Doug Sack
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Canadian Golf Hall of Fame
By Doug Sack
It’s time to wave the Maple Leaf a little for our annual Canada Day issue
and wrap some perspective around the ongoing efforts of PEI’s Lorie Kane and
Ontario’s Mike Weir to become Canada’s greatest-ever golfers. Where better
to look for that elusive historical perspective than the Canadian Golf Hall
of Fame located at RCGA headquarters in Oakville, Ontario?
Neither Kane nor Weir are enshrined as yet but both will be eventually and
they will be joining an impressive list of players when they get there.
While there are over 50 members in the Hall, only 19 (14 men and five
women), were inducted for their playing abilities. Listed alphabetically,
here are the names:
Keith Alexander While most of these names are familiar to Canadian golfers, some probably are not so we’ll give you some short summaries of the lesser known:
Keith Alexander: Six-time Alberta Amateur champion in the 60’s and 70’s. Nick Weslock: Eight-time Ontario Amateur champion between 1944 and 1970. The rest of the Famers are very recognizable to Canadian golfers. Marlene Stewart Streit was easily Canada’s greatest female amateur as she won the Ontario Women’s Open Amateur 11 times and remains the only women ever to win the national amateurs of Canada, the U.S., Great Britain and Australia. Ontario’s Gary Cowan was named Canada’s top amateur of the past century for his ten Ontario Amateur victories but many British Columbians thought that honor could easily have gone to Doug Roxburgh who won the BC Amateur 12 times, most recently in 1996. The most interesting record in the Hall of Fame, however, is the one held by George S. Lyon, a turn-of-the century Canadian athletic marvel who competed in pole vaulting, football, baseball, tennis, curling and cricket as a young man before taking up golf at the age of 37 and subsequently winning eight Ontario Amateurs. He won the gold medal the only time golf was contested at the Olympics, 1904, and was the only Olympic Golf Champion in the world the rest of his life. When he won the gold medal, at the age of 46, he walked through the clubhouse on his hands to celebrate. Who says Canadians are quiet, reserved and boring? Despite some of the superb amateur records enshrined above, I think you have to go to professional golf to find Canada’s greatest-ever golfers simply because that’s the way the game has gone. Al Balding, Dave Barr and Stan Leonard all won three times on the PGA Tour. George Knudson won eight. The closest Canada has come to winning a men’s pro major came in 1969 when Knudson finished second at The Masters and 1985 when Barr was runner-up in the U.S. Open. Besides being the first Canadian woman to play on the LPGA and Rookie of the Year in 1968, Sandra Post went on to also record eight career wins, including Canada’s only major, the 1968 LPGA Championship. Until Kane and/or Weir win their ninth pro event or a major or two, Post and Knudson will remain at the top of the heap of Canadian golfers. Right now, Kane has four wins, Weir two. However, if we re-visit this story five years from now, we won’t be surprised to find both of them enshrined at Oakville as Canada’s Greatest Golfers. In fact, it appears inevitable. Until then, here are the records they have to beat:
Sandra Post’s LPGA Record:
George Knudson's PGA Tour Record: Original Publication - The Sea To Sky Voice 6-29-01 -
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