Same old, same old: Some just get their kicks trashing Canadian Open
It’s really no small wonder the RBC Canadian Open has a tough time being taken seriously in the PGA Tour ranks.
Our own just seem to enjoy slapping this tournament around.
On Monday morning, about 12 hours after rookie Chez Reavie put the finishing touches on a triumph in which he held at least a share of top spot from Thursday on, the vultures were out again in full force.
Some, but not all, columnists did their annual tournament brow-beating, trying to bring down what was actually a pretty good week.
You know, no drama. No big names. No-name winner.
And, as usual, no support.
Forget the much-needed support of RBC, the long days put in by a dedicated legion of volunteers as well as the endless hours worked by Scott Simmons, Bill Paul and the employees at the RCGA. Forget the fact this tournament had to contend with horrible weather from the opening day and was forced to play catch-up the rest of the week.
For whatever reason, we, or at least most, in this country have a habit of kicking anything when it’s down. No one needs to explain that the Canadian Open hasn’t exactly been on solid footing the past few years. No one needs to rehash that a majority of the world’s best would rather take a pass after jaunting across the Atlantic from the British Open.
Breaking news this is not.
Talking to colleagues around the Canadian Open Media Centre tucked in behind Golf House at Glen Abbey, most – and by that I mean by a decided margin – agreed that this Open was the best in the past few years, even with little cooperation from the weatherman.
Whether or not you know the difference between Chez Reavie and Chez Paree isn’t really the point.
You have to start somewhere, so it is said, and it’s not a bad way to christen a career, getting a win in your rookie campaign. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Reavie held off some pretty impressive names that finished inside the top 20. Maybe you’ve heard of the likes of Weir. Or Furyk. Kim. Couples. McCarron. Mayfair.
Yet still, some feel the need to fill their columns with the same old rhetoric trashing this national championship.
Until everyone gets on board, the Canadian Open will continue, unfairly, to spin its wheels.
Maybe it’s time to start giving credit where it is due instead of banging the drum with the same old negative crap from year to year.
RBC Canadian Open picks itself up off the mat
Regardless of who gets all warm and cuddly with the RBC Canadian Open championship trophy later today, this event, one that seemed down for the count not all that long ago, has hauled itself off the canvas.
Make no mistake. The Open still has some work to do before it is once again classified as the unofficial fifth major, but now, if nothing else, they’ve at least got a running start.
Somehow, it seems like only yesterday – and trust me, it isn’t that far off – when even the mere mention of the Canadian Open drew a snicker, not to mention a certain pass in favour of an off-week, among the PGA Tour’s best. That recent ugly date right smack dab after the British Open hasn’t exactly helped matters, but it’s been a few years – and not long after Tiger Woods hit that memorable six-iron from a bunker on the 72nd hole of the 2000 championship – since this tournament had that jewel-in-golf’s-Triple-Crown mystique.
This week has been different. This week, you sense a resurgence of sorts.
Outside of an ornery Mother Nature, who has delivered about eight hours of delays to the Open since Thursday, there has been a feelgood atmosphere around the Open all week. The fans, seemingly unfazed by the weather, are back, thanks in part to a series of concerts featuring Blue Rodeo, 54-40 and Tom Cochrane each night following play.
The presence of Weir lingering around the top of the leaderboard hasn’t scared anyone away, but it’s more than that. When he took over at the RCGA last summer, Scott Simmons, in his own subtle way, promised a different attitude, a different era, for this national championship.
So far, so good.
And someday, perhaps soon, the Canadian Open will return to being a can’t-miss event on the PGA Tour schedule.
After a few years of getting bashed around, they deserve that break.
RCGA deserves some help from Mother Nature at RBC Canadian Open
Scott Simmons and the hard-working gang at Glen Abbey just can’t seem to buy a break.
After just a year on the job, Simmons is slowly but surely steering the RBC Canadian Open back to its glory days of yesteryear. Even with an unattractive, take-it-or-leave-it date on the heels of the British Open, the Canadian Open – with new title sponsor RBC in tow – is making titanic leaps towards becoming a circled date for players on the PGA Tour calendar.
Of course, Mother Nature can’t lend a hand.
Anyone who think the only Lake Ontario is a few miles south of here wasn’t sloshing around Glen Abbey Thursday afternoon, when five hours of thunderstorms put the opening round in a holding pattern.
Now it’s time to play catch-up today and, with a little help from the meteorologists, get 72 holes in before Monday.
As opening round action resumes this morning, the table is set quite nicely for Canadian golf fans.
Mike Weir shares the pole position with two others, including gunslinging Texas hotshot Anthony Kim.
Golf fans in this country could hope for nothing more than a Sunday afternoon duel between Weir and Kim. We all remember last time Weir went toe-to-toe with a heavyweight under the spotlight. If your memory needs a little refreshing, here’s a few hints. Tiger Woods, Presidents Cup, last September.
