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BLAINVILLE, Québec—Brendan Leonard began the day tied for third, five shots off the lead but the Cambridge, Ontario native made some clutch birdies on Sunday to win the Mackenzie Investments Open, the first tournament on the 2021 Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada.

“It feels awesome,” said Leonard. “It was a grind out there today, but I just stuck to what I’ve been doing all week and ended up coming out on top.”

Tied for the lead with two holes to play, Leonard saved the best for last, closing out with back-to-back birdies on 17 and 18 to seal the deal. His approach on 18 ended up within 5 feet of the pin putting an exclamation point on his 2-stroke victory.

“That’s why we’re all out here,” said Leonard. “You want to come out here, you want to perform and under the gun you want to pull off the shots. That’s what I kept telling myself is just commit to this and get it done and luckily I was able to come away with it.”

Mississauga, Ontario’s Sudarshan Yellamaraju charged up the leaderboard on Sunday vaulting all the way from a tie for 10th to a tie for 3rd at 7-under. In fact, when he finished his round, he was briefly tied for the lead before Leonard’s heroics.

“I definitely expected that I could play well,” said Yellamaraju. “I’m not surprised by that. Actually, doing it is the big thing, so I’ll definitely have a lot of confidence going into the rest of the events.”

The top Québecer was Keven Fortin-Simard who finished in a tie for fourth. The St-Prime native was loudly cheered by the gallery every time he hit a good shot.

Tied for third place only 5 strokes from the lead going into the final round, Fortin-Simard slowly but surely worked his way back up to the top of the leaderboard where, on the tee of the 17th hole, 4 golfers were tied for the lead. All hopes were justified for the Quebecer. However, this was without counting on Léonard's performance, whose intentions were precise.

“Ya it was great,” said Fortin-Simard who had four birdies in the final round. “It’s not something that you come here and expect to get that many cheers. I had the chance to see a bunch of people I haven’t seen for a while that made the trip here to see me play so I’m definitely grateful for that.”

Among the other Quebecers, Brandon Lacasse of Châteauguay finished in 12th place, tied at -1. Iannick Lamarre had a brilliant performance with a 67 including 7 birdies in the final round.

The next tournament on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada schedule is the Osprey Valley Open at TPC Toronto which will take place the week of August 16th-22nd.

Key Information

• Andrew Harrison had the low round of the day shooting a 5-under 67. The Camrose, Alberta native made eight birdies against only one bogey.
• 25 players made par or better in Sunday’s final round with eight players shooting in the 60s.
• Louis-Francois Charpentier was the lone amateur to make the cut. The Outremont, Québec native finished tied for 43rd at 11-over.
• Blair Bursey led after the first three rounds but was unable to go wire-to-wire. The Gander, Newfoundland native finished with a final round score of 76 placing him in a tie for 3rd.
• Aurora, Ontario’s Marc Casullo finished in a tie for 2nd at 7-under after scoring a 2-over round of 74 on Sunday.
• The top 5 players on the final points list will earn 2022 PGA TOUR Canada membership. First place on the points list will receive fully exempt status for the 2022 PGA TOUR Canada season, 2nd-5th will earn exempt status up until the first reshuffle.

Quotable

“It was awesome. All the volunteers and the fans – those last couple of holes were really loud. I haven’t had that in a long time so it was good to get the mojo and kind of feel that again .” – Brendan Leonard on the support from the gallery

“I got off to a really hot start and then in the middle I lost a couple shots out there and really finished strong. I made three birdies on my last five holes, so I just stuck to my game plan and ended up winning.” –Brendan Leonard

“My play was good, just not good enough to take the trophy home. I made up some ground, not enough, but it felt good to do so.” –Keven Fortin-Simard

“A little bit upset but I knew it was the first hole, there’s 17 more holes. I just had to stay patient. I knew I was playing well all week, I just needed to avoid the simple mistakes because the pins were tough.” –Sudarshan Yellamaraju on his first hole bogey

Final-Round Weather:

Overcast and calm. High of 20. Wind N at 3 kpm. Gusts in the afternoon reached 5 kph.