar before her second year at Daytona State Junior College.
She plans to fly to Florida next Monday, missing the first day of fall classes. The good news is she only has one class that day.
After one more year with the Falcons, who won the 2017 National Junior College Athletic Association team championship — St-Germain tied for third individually — the graduate of John McCrae Secondary School will head to the University of Arkansas for her final two years of eligibility.
“I’ll just see how it goes” this week, she said. “I’d like to put together two rounds under par and see where that gets me.”
Besides her stint among the LPGA Tour pros in June, StGermain said she had talked with Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member Lorie Kane of Charlottetown a few times and with Hamilton’s Alena Sharp during a recent golf clinic.
“So it’s not like being thrown into the sharks,” she said. “Not that they’re sharks. Everyone is so nice.”
It should probably be noted that one of the “sharks” of 2017 was just another 10-year-old outside the gallery ropes at Ottawa Hunt in 2008. Now Smiths Falls’ Brooke Henderson is a four-time LPGA Tour winner and No. 10 in the world rankings.
“Brooke definitely has the limelight, and deservedly so in terms of the events she has won and how she has played,” Mullally said, “but, if you look back, a lot of the players who have started to emerge were second in a lot to Brooke in those tournaments and were kind of chipping away and maybe went a little unnoticed.
“Now we have more (Canadians) on the LPGA and the Symetra Tour than we have ever had, so the pool is deep.”