They say lightning never strikes twice but the Ontario Boys, three University of Guelph students and golf teammates, are proving to be an exception to that rule.
The story begins last month with Caleb Patry’s spontaneous response to a social media ticket giveaway to the 2025 Players Championship, sending the trio on a whirlwind road trip to TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
Patry, a third-year real estate student at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, dropped an offer in the team’s group chat; two extra tickets were up for grabs. It was fellow Lang students, Liam Fischer, a fifth-year accounting major and Beck Ljungberg, in his fourth year of sport and event management, who responded. They did not know then how that one decision would lead them on a journey they could never imagine.
The Ontario Boys will now represent U of G this week in Augusta, Georgia at the Masters Tournament, one of professional golf’s most prestigious events.
“It’s surreal,” says Fischer. “I still can’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve fully processed it all. It’s crazy, especially how it all came together so fast.”
The road to the Masters
It was golf blogger Ryan French who gifted the tickets after Patry reached out via X. The boys were on the road mere hours later, trading shifts behind the wheel in order to make it. A quick run to a Jacksonville Walmart for golf shirts they scribbled Ontario Boys on would prove to be a lesson in branding and marketing.
Word about the trio and their unlikely journey south spread quickly and they were soon recognized by players and fans. The Golf League (TGL), a partner of the PGA Tour, invited them to play a round at Sawgrass, ESPN interviewed them and loaded them up with merch and they met idols like Irish pro golfer, Rory McIlroy.
During an interview with NBC’s Golf Channel in which a reporter asked how they could possibly top this, Patry jokingly replied, “Going to the Masters.”
That caught the attention of another Ontario boy, Canadian pro golfer Corey Conners, of Listowel. He got in touch with French and made the trio an offer they could not refuse – tickets to the Masters.
“It’s the hardest tournament in golf to get to as a spectator,” explains Patry, whose family has tried for decades through the lottery system the tournament uses for ticketing. “The generosity we’ve experienced is incredible.”
As Ljungberg describes this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: “It’s like a fever dream.”
And the adventures continue. Once the boys return from Georgia, they will prepare to join their teammates in June as the Gryphon golf team competes in the Canadian University/College Championship at Rivershore Golf Links in Kamloops, B.C.
And the lesson learned in all of this? That is encapsulated in the Ontario Boys official motto.
“Say yes,” says Ljungberg, remembering the impulse to jump on board when Patry threw out the call. “You never know where it could lead.”