It's All Good For The Women

Filed in archive Golf News on August 18, 2007

Christina Kim takes on Royal Mayfair
Courtesy: AP Photo

There is a fascinating study in contrasts happening right now in Canadian professional golf.

Two cases in point, both of which happen to be Canadian-based events (but the arguments apply, no matter where the tournaments are): the recent Canadian Open last month at Angus Glen North in Toronto and the women's Canadian Open currently being played at Royal Mayfair golf club in Edmonton.

The Canadian Open just completed its second year without a sponsor. The Royal Canadian Golf Association, which owns the event, has been unsuccessful in attracting a title sponsor, this despite live network television coverage throughout North America.

For several years, the Canadian Open has suffered from weakened fields; this year, only two of the world's top 10 players were in the field. Fortunately, one of them won the event - Jim Furyk (who repeated as champion).

The RCGA contracted a specially outfitted jet to wing players straight from The Open at Carnoustie to Toronto for the third-oldest tournament in the world (behind The Open and the U.S. Open) in order to ensure quantity, if not quality, in the field. Yes, of course, there was quality; no player with a PGA tour card is a slouch.

But the tournament remains without a sponsor and goes from year to year without more than one or two marquis names teeing it up.

Many point to the lousy time slot on the PGA's calendar. The Canadian Open was played in September, but, in recent years, that has become the tail end of a very long season and players didn't feel like another "foreign" tournament. So they don't come.

Now, the tournament is held in July - mid season, good weather but a week after The Open - and that has proven to be a major obstacle.

Then, there's the issue of the courses selected to host the Open. The tournament used to be exclusively at Glen Abbey, outside Toronto, for many years. It was groomed to host the Open and it was pretty good at it. But the RCGA has shopped the Canadian Open around to different courses in the last half dozen years or so with a very mixed degree of success.

Another major difficulty for the RCGA.

Now to the women's Canadian Open. Like its male counterpart, the women's Canadian Open is owned by the RCGA and it, too, was without a title sponsor at the end of 2004.

The end looked near, the death-knell sounding. But, a wealthy corporation, Canadian National (shipping, rail transportation, real estate) with a sense of vision stepped up.

And the women's Canadian Open has never been better. After a great first year as sponsor in 2006, CN kicked up the purse by nearly a million dollars this year, making it richer than several of the LPGA's majors. In fact, it's now the fifth richest of the LPGA tournaments.

This year's field couldn't be stronger. Every major player, except the ailing Annika Sorenstam, is present.

The course is outstanding and the players are eating it up.

But, more importantly for CN, they're getting the exposure. Through the media, through television and best of all, through the critical viral marketing by the players themselves. They love the tournament and they talk it up.

They want to come.

It's a very tough thing to get a sponsorship right. For the RCGA or the PGA or the European PGA or the LPGA or any other tour body, it starts with an attractive package.

But then it's up to that body to seek out a sponsor and work with that company arm in arm to make the sponsorship successful.

If the RCGA can do it with the women's Canadian Open, they can do it with the PGA version.