Big things happening for Canada in the PGA this weekend!

Swing of the putter. Comes up with some speed. Now up the rise. For the eagle. For the win! To the cup!

Take it! Yes! Yes!

Yes! The crown is over! The crown is over! Nick Taylor with the eagle!

The 2023 RBC Canadian Open Champion! History! History!

To your exception, he's an icon now in this country! Unbelievable! That was Nick Taylor rolling in a 2,195 centimeter putt on the third playoff hole.

You heard that if you were listening on Sirius XM PGA Tour Radio. My friend Brad Fritsch, a fellow Canadian. Holy cow!

Thoughts, real quick. Who was that, by the way, since you sent me the clip? Yeah, that was Mark Zucchino. He's PGA Tour Radio, and I don't know if you could tell, Adam, but he's Canadian also. Oh my, he rolled right in there with the two-year exemption! Yeah, I think he said, I think he may have cut out the 500 FedEx cut points too, which I'm sure was on Nick's mind at that very moment. I'm sure he was. Look, he's just happy that Adam Hadwin didn't get put on the IR after the security guard tackled him with a bottle of champagne.

Alright, explain to me what, it's been 69 years since a Canadian has won their National Open. And by the way, shouts to Jim Nance. I didn't even realize it in real time, but I heard it today. He worked in a quick lyric from O Canada in the call on CBS.

We have to play that later. He did, yeah. Glorious and free. Yes, he did. He should have done it in French. Glorious with a U, by the way.

Oh, really? You do add U to most words in the Canadian language. Yeah, color, absolutely.

Honor, absolutely. Explain to me the impact of something like this. It's probably a little bit of a kind of an upset that since there have been so many, especially over the last 10 years, 15 years, so many great players from Canada that we haven't had a Canadian win.

But what does this mean? Yeah, the ebbs and flows of Canadians on the PGA Tour. Sometimes there's three or four.

Sometimes there's six or seven. I believe now there's eight full-time players, which is certainly a Mike Weir impact and inspiration from back in the early 2000s when he won the Masters and a couple of other PGA Tour events. He certainly played a big part in kind of this generation of Canadian golfers on the PGA Tour. I don't know if it's an upset that guys haven't won because, you know, if you go down the list of guys who have won PGA Tour events, Adam Hadwin has one neck out now has three. Adam Spencer has one.

Corey Connors has two, I believe. So it's not like they're winning a ton. It's just great whenever one of them wins, because honestly, the Canadian wins on the PGA Tour are few and far between.

It's just how it goes. It's a small nation. It's a golf crazy nation, but we're certainly outnumbered by mostly Americans on the PGA Tour, and that's fine.

The impact, it's funny. I always tried to downplay playing in the Canadian Open because I suppose I just didn't want to face my fears. It's a bigger week. It's definitely a major championship in the eyes of Canadian players. Canadian fans let you know, like Nick said yesterday, they're behind you 100%.

They're very vocal, and while the support is fantastic, it also comes with a lot of pressure. You'll never be able to find it, most likely, but Mike Weir kind of melted down at Glen Abbey back in, I can't remember what year it was, but he lost to Vijay Singh in a playoff after missing a short putt in regulation. Vijay did apologize. He tapped in for the win, and Vijay said, sorry, Mike. It was just a devastating moment in Canadian golf at that time. This kind of brings it all full circle, redeems the Canadian PGA Tour player.

What a moment. I was just on another radio station back in Ottawa, and it would have been different if Nick lagged it up there, Fleetwood missed his 18-footer, and Nick tapped in for the win. It would have been completely different.

It would have felt different. It was still the same, but that's one of those golf tournaments and sporting events. I'll never forget that, and I'm sure a ton of Canadian golf fans will never forget that. It's just so impactful back home. It's great for Golf Canada.

It's great for RBC. It's great for the PGA Tour because look how the week started. In a sea of negativity, players apparently threatening a walkout, Shane Lowry calming them down apparently, and just the way it ended with another fan favorite on the other side of it, Tommy Fleetwood. If you asked a Canadian golf fan, hey, Tommy Fleetwood was in a playoff. Oh, I'm going to cheer for him.

They would. They cheer for European players by and large after Canadians, and he would have been a fan favorite, but guess who was on the other side? Nick Taylor, Canadian, former number one amateur in the world when he played at the University of Washington, and now a three-time winner and having a great season. You think he's now sixth in the FedEx Cup ranking?

Yeah, something like that. The highest I'm sure he's ever been, but playing obviously just amazing golf right now. One more nugget about Nick Taylor. He holds the record for lowest score ever by an amateur in the United States Open.

