Andre Zhu and Team Canada NextGen member Isaiah Ibit enter final round two and three shots off the pace\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
GATINEAU, Que. \u2013 Declan O\u2019Donovan of Sydney, Australia fired a 6-under 64 on Wednesday to claim the top spot of the leaderboard at the 120th Canadian Men\u2019s Amateur Championship, presented by BDO. O\u2019Donovan\u2019s lead caps off a busy round of international talents soaring into contention at The Royal Ottawa Golf Club in Gatineau, Que.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
O\u2019Donovan pulled in front of Jager Pain of Woodbridge, Ont. and Andre Zhu of Richmond Hill, Ont. on the 14th hole, converting on his fifth birdie putt of the day as the 36-hole co-leaders dropped shots.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
An eagle at the scorable par-5 fifth electrified O\u2019Donovan\u2019s round on Wednesday, leading to six additional birdies and helping the Australian climb four places to hold the outright lead at the Canadian Men\u2019s Amateur Championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt honestly put a kick in my step which was very nice,\u201d commented O\u2019Donovan of his early eagle to get the ball rolling on his round. \u201cI went on a nice string of birdies on some tough holes later on,\u201d he added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Australian \u2013 ranked no. 352 on the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR) and one of five competing in the field \u2013 wasn\u2019t the only international player to catch fire and make a charge on moving day. His 6-under 64 on Wednesday overtook Noa Auch-Roy of Lyon, France for the lowest score of the day, with the latter negating a trio of bogeys with eagles on Nos. 1 and 5 before playing his back nine 4-under par and rising 19 places.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Auch-Roy will open Thursday\u2019s final round four strokes off the pace and in a tie for fourth alongside Calen Sanderson of Newtown, Pa. \u2013 who was able to claw his way into contention. Pain rounds out the trio at 6-under after following up three birdies in his first four holes with a 3-over finish on his back nine to close with an even par 70 on Wednesday. Zhu, who co-led the tournament alongside Pain after 36 holes, will tee off on Thursday alongside O\u2019Donovan in the final group. Zhu carded a timely birdie on the par-4 16th to help recover from a double bogey at the pivotal 14th hole to move into the final grouping.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Team Canada NextGen member Isaiah Ibit of Orleans, Ont. led the Canadian charge throughout the third round and will open his quest for the Earl Grey Cup on Thursday after firing his lowest round of the tournament. Ibit birdied Nos. 16 and 18 to get to 7-under for the tournament, finishing his round at 3-under 67 to pull within three shots of O\u2019Donovan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
O\u2019Donovan, Zhu and Ibit will all tee off in Thursday\u2019s final group at 10:10 a.m. EDT. <\/p>\n
The Royal Ottawa Golf Club played nearly two strokes easier than Tuesday\u2019s second round, prompting lower scoring and charges from various players that started their round outside the first page of the leaderboard on Wednesday. Cloudy conditions surrounded the Ottawa-Gatineau region throughout the third round and is expected to linger into Thursday.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for the 54-hole leader, excitement stands as the only emotion O\u2019Donovan has felt since exiting the 18th green on Wednesday, with a chance to come out victorious in less than 24 hours at one of golf\u2019s oldest amateur championships\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI love playing golf and playing in different countries, this is another great opportunity,\u201d commented the 22-year-old.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of opportunity ahead of me but regardless of what happens tomorrow I\u2019m still going to be playing golf the next day so as long as I stick with that mindset and stay aggressive, I\u2019ll be very happy with whatever the result is.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s winner will receive a direct exemption into several marquee events, including a spot in the field at the 2026 RBC Canadian Open. Additionally, the Canadian Men\u2019s Amateur champion will lock up a place in the 125th U.S. Amateur Championship, set for August 11-17 at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, Calif. and will be fully exempt from local qualifying for the 2026 U.S. Amateur and 2026 U.S. Open. The winner \u2013 as well as the top 20 finishers \u2013 will also be exempt into next year\u2019s Canadian Men\u2019s Amateur Championship and will be able to defend their title, if eligible.\u202f\u202f\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
To view the full leaderboard after 54 holes, as well as scheduled tee times for Thursday\u2019s final round of the Canadian Men\u2019s Amateur Championship, presented by BDO, please click here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andre Zhu and Team Canada NextGen member Isaiah Ibit enter final round two and three shots off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-36338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}