Taylor came into the professional game advertised as one of the new, young lions. As an amateur in the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, he finished 36th. His tournament included a 65, the lowest round by an amateur in a major. He was the No. 1 amateur in the world, a superstar at the University of Washington. In 2010, he won the Ben Hogan Award, college golf’s Heisman Trophy.
He graduated that year, but his ascension to the PGA TOUR turned into an extended grind. Taylor, who came to Washington from Abbottsford, B.C., spent four years on the PGA’s Canadian Tour. Last year, on the Web.com Tour — the PGA’s equivalent of baseball’s Pacific Coast League — he struggled through the summer and fought even to keep his Web.com Tour card, finishing the regular season ranked 69th overall. To those who follow him from afar, the PGA TOUR seemed as far away as ever.
“At the end of the Web.com Tour, I played 13 weeks in a row,” Taylor says. “It was definitely a reality check. It was stressful, to say the least.”
Stressful, but not crushing. Even though, week-to-week, he wasn’t getting the results he wanted, Taylor felt his game coming together, felt his confidence rising. He believed he had found some magic in his putter.
Under the excruciating stress of the final day of the Web.com Tour Finals at TPC Sawgrass — a tournament comprised of Web.com Tour players and those outside the top-125 on the PGA TOUR, all competing for one of just 25 PGA TOUR cards — Taylor shot a seven-under 63 to climb into a tie for 21st place. The Tour card was finally his.
Just months later, in Jackson, Miss., Taylor came into the final round of the PGA TOUR Sanderson Farms Championship four strokes behind the leader, veteran John Rollins. Taylor was playing in just his third PGA TOUR event of the season, which thanks to the Tour’s wrap-around schedule, had given him practically no chance to rest after his 13-tournaments-in-13-weeks whirlwind.
Some 2,000 miles away, in Seattle, Washington men’s golf coach Matt Thurmond was in church, sneaking peeks at the leaderboard on his phone. Something was happening in Jackson and Thurmond knew, “I’ve gotta get home.” He raced to his house and turned on The Golf Channel.
“I’d never been in that situation, ever,” Thurmond says.
Taylor’s putting was as smooth and rhythmic as cool jazz. He was hitting fairways and one-putting practically every green. All of the potential that Thurmond first saw in him when Taylor was a high school sophomore was being fully realized.
“I was so proud of him,” Thurmond says. “He stayed in rhythm, was clear-headed and was in complete control.”
Taylor birdied 13, 14 and 15. He needed only 24 putts on his first 17 holes. He one-putted 10 of his first 16 greens and took a three-stroke lead into the anti-climactic 18th. Shooting a 6-under 66 on Sunday, he won the Sanderson Farms Championship by two strokes. The odd-looking bronze rooster trophy looked as beautiful to him as the British Open’s claret jug.
“It was surreal,” Taylor said at the time. After the win, he told Thurmond, “It definitely couldn’t have happened without you.”
“He’s a special person,” Thurmond says. “He’s very humble. He has the overwhelming support from everyone who knows him. I love all of our guys, but to me, Nick is the purest Husky.”
Taylor was the first Canadian-born citizen to win on Tour since Mike Weir in 2007. He was the first Husky to win since George Bayer in 1960.
“It’s pretty cool to be the first Husky in such a long time,” Taylor says. “It means something to me. But I think in the next five years you’re going to see a lot more guys out here. Alex Prugh is very close. Cheng-Tsung Pan is playing very well for Washington. I think there’s hope for a lot more guys to be out here soon.”
Looking ahead can be professional suicide in golf. Lose focus and you lose money. But every once in a while, Taylor will think about this coming June and the U.S. Open at Chambers Bay, and wonder what wonders might be in store if he were to qualify.
“It would be a great homecoming,” he says. “So many people could come down from Vancouver and Seattle. Yes, I think about that. That would be very special.”