Corey Conners has been a PGA Tour mainstay since 2017. Since then, he has achieved considerable success including a couple of wins and Presidents Cup selections.
There is plenty more to the Canadian than his golf ability, though, including another sport he excelled in as a youngster and a potentially very different career path he considered before making it as a professional golfer.
Here are 20 things you may not be familiar with about the star.
1. Corey Conners was born 6 January 1992 in Listowel, Ontario, Canada
2. Conners first played golf at the age of four, and entered his first tournament when he was nine.
3. Growing up, the Canadian was a member of his high school ice hockey team, and among its achievements was a win in a Provincial Hockey Championship.
4. Between 2010 and 2014, he played for Kent State University golf team in Ohio. Among his teammates were compatriots Mackenzie Hughes and Taylor Pendrith. A decade after that spell, the trio were named in the Presidents Cup Internationals Team.
5. In 2010, Conners won the Ontario Amateur Championship and represented Canada at the 2012 and 2014 editions of the Eisenhower Trophy.
6. Conners excels at math and studied actuary math while at Kent State University, where he was a two-time Academic All-American. He told PGATour.com: "Hopefully I'll never have to fall back on that degree, but it's some fascinating stuff that I really enjoy as well.”
7. He originally had aspirations of becoming a pharmacist, an optometrist or a doctor.
8. Conners made his PGA Tour debut as an amateur at the 2013 RBC Canadian Open, where he missed the cut.
9. In 2014, Conners finished runner-up in the US Amateur. That achievement meant he qualified for the 2015 Masters, where he missed the cut.
10. Soon after his maiden experience at the Augusta National Major, Conners turned professional and initially plied his trade on the Mackenzie Tour (which later became the PGA Tour Canada) and PGA Latinoamerica Tour.
11. Conners secured his PGA Tour card in 2017, after three top 10s and 16 made cuts meant he finished 20th on the Web.com Tour (now Korn Ferry Tour) money list.
12. His breakout season came in 2019, when he won the Valero Texas Open. In the process, Conners became the first Monday qualifier to win a PGA Tour event since 2010, while he also claimed the last available spot at the Masters.
13. During the 2019 season, Conners led the PGA Tour in Greens in Regulation, with 73.06%. He also finished 26th in the FedEx Cup standings.
14. Conners' wife is Malory, who went viral in 2019 for her reactions during her husband's triumph at the Valero Texas Open. Conners said afterwards: "She's been my biggest fan for years and my biggest supporter. I’m really lucky to have her by my side. It’s pretty cool to see her in the spotlight a little bit. Her reactions were awesome.”
15. Conners' first top-10 finish at a Major came at the 2020 Masters with a T10. He went onto finish in the top-10 in the next two editions, while he finished T9 at the 2024 US Open. That was his fifth appearance after he had missed the cut at the previous four.
16. His second PGA Tour win came in 2023, again at the Valero Texas Open.
17. He represented Canada at both the 2020 and 2024 Olympics. He finished 13th in Tokyo and T9at Le Golf National in Paris.
18. He was an automatic qualifier for both the 2022 Presidents Cup and the 2024 edition at Royal Montreal Golf Club in his homeland.
19. He sponsors include Ping, FTI Consulting, RBC and Levelwear. He also uses a full set of Ping golf clubs.
20. Conners' hobbies include fishing and ice hockey. His favorite team is the Toronto Maple Leafs.
