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| Conquering
the New World |
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Article published on the
Italian daily newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport
(December 6, 2000) |
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He is the first Italian to
enter the PGA USA.
He qualified at the last hole.
di
Carolina Durante |
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Some hundreds of Italian
golf fans must have stayed up late on the night between Monday
and Tuesday. A night of high tension that had as protagonists
the "card", in order words, the passport that entitles
you to enter to the richest golf circuit in the world, the
PGA Tour, and Emanuele Canonica, the number one Italian golf
player.
While
in California, on the two courses of the PGA West at La Quinta,
the Jack Nicklaus Tournament
Course (par 72, 6951 yards), the last shots of the massacring
Qualifying School were being held, in Europe, the connections
to the Internet pgatour.com website, in order to follow the
developments in real time of the tournament increased as the
going got tougher. Beginning the 6th and last round placed
in 28th position, Canonica had incremented his own advantage
with two birdies in the 7th and 8th holes, which seemed to
guarantee him the possibility to enter the first 35 qualified,
to whom the card is awarded, among a lot of 168 selected participants.
Then the first mishap, in hole 11, followed by another one in
hole 14 and a worst one at hole 16, a par five, hole that for
a hitter like Canonica should be destined to comebacks. He seemed
to have lost the physical, psychological, and also economic
effort accomplished to get to where he was, after having overcome
the first two phases of the qualifications (two turns of 72
holes each).
| But Peppo Canonica, who will become
30 years old in only a month, has become a player with
an extra gear. "There had been some incomprehensions
on the evaluation of the distance between him and the
caddie, maybe due to stress", explains his coach
Giorgio Bordoni, whom
stayed in Italy even though always in strict contact
with his pupil. The stakes are high: the access to the
PGA Tour gives the possibility to compete for higher
price-money, on average two and a half times more than
the ones in the European Tour. "Peppo has been
working on his swing, game techniques, and temper for
over nine years. He has had many ups and downs in his
career, but he has always believed in his possibilities.
He must have lost around 20 or more pounds, but he made
it, says Bordoni. In the next to the last hole, the
17th (par 3), he placed a 9 iron at very few centimeters
from the hole, and scored a birdie. At the 18th hole,
a difficult par 4 having a water obstacle in front of
the green he played a perfect 8 iron with a slight draw
(a spin to the left) and the ball landed a meter away
from the hole". Another birdie, a fundamental one:
in fact, one more shot and he would have been first
among the excluded.
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"It's a dream come true",
said Peppo during a telephone conversation with his coach, "a
great satisfaction that rewards me for some delusions. A success
that I dedicate to my father Dino,
a great teacher, and to all the people that have been close
to me". Canonica is a professional player since 1991, and
now holder of a record of which he is very proud of: he is the
first Italian ever to have obtained the American card maintaining
in contemporary the European one, thanks to his 27th place in
the seasonal ranking.
Qualifications: 1. Allan (AUS) 400 (-32); 2. Morland
(USA) & Wilson (USA) 402 (-30); 31.
Canonica (ITA) 69-68-70-71-68-71-417 (-15), even with
other five players. |
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