LORNE RUBENSTEIN, From Saturday's Globe and Mail
June 13, 2008 at 10:13 PM EDT

LA JOLLA, Calif. — At six over par for the tournament through 27 holes, 2007 Canadian Amateur champion Nick Taylor was in position to make the cut in the U.S. Open. He was even par for the second round yesterday and about to face the most difficult test of his impressive amateur career. The challenge was to maintain his form and make the cut.

Taylor, 20, hit a solid drive that turned right to left and finished just in the rough at the first hole, his 10th of the round. As he walked off the tee at Torrey Pines' South Course, somebody yelled, "I believe in you, Nick Taylor."

There's good reason to believe in Taylor, who plays out of the Ledgeview Golf and Country Club in Abbotsford, B.C., and who tied for second place in the recent U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association championship.

He was at the U.S. Open because he had won a sectional qualifier in Creswell, Ore. Having just finished his sophomore year at the University of Washington in Seattle, Taylor was playing his first U.S. Open. From June 19 to 21, he'll play a big amateur event, the Pengrowth Invitational at the Glencoe Golf and Country Club in Calgary. The plan was to go there having made the cut in the U.S. Open.

Taylor's approach to the first green finished 35 feet below the hole. Tom Hall, who was his golf coach at Yale Secondary School in Abbotsford, was following him. His parents, Jay and Darlene, were in attendance. His brother Josh, a junior on a golf scholarship at the University of Texas-El Paso, was caddying for him. His college coach, Matt Thurman, was here. Four relatives had driven 28 hours non-stop from Wainwright, Alta., to watch.

Taylor stood over his lengthy birdie putt. He ran it six feet by, but holed the par putt. Family and friends applauded.

Then, on the 389-yard second hole, he hit a perfect tee shot into the middle of the fairway. But his approach caught the top of the bunker to the right of the green and retreated into the sand. He hit a crafty, soft shot that ran four feet by the hole.

"Well done, son," his father said. He's a real-estate agent in Abbotsford. The four feet his son had to traverse successfully to make his putt were the only real estate he cared about at the moment.

"Why is it that every putt is so big?" the golfer's father wondered. His son made the putt, parred the next hole and remained six over for the championship with six holes to play. Anybody within 10 shots of the lead makes the cut. Six under par looked safe.

Such is the beauty of this championship that a young man such as Taylor can qualify. It's a true "Open." Any golfer with a maximum 1.4 handicap can try to qualify. Canadians who weren't aware of Taylor's accomplishments surely know of him now.

Now Taylor was on the 488-yard fourth hole, where the green is perched on the cliff high above the Pacific Ocean. His long second found the front fringe of the green, 70 feet from the hole. His putt came up short, and he missed it. Seven over now.

He parred the fifth hole, drove well on the sixth, but missed his second shot, well to the right and into the hay. He pitched from a tough spot to 50 feet from the hole, putted up to a couple of feet and then missed his bogey putt. Taylor was nine over par, just like that.

"Work hard, Nick, work hard," his high-school coach, Hall, implored. He was, but he missed another two-footer for par on the seventh hole. Ten over now, Taylor parred in, grinding on every shot, not even coming close to packing it in.

"Well done, Taylor," somebody said as the young player walked to the scoring trailer. But Taylor was bitterly disappointed.

"The whole day I felt uncomfortable," Taylor said after he signed his card. "Every iron I had, I didn't know where it was going."

But he knows where he's going. There's the Glencoe tournament and then the RBC Canadian Open next month. He's exempt from the U.S. Amateur in August.

"You can't buy experiences like this," Taylor, a member of the Royal Canadian Golf Association's national team, said. "It's disappointing. But I'll get over it. It's definitely a stepping stone."

It was, and the stumbles as he took another step in his career could provide the most significant lessons of all. That's how it is for golfers who succeed in the long run. Taylor appears on track for that kind of success, the only kind that matters.