He shot a 65 at Bethpage to make the cut in his second round in 2009, the year that Lucas Glover, yes, Lucas Glover, won that U.S. Open. So this obviously, Brad Fritsch is joining us here, this obviously makes up for the fact that a Canadian team has not won the Stanley Cup since 1990. Apparently there are a ton of Canadians on Vegas, so I'm told that it's okay to cheer for them.

I am not. I'm pulling for the Panthers. I like the underdog story of them despite beating the Canes. Speaking of the Canes, I wanted to give you a kind of an Eric Tulski-like stat since he still works for the Canes. A 72-foot putt on the PGA Tour. The expected putts from there, 2.31. The make percentage, 1%.

And the three-putt likelihood percentage, 32%. So for Nick to make that in the moment against obviously all the odds to win the Canadian Open. I was blown away at the time. I couldn't speak. My wife and kids were watching it with me, which they rarely do, and you and I were going back and forth as well. I'm sure Nick had more texts than I did, but I had a ton of texts I had to respond to after that putt. We don't have to mention the text of the text I sent to you because it was just two words. The first one was holy, the second one we'll just leave alone. I do think that for the rest of the day, we should just talk in the metric system, so 2,195 centimeters.

It's actually just shy of that if it was exactly 72 feet, but who knows if it was exactly 72 feet, so I might be even a little shy there. We should watch the highlights on TSN, and we refer only to Tim Hortons, no Duncan, or Starbucks. SO versus Exxon. I think while enjoying a poutine as a small snack, yes, during such highlight watching.

I assume we can do that. I was surprised you didn't mention Dave Barr back in the day, but that's all right. Real quick about the Canadian Open, and this used to be a much bigger event. The schedule has been altered to the point, and this was not an elevated event this year, but this used to be a much bigger event.

But even without it, there have been a lot of big name players that continue to play here. Rory has now played it. He was trying to win his third in a row. He was canceled two years in a row.

He was trying to win his third straight. And he was on the leaderboard until he did a Rory on the final round, which is sort of getting more painful and more painful to watch each year, or each week now. But Rory was there. Justin Rose, who was at a resurgent season, was there.

So the best players who were there also showed up and on top of the fact that we had such a great twosome in the playoff. But this tournament has in the past been a major, major event. Lee Trevino once called it essentially the fifth major before the players championship became a big thing.

He's a three time winner here. Yeah, I think I think you'll start to see, depending on what happens with all this live in PGA Tour mess, but I think you'll start to see the schedule sorting itself out where the Canadian Open does get a favorable date. A couple of years ago, it did have a favorable date, but sort of when the U.S. Open was on the East Coast. Now it sandwiched between the Memorial and a West Coast U.S. Open.

It just it was not a good it just wasn't at a good time this year. But with the investments that RBC makes with players, with sponsoring players, you saw a whole bunch of commercials with them yesterday. And then with another elevated event this year, the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, I do think that down the road fairly soon, you'll see kind of a modification. I think Jack Nicklaus talked about the Memorial kind of moving on towards not as good of a of a date going forward. I think the PGA Tour will take care of RBC.

I don't know that for sure. But one other thing I want to bring up was it was interesting seeing all the Canadian players, including the unfortunate Adam Hadwin, watching Nick trying to win and then the Englishman and Irishman. So it was Terrell Hadden, Justin Rose, Shane Lowry watching Tommy Fleetwood try to win his first PGA Tour event. I thought that was an interesting sort of and it has potential for what they talk about in terms of team play on the PGA Tour. That's the only way I could see any sort of team golf come. I'm not a big team golf guy. You can't replicate emotion.

I can't manufacture it. But in situations like this where it's a Canadian at the Canadian Open, an Englishman supported by his countrymen trying to win his first tour event, that's the type of stuff that could make an impact, not garbage like the four aces and the Majestics. Not with you.

I'm 100 percent with you. Yeah, you could kind of feel it there. And for that to happen, you'd had to have four Canadians in the top whatever of the world record. You'd have to have impactful players going forward from these countries. But I did feel that a little bit.

And then, you know, just kind of looking forward, I wonder if that's something that they'll think about, at least. Well, we used to have the World Cup and it was a World Golf Championship event, although there were just two player teams back in the day. Tiger and David Duvall won it one year. Fred Couples and Davis Love have won it before. So we used to have two player teams. Maybe we do something.

They have they have a similar event on the LPGA Tour. But again, again, I think those are only two player teams. Brad Fritsch, I appreciate your time. Congratulations to our neighbors from the north of which you are native. Good for good for O Canada. And good luck to the Florida Panthers.

Yeah, it was it was a great day for, I think, the PGA Tour for golf for the for the sports fan. And by the way, you're talking to a World Cup player just once. But I did play in the World Cup. See, congratulations for that. All right, man, I'll talk to you soon. All right. Take care. Brad is great. I didn't realize he had played in the World Cup.