8am Round-Up: More Canadians than Scots in Masters

Canada will have more representatives than Scotland in this year's Masters after Adam Hadwin joined Mike Weir and Mackenzie Hughes in securing an invitation for the Augusta National event in three weeks' time.
Adam Hadwin celebrates his Valspar Championship win with fiancee Jessica Dawn. Picture: Getty ImagesAdam Hadwin celebrates his Valspar Championship win with fiancee Jessica Dawn. Picture: Getty Images
Adam Hadwin celebrates his Valspar Championship win with fiancee Jessica Dawn. Picture: Getty Images

Hadwin is Georgia-bound after surviving a late wobble to claim his first PGA Tour title at the Valspar Championship in Florida, joining Hughes as a winner on the circuit this season following his success at the RSM Classic in November.

A closing 71 for a 14-under-par total left Hadwin, who shot a 59 at the CareerBuilder Challenge earlier in the year, a shot clear of American Patrick Cantlay after the 29-year-old had taken a four-shot lead into the final round at Innisbrook Resort.

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Hadwin looked to be coasting to victory until he drove into water at the 16th, where a double-bogey saw him drop back into a share of the lead with his playing partner.

But, a par-par finish proved good enough for Hadwin to prevail as 24-year-old Cantlay, who played in the 2011 Walker Cup at Royal Aberdeen, bogeyed the last after finding a greenside bunker with his approach.

“I don’t know what to say right now,” said Hadwin. “I fully expected Patrick to make that putt (on the last).

“I said yesterday I just wanted to have a chance to win coming up the last and I had it - I’m just glad that one footer wasn’t one-and-a-half feet.”

The success means that Hadwin will be heading to Augusta instead of a planned honeymoon in Tahiti after he gets married in two weeks’ time.

Americans Jim Herman and Dominic Bozzelli tired for third on 12 under, with Open champion Henrik Stenson the leading European on eight-under, sharing seventh spot.

Scottish duo Russell Knox and Martin Laird both missed the cut after reaching the halfway stage at two-over and four-over respectively.

Knox and former winner Sandy Lyle are the only two Scots in the Masters field at the moment, with just Laird now in with a chance of bolstering that contingent.

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Former US PGA champion Jason Dufner looks as though he’s scraped into next week’s WGC-Dell Match Play in Texas.

The American has jumped five spots to 65th in the world rankings after closing with a 67 to finish 11th in the Valspar Championship.

The second WGC of the season involves the top 64 players available, with Henrik Stenson, Adam Scott and Justin Rose having all indicated they are likely to sit out the event in Austin.

The same is likely to apply to Adam Hadwin due to the fact he is getting married the weekend of the match-play tournament.

That would mean Dufner, KT Kim, Joost Luiten and Pat Perez all securing spots as the next four players on the list.

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Scott Jamieson has jumped nearly 100 spots on the world rankings after finishing joint-third behind home hero SSP Chowrasia in the Indian Open.

The 33-year-old Glaswegian is up to a 306th, a leap of 92 spots, on the back of his best performance since achieving the same finish in the Russian Open in July, 2014.

The encouraging effort came seven days after Jamieson, who’d shared the lead heading into the last round, crashed out of contention with a closing 78 in the Tshwane Open.

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“It was a great week, especially after the disappointment of last Sunday,” said Jamieson, who has climbed to 39th in the Race to Dubai after picking up a cheque for just over £80,000.

“I think I took the positives from last week’s performance and carried them into this week, the only difference being I used last week’s experience to help me today.”

Jamieson closed with a 72 to finish on two-under, eight shots behind Chowrasia as he retained the title with a brilliant peformance on the demanding DLF Golf & Country Club in Delhi.

“It was a brutal test of golf this week and your commitment to the shots was absolutely vital, something which maybe wasn’t a strong as it could have been last Sunday,” added the Scot. “But that’s golf, it’s a constant learning experience, I hadn’t been in that position for a long time and just need a little reacquainting.”

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Duncan Stewart can’t wait to turn up at Turnhouse Golf Club in the £50,000 car he’s just won for a hole-in-one on the European Tour.

The Capital-based golfer earned the gleaming BMW M3 for an ace during the second round of the Hero Indian Open at DLF Golf & Country Club in Delhi.

“Lovely wee hole in one today and a BMW M3 to go with it,” wrote Stewart on Twitter after holing a 6-iron at the 178-yard fourth hole.

Having been congratulated by Steven Armstrong, a stalwart of the Capital club, he later added on the social media site: “It will look good in the Turnhouse Golf Club car park”.

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It was the eight ace of Stewart’s career and third as a professional in a tournament.

“A Brucey bonus,” he said of the car. “I got a bottle of wine and a necklace for one in China few years ago, so this certainly tops that.”

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