Ask who was the best Canadian golfer in the Masters and the response is always Mike Weir, who this week makes his 25th appearance at Augusta. The infamous Green Jacket has been in Weir’s closet since he beat Len Mattiace in a playoff to win the 2003 Masters.
But is he the greatest of the Canadian Masters?
This week, for only the third time, four Canadians are in the Masters. If Corey Connors, Adam Hadwin, Nick Taylor and Weir all make the cut, it’ll be the first time four Canadians are weekend golfers at Augusta National. All four have done it, just not in the same year.
While Weir became the poster child for Canadians playing the Masters, there’s a case to be made for Stan Leonard. Comparing long-ball and finely tuned hitters of today with golfing ghosts of yesteryear is a flawed process, for many reasons. Everything’s different now: the clubs, the balls, the courses, the competition and the paydays.
However, the facts are the facts.
Weir’s playing in his 25th Masters because he won it, not because he qualified 25 times. He has two top-10 finishes, none since 2005. He made the cut 12 times, twice since 2010.
Weir gets to tee it up on every Masters Thursday in perpetuity, or until he gets tired of being irrelevant. That comes with the privilege of winning. It’s only a guess how many April weeks he would have spent in Georgia if he’d lost that playoff to Mattiace?
Stan Leonard played in nine straight Masters because he qualified. While he never won, Leonard made the cut eight years in a row. No other Canadian ever has — Weir’s longest streak is six. Leonard had four top-10 finishes, the most of any Canadian — Weir has two.
It’s true that Weir had to contend with the Tiger Woods Era, but Leonard played when Ben Hogan and Sam Snead were still winning, when Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were arriving. He finished two shots back when Palmer won his first Masters. When Palmer won his second jacket, Leonard was ninth by eight shots, one behind Hogan and Gary Player. He is still the oldest (at 37) Canadian rookie at the Masters…and he didn’t join the PGA Tour until he was 42.
“If Stan had come out of hiding ten years earlier, it would have been Hogan, Snead and Leonard,” said Bing Crosby, who once had his own tournament on the tour, “and not necessarily in that order.”
Weir notwithstanding at age 53, the current Canadian hopes at the Masters are all in their 30s. Connors had three top-10s in a row before missing the cut last year. The best finishes Hadwin and Taylor have managed are 24th and 29th, respectively. Mackenzie Hughes, who’s not in Augusta this week, made three consecutive cuts. All four are younger than Leonard was in his first Masters.
Between Leonard and Weir, the only serious Canadian challenger was George Knudson, second to George Archer by a stroke in 1969, missing a birdie putt by three inches on the 72nd hole. His American peers called Knudson “one of the greatest ball strikers of all time.”
It’s a history lesson for the current Canadian Masters.
