A nutty finish for Canadian Open golf champion

Some of us who pay to play golf at Glen Abbey get to the 18th hole and want to try to hit the memorable shots there. We want to emulate David Frost's great 5-wood from 1993, or Tiger Woods' 6-iron from the bunker in 2000.

There's a new one to add to the let-me-try collection, namely Nathan Green's escape from someone's Cobb salad up near the dining room, the single critical piece in his somewhat unexpected triumph as the sunshine finally broke through at Glen Abbey.

The man from Toronto, Australia – that would be the Toronto with garbage pickup – provided one of the nuttier among the 100 finishes so far at the Canadian Open. He actually did it twice and Retief Goosen did the rest, botching a six-foot putt to win, then chopping around the second playoff hole to hand the big cheque to the par-shooting Green. Had Goosen made his 8 1/2-footer for par on the second playoff hole to send Green to the 18th hole for the third time in an hour, it would have been great to see where he got up and down from this time.

Because, surely, he was going to.

Needing a birdie at 18 to win in regulation, he hit it into the crowd, but rescued par from what is called Bob Friend Country. He hit it to the waterside fringe of the green, which, luckily for him, had not been mowed this day. Normally, that shot keeps going into the pond, as Friend found out the hard way from a similar spot in the 1998 playoff against Billy Andrade.

Before he could hit the shot, Green was frozen for 10 minutes as playing partner Martin Laird lost a ruling and walked back to hit another approach shot.

"About the worst thing you could have happen," said Green, who tried to keep his mind blank and later said he was "happy the way I settled myself down."

Half an hour later, in a playoff necessitated by Goosen's clutch eagle putt from 15 1/2 feet at that 72nd hole – Goosen's last good putting stroke, for sure – Green saved par again despite a gruesome approach 40 yards over the green into the scoring area. Given line-of-sight relief from the TV towers – unless someone calls in complaining today and nervous officials review the call – he went looking for a place to drop. Hundreds of displaced spectators and a flower bed away, he finally found one.

Then he hit it back to the same far fringe, the one that usually is mowed and wasn't. He bellied the chip close enough to make the par and survived when Goosen honked his six-footer to win.

Speaking of honking, Anthony Kim came to 18 needing eagle to have a hope to sneak into a playoff. Kim hit a monster drive, but spun his approach back into the pond and stormed off with a cuss.

Kim was the other "name" player in contention and golf is strange in this way: most fans – and certainly all tournament sponsors – are rooting for the overdog. Clearly, though, the same golf gods who had soaked this tournament repeatedly for four days were now deciding that another non winner would break through in Canada. Green was the underdog, but did what he needed to do – and from wherever he needed to do it.

So that's it for Glen Abbey for a while. It's St. George's next year, then Shaughnessy and probably Montreal in 2012. It'll be a while until Glen Abbey stages its 26th Open. We'll be busy until then with all these shots to try.

Source from shoppinginjoy.com