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Canada’s Hughes may be what International team has been missing at Presidents Cup

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Mackenzie Hughes might just be what the International team needs as this year’s Presidents Cup.

Hughes, from Dundas, Ont., is one of three Canadians on the squad competing in the match-play event at Royal Montreal Golf Club next week.

His putting skills, cool demeanour under pressure, pre-existing connections with teammates and clubhouse leadership could help the team — made up of non-American players outside Europe — end a nine-tournament losing skid to the United States at the biennial event.

“I’ve had this one circled on the calendar for a few years now,” said Hughes on joining fellow Canadians Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners as captain’s picks on the 12-player International team. “I pretty much knew that when it was announced the tournament would be in Canada and that Mike Weir was going to be the captain, you pretty much knew where that was going to go.

“To get that call from (Weir) is really special because he’s the guy that I looked up to, we all looked up to, as Canadian golfers.”

Pendrith and Conners are returning to the team after a disappointing 17 1/2 to 12 1/2 loss to the United States at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C. in 2022.

Hughes was ranked 14th on the International team standings in 2022 and could have easily been included on that squad after Australia’s Cameron Smith and Chile’s Joaquin Niemann were ruled ineligible after jumping ship to the rival LIV Golf circuit.

However, captain Trevor Immelman of South Africa instead chose the lower ranked Christiaan Bezuidenhout (16th) of South Africa, Pendrith (18th), South Korea’s Kim Si-woo (20th) and Australia’s Cameron Davis (25th).

“I certainly wanted to be on that team but also I understood the picks,” said Hughes, who lives in Charlotte and plays at Quail Hollow regularly. “I think that like a lot of guys that don’t get picked you more so look back on your own play and I wish I had made that selection easier for them.

“I didn’t do myself any favours in the six weeks leading up to it and that’s a hard pill to swallow.”

It may have been a costly oversight on Immelman’s part, as finishing holes was an issue for the International team in 2022 and Hughes is one of the best putters on the PGA Tour. This season he’s third in shots gained around the green and fifth in shots gained from putting.

“It doesn’t mean that just because I was there it would have turned the tide, but I’d like to think maybe I could have helped,” said Hughes. “That’s why you play the matches. You have to get out there and do it.”

This year Hughes made it easier for Weir, the Canadian golf legend from Brights Grove, Ont., to choose him. Hughes is 51st in the FedEx Cup Fall standings and has made the cut seven tournaments in a row, including a tie for fourth at last week’s Procore Championship.

“Mac played very solidly all year. Really like his short game, an all-around short game,” said Weir on Sept. 3 after announcing his captain’s picks. “He’s one of the elite and best short game guys on the PGA Tour

“I also love Mac’s grit. So that was the reason I picked him.”

Hughes’s intangible qualities go beyond grit.

He, Pendrith and Conners will arrive at Royal Montreal as a unit within the International squad, having become close friends while playing on Kent State University’s men’s golf team before turning pro. They’re also part of a group of Canadians, including Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., that regularly practice together before PGA Tour events.

“To have those guys with me is really icing on the cake, it’s very special,” said Hughes. “Opportunities like this don’t come around very often: to play this kind of team competition, which is already hard to do, but to play with some of your best friends, it almost seems scripted.”

An 11-year professional, Hughes has also been a member of the PGA Tour’s player advisory council the past two years and has been an outspoken advocate for making professional golf more accessible to fans.

Although Weir relied heavily on analytics to make his captain’s selections, Hughes’s character came up again and again when asked why he was named to the team.

“I just have a gut feeling with Mac that he has what it takes in these big moments,” said Weir. “They’re big pressure moments, and I have a feeling he’s going to do great in those moments.”

DP WORLD TOUR — Aaron Cockerill of Stony Mountain, Man., continues his chase for a spot in the Europe-based DP World Tour’s playoffs. The top 50 players on the Race to Dubai standings make the DP World Tour Championship and Cockerill moved eight spots up to 39th in the rankings after tying for ninth at last week’s Irish Open. He’ll be back at it on Thursday at the BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in Surrey, England.

KORN FERRY TOUR — Myles Creighton of Digby, N.S., is ranked 38th on the second-tier Korn Ferry Tour’s points list. He leads the Canadian contingent into this week’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. He’ll be joined at Ohio State University Golf Club — Scarlet Course in Columbus, Ohio by Edmonton’s Wil Bateman (53rd), Etienne Papineau (65th) of St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Que., and Sudarshan Yellamaraju (99th) of Mississauga, Ont.

CHAMPIONS TOUR — Calgary’s Stephen Ames is the lone Canadian at this week’s Pure Insurance Championship. He’s No. 2 on the senior circuit’s points list. The event will start Friday and be played at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill Golf Course in Monterey, Calif.

