Isaiah Salinda did not have a great Sunday at Uplands. The NCAA Pac-12 graduate of Stanford went from being in the hunt at minus-9 after the third round to shooting a plus-1 on the final round to tumble 13 spots and finish tied for 21st in the PGA Tour sa国际传媒 Royal Beach Victoria Open.
But Salinda had a great Monday, scrambling to reach Bend, Oregon, just in time for a U.S. Open qualifier. Not only did Salinda tee-off in time in Bend, but he won the qualifier and will be playing in Brookline from June 16-19 in the 2022 U.S. Open Championship. Salinda tied for first in the 36-hole qualifier with two rounds of 68 Monday to earn one of only three spots in the 65-player field. To realize what a longshot this is, 8,880 golfers played in regional qualifiers this year for 65 U.S. Open qualifying spots.
With a rain delay, the competition was running well behind schedule in the final round Sunday at Uplands, and any hope of catching the 5 p.m. Clipper to Seattle was lost. Salinda’s host billet and Blenkinsop teaching pro, Eric Wang, alerted Harbour Air president Randy Wright, who was at Uplands and got Salinda on a seaplane out of the Inner Harbour to Richmond, from where he got to YVR and then caught a flight to Portland before driving three hours in pelting rain through the mountains to Bend. He will not soon forget the Island hospitality that got him there.
“It was a crazy 48 hours,” said Salinda, who got into Bend at 3 a.m. Monday.
“You begin questioning if you’re going to make it in time or if it’s even worth it. But when you’re playing for the U.S. Open, you put all that aside and push through. And as it turned out, everything that went wrong Sunday at Uplands went right in Bend on Monday, despite only three hours of sleep.”
Jeffrey Kang, meanwhile, tied for seventh at Uplands and then rushed to Victoria International Airport Sunday evening to catch the red-eye to Toronto, and was on the tees Monday morning at St. George’s, and captured one of the four qualifying spots for this week’s RBC Canadian Open.
It’s part of the whirlwind of pro golf.
Kang was among several of the Canadian golfers who caught the red-eye out of YYJ on Sunday night to be in Toronto on Monday morning for the Canadian Open qualifier.
“It makes for long days, and a lot of travel, but it’s our profession and what we chose to pursue,” said Royal Beach Victoria Open fifth-place finisher Etienne Papineau, who was among those rushing from Uplands to St. George’s for the qualifier.
Meanwhile, the pandemic-shortened 2020 and 2021 seasons still count in terms of what’s owed. Because of that Callum Davison of Duncan, who missed the cut at Uplands, and Yi Cao of Tsawwassen, the second-round leader at Uplands who eventually placed 26th, will tee off Thursday at the RBC Canadian Open, which returns this week at St. George’s following a two-year pandemic absence of 1,093 days.
Davison, out of the Cowichan Golf Club, got in because of winning the season points standings in last year’s abbreviated PGA Tour sa国际传媒. Cao won the sa国际传媒 Life Series tournament on Bear Mountain during the pandemic-truncated season of 2020 and that result, along with three others on the sa国际传媒 Life Series, earned Cao a spot in the Canadian Open. Cao, who golfs for China, hasn’t been able to claim that berth until this week.
Meanwhile, Davison, Kang, Bear Mountain-based Team sa国际传媒 amateurs A.J. Ewart and Johnny Travale will join the likes of Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, Nick Taylor, Michael Gligic, Adam Hadwin, Adam Svensson, Roger Sloan and Taylor Pendrith among the 22 Canadians competing in the RBC Canadian Open this week.
Also among them is Brendan Leonard, who missed the cut at Uplands but has qualified for the Canadian Open through a special qualifier held last month in Caledon, Ont. Despite being 30, Leonard said: “I’m going to keep pushing.”
They will be all looking to end a long drought. The last Canadian to win the Canadian Open was Pat Fletcher of Victoria in 1954 at Point Grey.
