LEADERS OF THE PACK

Their games are very different, but only one shot separates Yuan, Conners

To watch Corey Conners play golf is to question the long and widely held belief that this game is the most difficult of any to master.

His club goes back, it goes through and a fairway or a green is found. Again and again and again. With the most envious of ball flights, high and with a little draw, he is first in greens in regulation through two rounds at the RBC Canadian Open and tied for second in fairways hit.

The stats have him one shot off the lead.

Oh, sure, there are better players than Conners, more powerful players and more successful players and certainly those who putt with more conviction. But few make the act of hitting a golf ball looks so simple and automatic and …

“Monotonous?” offered Tommy Fleetwood, cutting off a reporter’s question.

Yes.

“Off the tee, he’s one of the best,” said Fleetwood, who was in a group with Conners on Thursday and Friday. “His swing is so rhythmic and repeatable. It’s just the same every time. I think that’s one of the most impressive things, really. It’s such a patient and calm process, every time he steps into a golf shot, you can learn a lot from it.”

The swing and the shotmaking have always been the calling cards of Conners, a two-time PGA Tour winner and Canada’s top-ranked golfer. It doesn’t always hold up under pressure, as was the case on Sunday at the PGA Championship a few weeks back, but it’s a motion most guys here at Oakdale Golf and Country Club would trade for their own in a heartbeat.

“His game is something you can aspire to,” said Fleetwood, whose swing is not too shabby.

And then, on the other end of the spectrum, there is Carl Yuan. If Conners’ swing ticks and tocks like a clock, Yuan’s goes boom. His follow-through resembles that of a hammer thrower. He twists and turns and almost always finishes with one leg kicked high in the air. He needs to be seen to be believed.

Yet at 9 under par, he is leading this tournament through 36 holes. Which is the real beauty of golf, isn’t it? The ultimate goal is to get the ball in the hole in as few shots as possible. Whether one’s swing is sweet like Conners or strange like Yuan’s really doesn’t matter. Get it done by any means necessary. Yuan’s swing is his swing and letting it fly, as he’s done thus far, has worked.

“I just really focus on the ball flight, how far I’m trying to hit it. Just let the body take care of itself,” explained Yuan, a native of China. “Normally that works out great. I mean, I’ve been like playing like way too technical in the past events on tour this year. Which didn’t really get me the good results. So I figure why not just play freely? Yeah, and then glad it works out good so far.”

It certainly has. Yuan has carded rounds of 68 and 67 to sit one above a quartet of players that includes Conners, C.T. Pan, Tyrrell Hatton and Aaron Rai. He is first in birdies thus far with 14, which he has countered with five bogeys. Conners has been cleaner, with just one square on his two scorecards combined.

Playing a golf course that requires extreme precision because of the thick rough lining narrow fairways, Conners is playing paint by numbers.

“I would say I’m not really questioning what I’m going to hit on most tees,” the Listowel, Ont., native said. “Maybe if the wind switches there might be some adjustments. But for the most part I think a lot of guys in the field are probably using the same (clubs), hitting driver on most of the same holes and laying back on the same holes as well. So I would say you can’t really overpower the golf course too much. I’m not a super long hitter, so that kind of plays into my strengths.”

One guy who can overpower almost any golf course — and who maybe has the most desirable move in golf — is Rory McIlroy. The twotime defending champion got off to a slow start Thursday with a 1-under 71, unsurprising given how much time and energy he spent speaking about Tuesday’s shocking PGA Tour-Saudi Public Investment Fund news. But on Friday he took advantage of the easier back nine, carding four birdies to go with one he made on the front. No bogeys led to a five-under 67 and he’s just three shots off the lead, in a tie for 12th.

That is a better position than he was in through two rounds in 2019, the first year he won this tournament. Then, he was tied for 13th and five off the lead before firing a 64 Saturday and a 61 Sunday to win going away.

So if not Conners in the winner’s circle — or another Canadian like Adam Hadwin or Roger Sloan, both four shots off the lead — a Rory three-peat remains a real possibility.

“I think, am I the only player in the top 10 in the world that’s here this week maybe? So I guess maybe that appreciation that I’ve come back up to defend,” McIlroy said of the crowds in his corner. “But, yeah, I’ve, since the first time I played the Canadian Open, I feel like I’ve got a tremendous amount of support.”