CALGARY — Ken Tanigawa matched the course record at Canyon Meadows Golf and Country Club — after making an ace, for good measure — while Richard Green is in the driver’s seat to win for the first time in his career on PGA Tour Champions.
Green, who sits at 13 under, leads by one over Boo Weekley and Steven Alker, while a trio of golfers, including Tanigawa, are a shot further back at 11 under heading into the finale of the 2024 Rogers Charity Classic.
Green, a 53-year-old Australian, has two runner-up results this year and has come into Calgary with three top-10s in his last four events. He shot an 8-under 62 on Saturday including a stretch run of eight birdies in just nine holes.
“That was fun,” Green said. “You know, it’s been in the making for a while now, a really hot round like that. I just haven’t been able to get the putter going, and today I did. The putts were going in just as I was seeing them, which was nice.
“I know my game is good. I know my game has been good this year. It’s just a matter of trusting it and going out and playing.”
Green ended up falling short of winning the Senior British Open by two shots a few weeks ago and admitted that lit a fire under him. The Senior Open took place at Carnoustie, where he had shot a course-record 64 in 2007 at The Open Championship en route to finishing tied for fourth. That record stood for a decade.
“I’ve had a bit of a love affair with that course over the years. Thought it was going to be my week. I’ve just got to be patient and wait until the opportunity comes again and keep doing my best,” Green said.
“When you don’t quite win and you’re not quite getting the job done, that desire and that will to try and win is still certainly hot, that’s for sure. So, I’ve just got to go out there and play my game tomorrow and see where it ends up.”
While Green finished with a 62, it was Tanigawa whose second-round 61 was the round of the day.
He started on the back nine and was 2 under for his first six holes before knocking a 5-iron into the hole on the 210-yard 16th. He didn’t see it drop but heard the crowd go nuts. It was his 13th ace, but Tanigawa said he wasn’t sure if he had actually made one in competition before.
It was still early in his round, though, so he said he had to reset himself to keep the gas pedal down over the rest of his day and keep climbing the leaderboard.
“I know how humbling this can be. So, yes, you just put your feet on the ground as quick as possible,” he said. “You don’t get too high or low with it, right? Because you know you got a lot of golf to play.”
Tanigawa added another birdie on his ninth hole of the day to go out in 5-under 30. He made four birdies on his second nine, including on the par-3 9th to tie the course record at Canyon Meadows.
Fred Couples (2014), Miguel Angel Jimenez (2015) and Michael Bradley (2019) had previously fired 61s.
For Tanigawa, this round seemingly came out of nowhere. He hasn’t finished better than 56th in his last four tournaments and last week at the Boeing Classic he shot a second-round 78 and his wife, he said with a laugh, had to “talk him off a cliff.” He came back in the final round there with a 67 and saw signs of good golf coming back. That good golf returned in spades Saturday.
“I hung in there and made a lot of birdies (in the final round last week), so that’s always encouraging. If you can do that you can’t be that far after, right? Then played OK yesterday and then obviously played really OK today,” he said with a smile.
Tanigawa, Harrington, Alker and Weekley are all right there in the hungry chasing pack. But there’s a motivated leader in Green ready to keep the pedal down and — finally — tilt a trophy on the over-50 circuit.
“It’s exciting, isn’t it? You know, to put my game up against these guys and see myself performing is exciting,” Green said. “It gives me a lot of confidence. So, I’m just going to go out there and use that for (Sunday) and compete.”