With the sporting world back to normal, Canada can finally welcome back the best golfers in the world.
Starting Thursday, the RBC Canadian Open will take place at Toronto’s charming St. George’s Golf & Country Club, which last hosted in 2010.
The Canadian Open has twice been cancelled due to travel complications during the global pandemic.
The tournament is back in Toronto next year at Oakdale Golf & Country Club and then is expected to return in 2024 to Hamilton Golf & Country Club, where it was last played three years ago.
“The last two years have not gone the way we would have wanted, but we are now back in a big way,” tournament director Bryan Crawford, a former Toronto Argonauts player, said during a recent media event held at St. George’s.
“Two years have given us pause to see what we could do differently," he added.
Golf Canada has maxed out its corporate hospitality and has other entertainment options planned after golf ends on Friday and Saturday. The pent-up demand has meant that the tournament is the largest operation that the national sport governing body has undertaken, even bigger than the tournament’s salad days when it was held at Oakville’s Glen Abbey for most of the 1980s and '90s.
The field includes this year’s two major champions and is headlined by world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who won the Masters two months ago. No. 3 Cameron Smith, the 2022 Players champ, and No. 4 Justin Thomas, who just last month won the PGA Championship, are also in action.
Canadian hopes are centred on a couple of players from small-town Ontario in Corey Conners (Listowel) and Mackenzie Hughes (Dundas). Conners is ranked 34th in the world, while Hughes is 76th.
Barrie-area golf fans may recall Kramer Hickok winning the PGA Tour Canada’s Ontario Championship held at Innisfil's National Pines in 2017. Hickok has since graduated to the PGA Tour and is competing at St. George’s this week.
Rory McIlroy is the defending champion, though that win took place at Hamilton in 2019. It was a command performance by the Northern Irishman, who flirted with breaking 60 on Sunday before romping to a seven-shot victory.
Unfortunately for tournament organizers, much of the focus of the golf world this week is on what is taking place in England, where the break-away LIV Series is staging its first event just outside London.
The Canadian Open field itself has largely been unaffected with just Dustin Johnson the lone big name to bolt, but It’s a bad break in any case.
The LIV Series is seeking to establish a rival golf league to the PGA Tour and has installed aging icon Greg Norman, who twice won the Canadian Open, as the face of its new venture.
Local player Drew Nesbitt, who hails from Shanty Bay, missed qualifying for the tournament this year. The 2021 Mexican Open champion played the last Canadian Open and showed some promise until a rough stretch in the second round meant that he missed the Friday cut.
Another local player, Branson Ferrier, qualified for the Canadian Open in 2016. Ferrier did not take part in the Canadian Open qualifying this year because he had advanced to the final U.S. Open qualifier taking place at the same time, though he failed to earn one of three spots for next week’s third major championship of the season.
Ferrier, who won the Canadian assistants’ championship last fall, is currently working as an assistant pro at Vespra Hills just outside of Barrie. Nesbitt plays full-time on the PGA Tour Latinomerica.
To access St. George’s, you take Highway 400 all the way south to Highway 401 West cutoff and get off at the Islington exit (the first once you are heading west), from there follow the signs for spectator parking.
Shuttles run continuously to drop you at the course.
Besides watching golf, concerts are planned including FloRida (Friday) and Maroon 5 (Saturday) at nearby Richview Collegiate.
Other post-golf entertainment will be staged on-site at St. George’s, including theScore’s unique feature: hoisting fans 100 feet above the golf course for a bird’s-eye perspective of the action immediately below, as well as sweeping views of the city.
All player and relevant event information, including available tickets, can be accessed by downloading Golf Canada’s new app onto your remote device.
