This could be a very special day in Canadian sport in the American state of Massachusetts. On the same day that Canadian National Basketball Association All-Star Andrew Wiggins of Toronto, Ontario is one win away from winning the 2022 NBA Finals for the Golden State Warriors in Boston, Adam Hadwin of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan has the one-stroke lead at the 2022 United States Open in Brookline, Massachusetts.
On Thursday, Hadwin shot a score of -4 and has a one-stroke lead over five other golfers. One of those golfers is Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland. McIlroy has another Canadian connection, as he has won the Canadian Open the last two times, including the 2022 title this past weekend at the St. George’s Golf and Country Club in Toronto.
In the 18 rounds of action on Thursday, Hadwin had six birdies and two bogeys. He birdied the fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth, ninth and 13th holes, and bogeyed the third and 12th holes.
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Hadwin is a winner of one PGA event. That came at the 2017 Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida, where he shot a four-round score of -14 and beat Patrick Cantlay by a stroke. Cantlay, who was one of three golfers I liked to win the 2022 United States Open, had a first round score of +2.
There is no doubt that the Country Club at Brookline, played like a United States Open course. The fact that -4 was the leader just proved how challenging the course actually was.
Hadwin is also playing alongside a former United States Open champion in Jim Furyk. The U.S. Open title for Furyk came in 2003, the finest year ever in Canadian golf. That is because that was the year that Mike Weir of Sarnia, Ontario won the Masters, the only Canadian ever to win a men’s major in golf.
