Sudarshan Yellamaraju Shoots 69 in Second RBC Canadian Open

Sudarshan Yellamaraju shot a one-under-par 69 in his second RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley this week, another clean step for a 24-year-old from Mississauga, Ont. The round came in front of Matthew Fitzpatrick, the 2022 U.S. Open winner, and Victor Hovland, a seven-time winner on Tour.

TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley

That score fit the way he has climbed the game. Yellamaraju did not grow up in a golfing family, and he built his swing the hard way after his family immigrated from India to Winnipeg when he was a child. His father put golf on TV to keep him occupied, even though he did not play, and Yellamaraju took up the game at age 6.

Winnipeg winters kept most of that work indoors. He practiced almost exclusively inside with rental clubs, then entered his first tournament at age 9 and shot 101. He did not break 100 again after that first event, a slow start that makes the current PGA Tour stop look a lot less conventional than it does on a leaderboard.

YouTube and the long climb

By the time his family moved to Mississauga when he was 11, he was already studying the game on his own. He watched YouTube instead of hiring coaches and broke down the swings of top players frame by frame, then kept at it on his own terms. After high school, he played qualifying events for what is now the PGA Tour Americas, earned status there, and used those results to move on to the Korn Ferry Tour.

Last year he won on the Korn Ferry Tour and collected enough ranking points to graduate as a full PGA Tour member. This week’s 69 showed how far that path has carried him: he was not just making another start, he was doing it in the middle of a field that included Fitzpatrick and Hovland.

Players Championship payoff

The money and momentum have already been real. Yellamaraju said his fifth-place finish at the Players Championship in March earned him more in one week, a reminder of how quickly a strong result can change the scale of a season.

For him, the line from rental clubs in Winnipeg to TPC Toronto is the story. He has put in the hours, and his own words after the round matched that grind: “I mean, the only thing I can say is you just got to just feel it out, right?” He added, “Feel what works for you.”

That is the same approach he has described behind the rest of the climb. “Eventually kids are going to start playing the game because they want to just have fun and they want to enjoy it,” he said. “And if you're wanting to just kind of keep getting better, if you're going to do it by yourself, it's just trial and error, and you just figure it out, and practice.”