LPGA TOUR — There are four Canadians in this week’s Kroger City Championship. Savannah Grewal (97th in the Race to CME Globe Rankings) of Mississauga, Ont., Hamilton’s Alena Sharp (115th), and Maude-Aimee Leblanc (142nd) of Sherbrooke, Que., will all tee it up at TPC River’s Bend in Maineville, Ohio.

EPSON TOUR — Vancouver’s Leah John is the low Canadian heading into the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout. She’s 54th in the second-tier tour’s points list. She’ll be joined by Maddie Szeryk (118th) of London, Ont., and Brigitte Thibault (119th) of Rosemere, Que., at Mystic Creek Golf Club in El Dorado, Ark.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.



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Toronto police investigate shooting that left two men dead

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September 18, 2024

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Toronto police are investigating a shooting that left two men dead as a double homicide.

Police say officers responded to a report of gunshots in the north Toronto neighbourhood of North York at around 2:20 p.m. on Tuesday.

Officers say one man was pronounced dead at the scene and another was taken to hospital where he later died.

Duty Insp. Todd Jocko says an altercation between a group of people took place at Driftwood Avenue and Jane Street, noting there was gunfire and two firearms have been recovered.

Jocko says police continue to search for suspects who fled the scene.

Police have set up a command post at the intersection and are asking anyone with information to contact them.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published September 18, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Quebec police say death of five-year-old boy ‘suspicious,’ open investigation

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September 18, 2024

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COTEAU-DU-LAC, Que. – Quebec provincial police are investigating the death of a five-year-old boy found in a home about 55 kilometres southwest of Montreal.

Police say emergency services were called to the home about 3.a.m. in Coteau-du-Lac, Que.

The boy was found unresponsive and his death was confirmed not long after.

Sgt. Marythé Bolduc says investigators are calling the death suspicious but no arrests have been made.

Two other people inside the home were taken to hospital and will meet with investigators when their health condition permits.

Crime scene technicians were at the home today and investigators are looking to speak with people who had seen the child in the past 24 hours.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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As losses mount in toxic opioid crisis, Ontario cities memorialize overdose victims

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September 18, 2024

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TORONTO – There is less and less space on the lawn for the dozens upon dozens of bright white crosses.

The grass between the fire station and the sidewalks on a downtown corner in Sudbury, Ont., is crowded with markers bearing the names of people lost to the opioid overdose crisis.

Too many more are dying.

What started four years ago as a memorial to a local woman’s son has grown so much in size and in the public consciousness that the city has pledged to find space for a permanent installation.

It’s not the only municipality with such plans in Ontario, where opioid toxicity contributes to an estimated seven deaths a day, or some 1,249 people in the first five months of the year, according to preliminary estimates.

Across the province, data from the Office of the Chief Coroner show rates have been significantly higher since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, from an average of 130 deaths per month in 2019 to a peak of 238 a month in 2021. Four in five deaths involve fentanyl.

Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre says his municipality has been struggling to keep up over the past few years, despite “lots of outreach going on.”

“We’re trying to address it, but it’s getting tougher and tougher,” he said in an interview. “We’ve never seen that in our lifetime.”

From January through August, 90 people died from a suspected drug overdose in the Sudbury and Manitoulin districts, Public Health Sudbury & Districts reports – about 15 per cent more than in the same period last year. Another 245 people visited emergency departments for confirmed opioid overdoses.

Over the course of 2023, the region saw the highest rate of toxic drug deaths per capita.

Lefebvre said he’s working with the founder of the downtown memorial, called Crosses for Change, to find an appropriate space in the city where residents can come to grieve.

“We need to memorialize what these folks, our friends and family members, have gone through, and their tragic passing in this crisis we’re all facing,” he said.

A similar effort is underway in Guelph, Ont. Though its region’s rates of opioid-related deaths are consistently among the lowest in the province, community members are far from immune to this particular type of grief.

People closely affected by toxic drug use worked with the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy and other community partners to design a “contemplative space” that will be built in a city park, says Jean Hopkins, the strategy’s manager.

The Pathways to Remembering Monument is imagined as a stone podium surrounded by tall grasses, meant to symbolize lost loved ones.

A spokesman for the City of Guelph confirmed the city is looking at options for a site, will fund bench purchases and lead the project implementation. Other costs are being covered by a fundraising effort that Hopkins said began in 2022 and has raised about one-third of a $50,000 goal so far.

“It is so important to have reflective spaces within our community to call attention to this issue, and ensure we are honouring those we have lost to a preventable cause,” Hopkins said in an email. “We hope that the memorial will also address the stigma that is linked to substance use and drug poisoning.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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