Now the RCGA needs a little help with the elements. Should the skies decide to open up again over the next couple of days, the betting line is they won’t be getting four rounds in before the end of the weekend.
Simmons and Co. have done their part. About the only thing they can’t control – and about the only thing not on their side Thursday – is the weather. The RCGA deserves a break.
If only the weatherman would show a little mercy.
And the Canadian Open champion will be…
OK, it’s time to put my neck on the line, gaze into the ol’ crystal ball and give you a heads-up on who will be lifting the RBC Canadian Open hardware on the 18th green at Glen Abbey sometime Sunday afternoon.
Young gun Anthony Kim? Nope. A three-peat for Jim Furyk? Nu-uh. Retief Goosen? Don’t think so.
My pick to collect a big fat cheque – and yes, that is how we spell it up here – is none other than – wait for it – Mike Weir.
Why? Because it’s time to end this little 54-year Canadian drought at Canada’s national championship.
And Weir has a little score to settle with Glen Abbey.
For those who have been living in a cave the past four years and are looking at me like I have two heads, let’s rewind, shall we, to September of 2004, the last time the Abbey hosted the Canadian Open. With an entire nation in his gallery, Weir took a three-shot cushion into the final day and looked like a pretty sure bet to break that Canuck jinx.
Except, someone forgot to tell Vijay Singh. When Weir stumbled down the stretch, Singh pounced.
As much as Weir will shrug his shoulders when discussing 2004, you have to figure it still stings, even just a little. With an entire nation in his gallery that weekend four years ago, this title – the one he wants to win so bloody much – was in his grasp.
Since that fateful September afternoon in 2004, the Canadian Open hasn’t been all that kind to Mike Weir. He has played on the weekend just once in those three years, finishing in a T34 last July at Angus Glen.
There couldn’t be a better time for Weir to nail down his ninth PGA Tour triumph. Winless in 2008, finishing ahead of the pack here would likely see him nuzzled into the top 15 on the PGA Tour money list and hush some of his critics.
With 19 Canadians in the starting field, the Maple Leaf will be flying high at the Abbey and Stephen Ames will be gunning for a crown on his adopted home soil. Jon Mills could be a darkhorse as well.
But Weir wants this one. For himself. For Canada.
For redemption.
“I don’t think about it a whole lot anymore,” Weir said of his close call in 2004. “I’m trying to get ready for this year’s event.”
Ready to win in front of his own fans and ready, it seems, to break that Canadian dry spell.
It says here this will be the week.
Michelle Wie gong show will continue at Reno-Tahoe Open
The Michelle Wie circus continues.
Despite seemingly tripping over her feet all year long – and even in a week she found herself in contention, Wie managed to get herself DQ’d from last week’s State Farm Classic – the 18-year-old will once again tip it up with the boys later this month at the PGA Tour’s Legends Reno-Tahoe Open.
Um, just wondering, but shouldn’t Wie compete with the ladies on the LPGA Tour before gaining yet another plum token spot on the PGA Tour? Somehow, this gong show is getting old.
Really, when it enough enough?
Just a couple weeks back, I slammed those who went ga-ga over Wie actually waking up on a Saturday morning to finish a round when she had no chance of making the cut at the U.S. Women’s Open. You know, that’s what professionals do, I contended.
My current soap-box rambling notwithstanding, I’ve got nothing personal against Michelle Wie. In fact, I’ve seen the circus up close and personal when, during my days with the Canadian Tour, Wie was granted an exemption into the Bay Mills Open a few years back. Oh, and not that we are keeping count, but she missed the cut by five shots with rounds of 74-79. But as a 13-year-old, you had to marvel at her game.
Times have changed. That was five years ago.
Believe it or not, I can somehow rationalize with tournament organizers who seem intent on giving sponsor’s exemptions to the Big Wiesy. She is an obvious draw for their tournaments and, just like watching a car race, you are waiting for a wreck. You don’t admit it, of course, but you just can’t turn away.
Before granting any more exemptions to Wie, perhaps she should make a name for herself – as in results – using her LPGA exemptions. Not only for the good of the game itself, but in the best interests of Wie’s career. Getting shellacked by the boys with the world watching cannot be doing wonders for her confidence, especially when she can’t seem to find a permanent home on the LPGA.
Until then, leave the women’s exemptions to those who truly deserve it. Ochoa. Pettersen. Creamer. That is, if they’ll even accept them.
For now, Wie should focus on getting her career back on track on the LPGA Tour.
Once that happens, maybe people will look at these exemptions as something other than a complete farce.
Greg Norman didn’t choke this British Open away
It may have been 12 years and an ocean away, but the ghosts of majors past came back to haunt Greg Norman yet again Sunday.
But let’s get one thing straight right away. It wasn’t a choke job. Not this time.
