Tee 2 Green with Barry Sharpe - July 18, 2010

An interesting field is being assembled for the U.S. Senior Open July 26 - August 1 down at Sahalee in Seattle. Aside from the greats like Tom Watson and Nick Price, there'll be Seattle's own Fred Couples, forever remembered in these parts as the 1978 BC Junior champion who returned in 1979 to claim the BC Amateur crown; and Mark Calcaveccia, the only player so far to ever win two PGA TOUR events in the province of British Columbia; and joining the group is Jim Rutledge, our new Canadian Senior PGA Champion from Victoria. And lastly, and perhaps surprisingly in this field of great golf champions from another era, is the inclusion of the Canadian Junior golf champion from 1969, a former golf pro, who was the first round draft pick of Vancouver Canucks and second player chosen overall in the 1970 NHL draft, a man associated with Chicago Black Hawks for over 30 seasons only to get fired months before they won their first Stanley Cup in decades . . . Dale Talon, now the GM of the Florida Panthers.

Log On Here For A Preview Of The Field

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Now that we all know how to spell and pronounce the name of the 2010 'OPEN' Champion from South Africa -- Louis Oosthuizen - who performed so magnificently at St. Andrews, we can now focus on the Canadian Open that gets underway even before the charter aircraft with most of the field touches down in Toronto.

Here is the field and a few other RBC Canadian Open tidbits

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Rob Houlding, who recently expanded his Golf Academy services to include the facilities at both Northview Golf & Country Club in Surrey and Kings Links by the Sea in Delta, could not have been happier than when he received a call from the Torry Pines golf course this past Friday that one of his growing group of students, 16-year-old Adam Svensson of Surrey, had pulled off a phenomenal shot on the final hole to win the 2010 Callaway Golf World Junior Championship. For Adam and his parents this was a dream come true after 10 years of competition against some of the brightest and most talented juniors in the world.

For Houlding, who is surrounded by an incredible stable of talented young players, led by Abbotsford's Nick Taylor, it is confirmation that his teaching methods and physiology for dealing with skilled players of all ages is the right formula for success on and off the course.

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Stephen Ames, who did not play in the British Open, will be front and center this week in the RBC Canadian Open at Toronto's St. Georges. Ames missed playing in the Open for the first time since 2003. The 46-year-old Calgary resident has been slipping lately in the world ranking, dipping below 80th for the first time in years. His run of 23 straight majors ended when he he was passed over for an invite to the Masters in April. However, this could be a good week for the Canada's adopted son of golf who has given so much money and time to junior golf in Canada through his own Ames Foundation and the Canadian Junior Golf Association..

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What an emotionally debilitating tournament the Reno-Tahoe Open must have been for Weyburn, Sask's Graham DeLaet , prior to returning to Canada for our national open. He opened on the desert Thursday with a 2-under par 70, then shot 76 to barely make the cut. Saturday the world was his oyster . . . 10 birdies, no bogies and a course-record of 62, shooting him suddenly into contention for a title. Sunday he must have felt like he'd been dumped into a pot of boiling water . . . three double bogies, three bogies, three birdies, a round of 78 and a fall from 4th place to 37th.

Playing on another sponsor exemption, Matt Hill of Ontario came in T50 at (70 75 71 75 291) 3-over par.