September 11, 2006

CANADIAN OPEN NOTHING MORE THAN A SECOND RATE TOURNAMENT

      Canadian golf fans can now completely understand what it’s like being a golf fan in the northwestern region of New York State—Endicott, New York to be more precise.   Endicott is the usual home for the PGA sponsored BC Open, a minor professional event that just happens to be scheduled the exact week that the British Open takes place.  (This year’s tourney was moved because of excessive flooding) As such all of the big names in golf are absent and the leader board is filled with names like John Rollins, Bob May and Omar Uresti.  The Canadian Open has become that kind of tournament.  Where once Jack Nicklaus would battle Greg Norman or Tom Weiskopf, now we see Brett Quigley, Bart Bryant and Sean O’Hair.  Thank goodness home country hero Mike Weir convinced his good friend Jim Furyk to play this year or the tourney may have been pre-empted for paid programming.

       The Canadian Open used to called the “fifth major”.  But that was a long, long time ago.  Now it wouldn’t even be called the “fifth minor”.  Once slotted into the peak of the summer golf season, typically between the US and the British Opens the Canadian Open was seen as a must play event on the international scene.  But with the expansion of PGA golf into a worldwide tour and the fact that the Open suddenly became static—Glen Abbey is a nice course but not intriguing enough to draw the best players year after year--running up to Canada just doesn’t feel as exotic for players as it once did.  The players lost interest and so too did the PGA.

       The Players Championship was soon created and that became that fifth major, and with Buick sponsoring two tournaments and Tiger Woods hosting another, well…there just wasn’t enough room left for the Canadian Open during the busy summer months.  Golf fans north of the 49^th parallel saw their one and only tournament pushed back to the end of the season when most name players would be resting and/or preparing for either the Ryder Cup or the President’s Cup—depending on the year—and the World Golf Championship (WGC) which typically signifies the end of another golf season.  Next season, the open moves back to July, but before anyone can think that a mid-summer time slot improves the tournament’s chance of tempting the world’s primary players--think again.  It is stuck immediately between the British and the WGC.  How many players are going to make the cross-Atlantic trip back on the Monday to play in Canada?  Answer—not many.

       So, what can be done?  The answer—not much.  That is the problem with being at the behest of an American organization that prefers American tournaments, in American cities with American sponsors.  There has been talk about dumping the PGA and going with the European Tour, but that is nothing more than a last resort.  Finding a way to get Tiger to play is the surest bet but, unlike the year he was drawn here by the possibility of winning the three international opens, U.S., British, and Canadian (which he did) it is unlikely to draw the world’s best player.  Tiger would prefer to be at the U.S. Open watching championship tennis than playing a tournament in Canada.  It’s just another scheduling conflict that plagues the open.

       Maybe one day the stature that should befit the Canadian open will return, though it doesn’t appear likely in the foreseeable future.  Until that day, however, we have to sit back, wait and watch John Rollins and Sean O’Hair.