2019 Osprey Valley Open - Maxwell Sear shoots 63 in qualifier

[mstram]

Maxwell Sear, who won the 2016 OntAm at Thornhill with -11, shoots a -9 63 yesterday at North Halton in the Osprey Valley Qualifier.

10 birds, one bog, -7 (29) on front !

https://pgatourcaq.bluegolf.com/blue...eaderboard.htm

Second place Joshua Goldstein also had 10 birds, but also one double.

[sjmcampbell]

Storylines: https://www.pgatour.com/canada/en_us...c-toronto.html Sponsor Exemptions

1. Gerry Dee (Toronto, ON)
2. James Allenby (Calgary, AB)
3. Sebastian Szirmak (Toronto, ON)
4. Daniel Kiem (Toronto, ON)
5. Austin James (Bath, ON)
6. Christopher Petefish (Danville, CA)
7. Joey Savoie (La Prairie, QC)
8. Josh Whalen (Napanee, ON) Monday Qualifiers

Open Qualifying took place at The Club at North Halton in Georgetown, Ont.

1. Maxwell Sear (Unionville, ON)
2. Joshua Goldstein (Las Vegas, NV)
3. Ashton Van Horne (Georgetown, KY)
4. Patrick Luth (Medina, OH)
5. Wyatt Worthington (Reynoldsburg, OH)
6. Russell Budd (Toronto, ON)
7. Carter Page (Waynesville, NC)
8. Mikel Martinson (Arlington, TX)

[ace in the hazard]

Love to see the Canucks on the board. I played a round with Russell Budd on heathlands last year. He can flat out play. Fun to watch him casually destroy a tough track.

[Ignatius Reilly]

Didn't get out today unfortunately as I wanted to follow Taylor Pendrith. He had a great round at -9.

I expect his family to be following him - and might surprise his dad who I last saw in about grade 7!

Hope to get out tomorrow. I think it will be fun to watch how the pros play holes I know well.

[golfingtime]

And the one only Mr. D......

https://twitter.com/gerrydee?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[mstram]

Wow cut is -5 !

Is there any rough out there ?

Which course are they using ?

Max Sear misses cut (wonder if he had to play behind "Mr. D" )

So does Hugo Bernard with -4 (thanks for coming out .... -4 doesn't .... "cut it"

[4wedges]

They're playing the North, with its wide fairways. I believe that the North is the best fit logistically to hold the event.

[Ignatius Reilly]

I ended up going yesterday, after playing 18 at Caledon, nearby.

Perfect day - not too hot, sun came out eventually.

Spent maybe 2 hours there, only watched play on the front 9. Rough looked pretty normal to me, but these guys didn't spend a lot of time in it. When they were in it, they generally got out pretty nicely. Watched one guy hitting out of it on the 9th, and the two guys who were in the fairway made good shots to get the ball up to the back tier where the pin was and stick them with spin, but the guy from the rough just launched it into the sky and it dropped quite vertically and ended up nearest the hole.

It looked like all or most of the time they were using the gold tees, so the course was playing long (7151yds). Watched some of the guys hit irons off the tee at 9. From the back. And ended up closer than I ever do with driver.

Great to be able to get so close to the players. I found the Pendrith group and followed them for maybe 5 holes. Being a local boy, he seemed to have one of the larger galleries, might have been 15 people! Not too many ropes to keep spectators away - the general etiquette seemed to be to let the players move forward off the tee or green first, then follow them.

We also see mostly the best shots by the best players on tv. Watching this, (and the Cdn Open and some LPGA too) it's "nice" to see them make the same mistakes as the rest of us. A drive that leaked a little left and into some tall thick stuff past the rough, then a hero shot that went too well - through the fairway and just trickled into some more tall stuff near the green. I was thinking "make sure you can't reach the junk on the far side".

I haven't been playing OV as much lately, and one thing I noticed (and really liked) was how they've cut out all the tangled undergrowth and replaced it with pine straw or some sort of mulchy stuff. This should hugely cut down the number of lost balls (and therefore improve PoP) and make the course more fun. Losing balls in that crap gets old quickly. It's still plenty penal enough - you've got to hit a recovery shot off a weird lie and through a bunch of trees. Can't wait to play it.

[MichaelR]

Pendrith and Barjon having an interesting head to head, with the Canadian one shot back of the Frenchman with the final three holes to go...

.

[Ignatius Reilly]

Pendrith and Barjon having an interesting head to head, with the Canadian one shot back of the Frenchman with the final three holes to go...

.

I watched about 14 holes of that match. Both guys played very well. As always, there's a handful of shots that could have gone either way. Some very good putts that just didn't drop, and then some that did. A beautiful chip on 15(?) that easily could have gone in. A tricky downhill putt out of the rough on 11 that raced by, followed by a super putt to save par.

Both guys hit some incredible approaches. Even from not-so-great drives, they managed to put the ball up near the pin at the right level time and time again.

Found the dad and introduced myself and that went well and was fun. We figured it was close to 50 years since we'd last met - his family moved up to Thornhill in around grade 8 and I never knew what happened to him - he just kinda disappeared. We weren't overly concerned or bright as kids....).

A couple of things I noticed:

Some of the guys don't have caddies and were carrying their own bags. Might volunteer for that next year, if knees and feet are still working.

They pulled the flag 95% of the time. There were only one or two putts attempted with the flag in.

One guy spat on the green. Wouldn't have wanted to putt through that.

Crowds are scarce (and that means you can go anywhere on the course and see everything very close up). The biggest crowd was at the 18th green where there might have been 200 people, about 1/2 of them in volunteer red shirts.....