COOKIE'S COMMENT - PGA TOUR To The Rescue

Since the alternatives were few, the PGA Tour "loan" was the only way for the CanTour to continue, apparently which would suggest commissioner Rick Janes suggestion about how much he and the tour can learn being so closely aligned with the PGA Tour is a good thing.

Wonder what Bob Beuachemin thinks about that? He was pretty much a one-man show in the reconstruction of the Canadian Tour when Peter Jackson (Macdonald / Imperial Tobacco) cigarettes dropped it's sponsorship of the tour in the early 1970s.

While the Canadian Tour is forced to welcome the PGA Tour with open arms because of a need for its cash right now, the CanTour would be better off being run by Canadians for the good of up and coming Canadian players.

Remember when the PGA of Canada dumped the Canadian Tour (when PGA players were provided 30-40 spots in the field) to spend a whack more money by joining the Nationwide Tour (run by the PGA Tour)?

The only "Canadian" players who got to play in it were CanTour players who had qualified or were invited to fill the field. But it cost the CPGA a bunch of money. They might actually be still paying those bills.

It spelled the end of one of the oldest and best tournaments in Canada; second only to the Canadian Open.

It's unlikely the PGA Tour took any responsibility for guiding their Canadian brethern down the road to stupidity. Or even had a twinge of regret.

The worry here is if the PGA Tour gets too strong a hold on to the Canadian Tour that it will want to change (read reduce the number of Canadians filling the fields) the way the tour operates. The PGA Tour will offer irrefutable evidence that it can't attract sponsors with a mostly unknown Canadian field.

I don't know the answer to that one, but I do know that Janes has been on the job for several years and hasn't landed any major sponsors.

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Kent Gilchrist, originally from Souris, Man., was a former Vancouver Province Sports Editor and Columnist who covered Olympic Games, Stanley Cup finals, the Kentucky Derby, The Masters, U.S. and Canadian Opens, PGA Championships and many Grey Cups. For more than a decade Gilchrist was the Province beat reporter with the BC Lions. In 2005 he was inducted into the CFL's Football Reporters of Canada Hall of Fame. Now semi-retired, Cookie is a freelance journalist for a variety of major publications and a globe trotting commentator for BC Golf News.

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Tweet Cookie: @cookiefore or Email him at: hkgilchrist@yahoo.com