Golfer pulls out of Canadian Open midway through round – but for very good reason | Golf | Sport
PGA Tour golfer Greyson Sigg was forced to pull out of the RBC Canadian Open midway through his pro-am round on Wednesday after his wife went into labour. The 30-year-old American headed for the exit after receiving the exciting news and will miss the main tournament, which gets underway at the TPC Toronto in Ontario on Thursday.
Sigg was supposed to take his place as part of the 156 field at the RBC Canadian Open, with his first round due to get underway at 11.56am BST on Thursday morning and his second round scheduled to start at 5.11pm BST on Friday. But he will now be replaced by compatriot Zac Blair. The star-studded field will include Masters champion Rory McIlroy, who will be aiming to win the tournament for the third time, as well as big names like Ludvig Aberg, Shane Lowry and Justin Rose. Meanwhile, Robert MacIntyre will be looking to defend the title after winning the tournament last year.
Sigg had been an outsider to win silverware leading up to the event. But on Wednesday, the PGA Tour released a statement on X (formerly Twitter) that read: “Greyson Sigg is a WD midway through the pro-am at the RBC Canadian Open and also WD from the competition rounds (wife is in labour).”
A short time later, the post was deleted, however, with an updated version reading: “Greyson Sigg is a WD from the RBC Canadian Open and replaced by Zac Blair.”
Sigg, who played collegiately during his time at the University of Georgia, is married to wife Katie, who is the daughter of the university’s men’s golf coach Chris Haack.
The talented golfer announced his engagement in 2021, with the couple reportedly tying the knot in 2022 in Highlands, North Carolina.
Sigg is ranked at No. 204 in the world and got tongues wagging at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in 2022 as he hit his first hole-in-one on the PGA Tour.
And he later revealed he had no idea the ball had gone into the hole as he explained: “So I birdied No. 9 and get up to 10 and I was like, ‘You know, I might need to go to the bathroom here.’
“So I hit my shot on 10 with a seven-iron pretty fast and I knew it was a good shot. We couldn’t see it go in, no one really made any reaction.
“So I threw my club to my caddie and I took off and I came in the locker room, went to the bathroom.
“And as I was walking out, one of the locker room attendants was like, ‘Great shot, hole-in-one.’ And I was like, ‘No way.’ I still didn’t even really think because I was trying to hurry and get back out.
“And as a rules official was taking me back down, they were on the green doing this [gestures]. So it was a pretty funny story. I didn’t see it go in, nor did I even get the ball out of the hole.”
