Brooke Henderson catches fire but misses chance at Manulife Classic

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Brooke Henderson had just played nine holes of golf that suggested it wasn't her day, and she was sitting six shots away from making the cut. She decided that rather than throw in the towel, she would dig in and battle.

The 17-year-old golf prodigy from Smiths Falls, Ont., missed the cut at the Manulife LPGA Classic on Friday, but the fiery youngster birdied five of her last seven holes in a must-watch fight to the finish.

She won't play on the weekend, where big, cheering galleries have lined the ropes to watch her, and attendance may take a hit because of it. In the end, her birdie-fest was too little too late – not when leaders Suzann Pettersen and Mariajo Uribe played to 13-under atop 70 golfers who made an LPGA record-low cut-line of four-under.

Henderson shot a one-under 71 on Thursday and a two-under 70 on Friday, finishing three-under and falling just one agonizing shot shy of making the cut.

Henderson is under 18 and therefore not a full member of the LPGA Tour, so she plays a limited number of Tour events, mostly on sponsor exemptions. She hopes to avoid the gruelling LPGA qualifying school, so she's attempting to get her card by either winning an event or finishing the year within the top 40 on the money list.

So making cuts and earning a cheque in each tournament is crucial. This was a missed opportunity.

"I really grinded deep and really found a lot of inner strength because I could have easily just given up," a smiling Henderson said after the round. "I think it's really good that I learned a lot about myself and my game coming down the stretch."

By the time Henderson teed off at 1:53 in the afternoon, the bar had been set extremely high as the world's best female golfers were stockpiling birdies and eagles all over Whistle Bear's course.

She started the day on the 10th tee, fans lined up four and five deep and cheering for her, which she returned with a megawatt smile and a tip of her hat. A pair of police officers in a golf cart followed her group all day to keep an eye on the big galleries.

She suffered through four bogeys in her first 10 holes before turning her game around, complete with a bobbled chip shot, several missed fairways and a shot into the drink. But her last seven holes were a more accurate picture of the promising golfer who finished 10th at last year's U.S. Women's Open and finished two spots shy of her first LPGA title back in April.

"I finally got to the point where I haven't had the last couple of days where I could see the line and I knew the putt was going in before I hit it," Henderson said.

Of the 12 LPGA events Henderson has played in her young career, she had only missed the cut twice before Friday – at the 2012 and 2013 Canadian Women's Open. She has a sponsor's exemption to play next week's Women's PGA Championship, her first LPGA major championship since turning pro in December.

The low scores were thanks largely to the scoreable par-fives scattered about Whistle. The tournament had moved to Whistle Bear in Cambridge, Ont., this year from its previous location at Grey Silo in Waterloo, Ont. Inbee Park won there last year with a four-day score of 23-under par and Hee Young Park's 26-under won it in 2013. Consistency, as displayed this week by Pettersen, the Norwegian veteran of 14 LPGA titles, is the name of the game. Lydia Ko also showed it, making her 53rd consecutive cut on Tour.

Four Canadians did make the cut: Alena Sharp, the low Canadian (seven-under), Sara-Maude Juneau (five-under), Natalie Gleadall (four-under) and Sue Kim (four-under). Juneau, Lorie Kane, Jennifer Kirby, Rebecca Lee-Bentham, Augusta James and Henderson's sister Brittany Henderson all missed the cut.

A Canadian hasn't won an LPGA event since Kane in 2001.