For a hearty stretch of time at the PGA Championship – all the way to the back nine on Sunday, in fact – there was a Canadian in contention to win it all at Aronimink Golf Club.
Nick Taylor had shot a tidy Saturday 65, one of just two rounds on the day that were bogey free, and even though he missed birdie tries from inside 10 feet on Nos. 17 and 18 in the second-to-last day, he found himself in the penultimate pairing alongside Jon Rahm for Sunday’s finale.
He was very firmly in the mix.
Alas, for the man who is a perfect 3-0 in playoffs on the PGA Tour – and no win bigger, of course, than his triumph at the RBC Canadian Open in 2023 he is not immune to final-round struggles. He was in prime position at the Masters in April to notch his best-career major finish before a Sunday stumble.
And it happened, unfortunately, again Sunday at the PGA Championship.
Taylor had made one birdie and eight pars to open his final round before he got a case of the lefts off the tee. He bogeyed No. 10 before the wheels fell off at the mid-point of the back nine. He bogeyed Nos. 13-15 and 17 and 18 (with a birdie on No. 16 thrown in) to come in with a 4-over 74. He ended up tied for 26th.
Taylor’s best finish at a major is a tie for 23rd at last year’s U.S. Open, but you could absolutely argue that last week at the PGA Championship was his best ever major week.
“It’s the first time I’ve been in legit contention,” Taylor told TSN on Sunday. “With nine holes to go I had a real chance.
“I kind of stopped trusting what I was doing, especially with some trouble left (so) there were some decent shots that just didn’t pan out as well and made bogeys from there.”
Still, Taylor said he learned plenty from the experience through the week and with two majors left on the season he can certainly build towards a full, four-day effort at one of golf’s biggest events.
Taylor has made the cut at both the Masters and the PGA Championship so far in 2026 – the first time he’s ever done that in his career – and has been under par in five of the eight rounds of major-championship golf he’s played this year.
And if there’s any consolation about major performance, he needs to look no further than the man who went on to win the PGA Championship itself, Aaron Rai.
Rai, whose skill profile is comparable to Taylor’s, stepped up and took the PGA on the heels of a 6-under-par run through his final 10 holes – just the third major winner in recent history who had such a stretch to finish. Coming into the week Rai, who won by three shots after shooting a final-round 65 (the second-lowest final round in PGA Championship history by a winner) had never in his career finished top-15 at a major prior to his breakthrough win at Aronimink Golf Club.
Rai – who is set to tee it up at the RBC Canadian Open in June – did not necessarily come out of nowhere (his first PGA Tour title came in 2024 and he has three DP World Tour wins as well) but his victory proved that major champions play a kind of golf that could come in all different shapes and sizes.
And hopefully that means a major result at a major event is coming up sooner rather than later for a Canadian.
Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners also found the weekend at the PGA Championship, with Pendrith finishing tied for 44th and Conners finishing tied for 55th.
Sudarshan Yellamaraju, who is Canada’s top-ranked golfer in the FedExCup standings in his rookie year on the PGA Tour, missed the cut in his major debut.
For now, both Taylor and Conners are officially in the field for the U.S. Open June 18-21.