By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf

Adam Hadwin’s third-place finish at the Memorial Tournament booked him a spot in next month’s Open Championship at Royal Troon and also put Hadwin in great position to join fellow Abbotsford native Nick Taylor at the Summer Olympics in Paris.

Canada’s two-man Olympic golf team will be determined by the Official World Golf Ranking after this week’s U.S. Open Championship in Pinehurst, N.C.

Taylor has the top spot locked up and Hadwin’s finish at the Memorial moved him past Ontario’s Corey Conners and into second spot. Hadwin was projected to move from 59th to 35th in the world rankings, while Conners is 11 spots back in 46th.

Hadwin finished the Memorial at four-under par after closing with a two-over 74. That was four shots behind winner Scottie Scheffler. Hadwin had closed to within one of the lead earlier in his round, but stumbled down the stretch. He finished his front nine with two bogeys and ended his round with three straight bogeys.

“I’m proud of the way I battled,” Hadwin said. “It does kind of sting to finish the way I did, 16 through 18. I had put a Band-Aid on the round for a long time before that, and the Band-Aid came off and it was carnage. So it’s disappointing, but, look, I take a lot of positives away from this week. I can compete with some of the best players in the world on a very difficult golf course and that’s what I’m going to have to do next week as well.”

Hadwin earned $1.4 million for what was his best finish of the season. Taylor and Surrey’s Adam Svensson both tied for 27th and made $143,000 apiece.

Hadwin, Taylor and Svensson all have spots in this week’s U.S. Open, which is being played on Pinehurst No. 2.

HOW SWEEP IT IS: The UBC Thunderbirds had a little extra motivation when they arrived in Sudbury, Ont., for the Canadian University/College Championships. The men’s and women’s teams both felt they had underperformed at the recent NAIA Championships and had something to prove. Mission accomplished.

UBC swept both team titles as well as the individual championships in Sudbury to close out the season on a high note. “I think it was important because we’d had a really great year and played so well at our conference championships and I think our expectations were pretty high going into the NAIA tournament,” said UBC coach Chris Macdonald.

The men finished sixth at their NAIA championship tourney in Dalton, Ga., where they struggled with the Bermuda grass rough. The top-seeded UBC women finished third at their NAIA championships in Silvas, Ill. “I wouldn’t say we lost confidence, but the (other) teams were a little better this year, the courses were tougher and our winter wasn’t ideal in Vancouver,” Macdonald said. “To come back and get the two wins and have the two individual titles, I think it feels really good for the students. They had a year they were proud of, so to leave on this note is good.”

Both UBC teams went wire-to-wire and won in convincing fashion. The men finished the 72-hole event at seven-under par, 50 shots better than the second-place team from the University of the Fraser Valley. The University of Victoria men tied for third, one shot behind UFV. The UBC women won with a score of 21-over par, which was 42 shots better than the runner-up team from UBC-Okanagan.

Victoria was fourth and UFV finished fifth. UBC’s Una Chou followed up her recent win at the PGA WORKS Collegiate Championship with a 14-shot win in the individual competition in Sudbury. Chou completed the event at one-under par. Julie Alexander-Carew of UBC-Okanagan was second, while UBC’s Bo Brown was third.

The men’s individual race was much tighter. UBC’s Dylan MacDonald prevailed in a playoff over Laval’s William Forgues after both players finished the event at one-under par. By winning the men’s team title, UBC has qualified to play in the inaugural Canadian Collegiate Invitational, which goes Sept. 16-17 at Oviinbyrd Golf Club in MacTier, Ont. It’s a new event featuring several top NCAA Division I teams, including Kent State, Penn State, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Notre Dame, Rutgers and Washington State.

CLASS IN SESSION: The sixth and final PGA Tour Americas qualifying school goes this week at Crown Isle Golf Resort in Courtenay. Not surprisingly, there’s a long list of British Columbia pros looking to play their way onto the circuit at Crown Isle. That list includes Bryce Barker of Vernon, Callum Davison of Duncan, A.J. Ewart of Coquitlam, Jake Lane of Charlie Lake, Ziggy Nathu of Richmond, Jeevan Sihota of Victoria, Justin Towill of Kelowna and Trevor Yu of Vancouver.

The top nine finishers at the June 11-14 Crown Isle Q-school will earn exempt status on the remainder of the PGA Tour Americas circuit, which begins its North American swing — nine events in Canada and one in the U.S. — June 20-23 at The Beachlands Victoria Open at Uplands Golf Club. Players finishing 10th through 25th at Crown Isle will receive conditional status.

BALFOUR BOUND: The reigning B.C. Junior Girls and B.C. Women’s Amateur champions staged quite the battle at last week’s B.C. High School Triple-A Championships at Arbutus Ridge Golf Course in Cobble Hill. Amy Lee of Walnut Grove Secondary in Langley and Chelsea Truong of Oak Bay Secondary in Victoria ended up tied for the individual girl's lead and headed to a sudden-death playoff. That playoff finally ended on the ninth extra hole, where Lee, the 2023 B.C. Junior Girls champion prevailed. The two will renew acquaintances this week at the 119th playing of the B.C. Women’s Amateur Championship at Balfour Golf Course. Lee and Truong will be joined by B.C. Senior Women’s Champion Shelly Stouffer in a marquee grouping in the first round at Balfour.

SUPER SENIOR: Kelowna’s Norm Bradley won the Washington Super Senior Men’s Championship at Yakima Country Club. Bradley, the 2020 B.C. Senior’s Men champion, fired rounds of 71, 76 and 72 and his three-over total of 219 was good for a three-shot win over Jim Akers of Fall City, Wash.

COACHING CHANGE: Surrey’s Lauren Kim, the 2023 Canadian Women’s Amateur winner, has a new coach at the University of Texas. Laura Ianello, the former University of Arizona women’s golf coach, joined Texas last week. She led Arizona to the 2018 national championships. Ianello replaces Ryan Murphy, who resigned. Kim just finished her freshman year at Texas.