The final hole of a golf tournament often produces contrasting displays of exhilarating joy and excruciating sorrow. One person has won and fulfilled a dream. Another has come close but lost.
Through the years, there have been many such moments at the RBC Canadian Open, involving icons of the sport and Canadian heroes. Tears of joy and dismay.
Here are five of the most memorable 18th-hole scenes in Canadian Open history.
1975 @ Royal Montreal Golf Club
Jack Nicklaus had the 1975 Canadian Open golf crown in his grasp . . . and it slipped away. (Photo: Reg Innell/Toronto Star)
Famously — or, perhaps, infamously — Jack Nicklaus never won the Canadian Open. The man with 18 professional major titles and 73 PGA Tour victories, and who designed Glen Abbey Golf Club for the express purpose of hosting the tournament, was 0-for-25 north of the border, a record that includes seven runners-up.
Of his many close calls in Canada, perhaps none was more excruciating for the Golden Bear than 1975. Two years before the championship would take up all but permanent residence at Glen Abbey, Nicklaus engaged in a duel with Tom Weiskopf at Royal Montreal.
Things looked promising for Nicklaus as he stood on the 18th tee with a one-shot lead over Weiskopf. But then he did the unthinkable and pulled his drive into the pond located on the inside corner of the dogleg-left, uphill par 4. Nicklaus had not missed that fairway all week.
“The adrenaline was flowing,” Nicklaus later said, “and I swung too hard and came over the top of it.”
The error shocked all, including Weiskopf, and Nicklaus’ resulting bogey allowed Weiskopf to match his clubhouse score after he parred the home hole. The two Ohio State alums engaged in a sudden-death playoff, which Weiskopf won on the first extra hole, the par-4 15th.
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