This week’s Canadian Open is one of the most exciting events on the PGA Tour calendar, but not if you ask the tour itself.
It has incredible fans, a great golf course, and the players really seem to enjoy playing in the event. But Canada’s national open isn’t being treated as one of the year’s best tournaments by the PGA Tour.
The tour elevated certain events throughout the year, giving these Signature Events bigger purses to attract more players. Their hope is that the best players in the world will play in these tournaments more often, but that means non-Signature Events suffer from weaker fields.
Very few of the biggest names are playing the Canadian Open, therefore. Sahith Theegala’s comments after his opening round show that this is a huge error from the PGA Tour.
Sahith Theegala says Canadian Open feels like an elevated event
The Canadian Open isn’t officially an elevated event on the PGA Tour. It doesn’t have the eye-popping purse that the tour’s Signature Events have, so according to the tour, it isn’t one of the most important events of the year.
But the players, or Theegala at least, disagree. He said that because of the passion of the fans, this event at TPC Toronto feels huge. He said, “Obviously, as an RBC ambassador, I’m required to play here, but I think I would play here every single year regardless. I just love it.
“Especially, I really felt it my rookie year coming up here before I was an ambassador, I just loved the event. The Canadian fans are awesome. They’re just so excited to have us here. Our first year was at St. George’s, and the crowds there were unbelievable.
Who do you think will win the RBC Canadian Open?
“I played with Scottie the final round, and there were 20 people deep there, especially being close to the city. So, just that being my first experience, I feel like I get a ton of support out here, more so than I do on a normal week on the Tour for sure.
“Just everything about that makes it feel like an elevated kind of event. I know how much it means to the Canadian players, and there’s a reason why guys, the best players in the world come over here to play.
“There’s just something a little more about a National Open. So, yeah, it’s an honor to be an ambassador, but, yeah, it’s definitely a little elevated from a normal event, and you can feel that, for sure.”
So it feels like an elevated event, and it’s a favorite among players, but the players aren’t playing in it. No Scottie Scheffler, no Rory McIlroy. And that’s all because it hasn’t been elevated to the same level as the Cadillac Championship, which lacks any of the soul that this tournament has.
This is the reason the Signature Event model simply doesn’t work. Some of the best events of the year have been damaged in the process of raising other events up.
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