David Hearn back inside the top 100 in Canada's Weekly Top 10

Share

David Hearn's first foray into European links golf was a successful one as the Brantford, Ont. golfer finished in a tie for 32nd at the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool. That was quite a result considering Hearn had never played a links course in Europe before and he only made it into the tournament as the first alternate after Mark Calcavecchia was forced to withdraw two days before the start of the championship. He managed to post three rounds under par and ultimately finished ahead of major winners Jason Dufner, Tiger Woods and Martin Kaymer. The 4.15 ranking points he picked up vaulted him back into the top 100 in the world at No. 93, just five shy of his career-best ranking.

Nick Taylor of Abbotsford, B.C. made the biggest leap inside the top 10, picking up 58 spots after finishing tied for 15th at the Web.com Tour event in Boise.  The result is his second best Web.com Tour finish this year after missing eight of his last 10 tournaments cuts. Taylor also moved from No. 10 to No. 8 in the Canadian rankings.

On the women's side, Rebecca Lee-Bentham of Toronto climbed 31 spots after finishing in a tie for 12th at the LPGA's Marathon Classic. It's her best result of the season after missing seven of the last eight cuts and her first top 15 finish since a tie for 11th at the Evian Championship last year. Bentham also moved to within two spots of Hamilton's Alena Sharp for the No. 2 ranking in Canada, which is where she will have to be in order to secure Canada's second berth at the 2016 Summer Olympics. The International Golf Federation rankings published this week show top ranked Brooke Henderson and Sharp as the Canadian representatives in Brazil in just under two years time. Final team selections will be based on the world rankings as of June 20, 2016.

Also at the Marathon Classic, Maude-Aimee Leblanc of Sherbrooke, Que. picked up her best LPGA result of the season, finishing in a tie for 54th. That was good for a 17 spot jump in the weekly rankings for the former Quebec star who has been toiling on the developmental Symetra Tour this year looking to work her way back onto the LPGA Tour for 2015.

On the amateur side of the ledger, the big movement came outside the top 10 as Tyler Saunders of Edmonton jumped 420 spots after winning the Alberta Amateur by a convincing nine stroke margin - one of the more lopsided victories at the event in recent years. That followed his three shot win a week ago at the Alberta Junior Boys Championship. The result was good enough to vault the 18-year-old into No. 20 in the Canadian rankings.

Jennifer Yang and Soo-Bin Kim, both of Coquitlam, B.C. and A. Ram Choi of Surrey, B.C., all competed in the 38th and final U.S. Women's Amateur Public Links Championship, which will be replaced by the U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball Championship in 2015. Kim finished tied for second in the in the stroke play portion of the event while Choi ended up tied for seventh and Yang carded a tie for 17th. All three scores were good enough to advance the match play portion of the event. Choi lost in the opening round of 64 while both Yang and Kim made it all the way to the third round before tasting defeat. Choi jumped 42 spots to move back into the top 10 in the Canadian rankings while Kim, the No. 2 ranked amateur female in Canada, picked up three spots to climb to No. 21 in the world. Yang, ranked No. 8 in Canada, moved up 23 spots. Over the last two weeks, the University of Washington teen has gained 76 spots in the world rankings.

MEN'S TOP 10

WOMEN'S TOP 10

MEN'S AMATEUR TOP 10

WOMEN'S AMATEUR TOP 10