For the misinformed – or, in other words, those that just don’t have a clue – the prevailing thought will be that Norman gagged again, just like 1986, when he led going into the final round of all four majors, winning just one. Just like that cruel afternoon at Augusta 12 springs ago.
He simply isn’t a man that can be trusted sleeping on the Saturday night lead of a major championship.
But this wasn’t Augusta. Far from it.
In ’96, Norman flat-out blew it. Six shots gone on a Sunday afternoon in Georgia, allowing Nick Faldo to rip the green jacket right out of The Shark’s hands.
This one was different.
And Sunday, as Norman carried a precarious two-shot lead into the final day at Royal Birkdale, the crowd favourite couldn’t close it. The two-shot lead vanished. You could almost hear the whispers.
Birkdale, with a whole lot of help from Mother Nature, had no intention of playing fair Sunday. It was bound to come down to the last man standing. Or last bogey wins.
For the opening three days, the 53-year-old Norman was the story of this Open Championship. On the fourth and, unfortunately for Norman, most important, Harrington captured both the headlines and his second straight claret jug. Case closed.
When you think of gag jobs at the Open Championship, Jean Van de Velde’s collapse in ’99 will, without fail, be the first thing out of anyone’s lips. His is the measuring stick of final-day failures at this championship.
As wrong as it may be, Norman’s final day 77 will be the stuff of barstool conversations. Not because of the vanished lead or the conditions that made par seem like birdie.
Because it was Greg Norman.
He is an easy mark, all because of what happened 12 years ago.
Those who just like to think they know it all when it comes to this game will argue that Norman choked away another major.
Truth is, it was anything but. For one day, someone else was better.
Stuart Appleby a sentimental favourite at this British Open
While he certainly isn’t my pick to hoist the Claret Jug this week at Royal Birkdale, I, like pretty well everyone else on the planet, will be pulling for Stuart Appleby.
Really, on an anniversary that he doesn’t want to remember, how could you not?
This week, Appleby returns to Royal Birkdale to play a game. Nothing more. Sure, perhaps the most treasured golf tournament in the history of golf, but a game nonetheless.
This week, life is about perspective for Stuart Appleby.
A decade ago – the last time the Open was contested at Birkdale – Appleby and his wife, Renay, vacationed in Paris following the tournament before returning to London. It was there, outside London’s Waterloo Station, that a cab backed up, running over Renay. She would succumb to her injuries.
“It’s there,” said Appleby of those memories before this British Open. No other words are needed.
During that horrible ordeal ten years ago – as Appleby returned to bury his wife in Australia – golf, as could be expected, was nothing but an afterthought. In fact, Appleby, the former Canadian Tour member who has gone on to win eight times on the PGA Tour, was certain his career was finished.
“I absolutely, as true as I’m sitting here, knew that I was never going to play golf again,” he said. “It’s not like it was, ‘how’s this going to affect my career’. Who cares. I was, ‘this is done, I’m over’.”
Both life and golf have indeed resumed for Stuart Appleby. Perhaps using Renay’s memory as inspiration, Appleby has gone on to capture six of his eight PGA Tour wins in the decade since the accident. Two years later, he met Ashley Saleet through a mutual friend and the two eventually married. Appleby and his wife have two daughters and are expecting their first son this fall.
This week, Appleby will chase the Claret Jug. Whether or not he lifts it Sunday afternoon is almost a footnote to the story. It will be an emotional week at Royal Birkdale. As Appleby himself says, “It’s there.”
“So much has happened … in that short time,” says Appleby. “At times I wonder where the years have ticked by.”
Right now, it probably seems like yesterday.
John Daly can get train back on track at British Open
As much as you don’t want to watch, you just can’t turn your head away as the wheels continue to fall off the John Daly Express.
An apt description, or so one would think, seeing how Daly’s once-flourishing career now seems nothing short of a train wreck.
In case you missed it, Daly once again went off on former coach Butch Harmon at the British Open, accusing him of causing the media storm that followed his much-publicized beer-swiggin’ frolic in a Hooters tent during the the PODS Championship in March.
“I think most of that stuff started with Butch Harmon,” Daly told reporters Wednesday. “I think his lies kind of destroyed my life for a little bit, the lies that he said about being at the Hooters tent and all this stuff.
“I think if he would become a man and talk about some of that stuff he lied about, when we were doing charity work that week when I just missed the cut. I just wish he wouldn’t have said the things he did that made you guys write some pretty bad things about me when not really anybody had the facts. That kind of hurt me a little bit.”
For the record, Harmon responded, calling Daly’s comments “sad” before adding “I think you have to consider the source.”
Where’s the love, boys?
Somehow, some way, Big John needs to focus on salvaging his career and forgetting this he-said, he-said rhetoric. There’s no bigger stage for him to do just that than this week.
The long-hitting big guy still has the talent, even if the mind doesn’t seem willing to keep up. His life, both on and off the course, is without doubt taking a detour towards a place that is indeed no-man’s land.
Last summer, Daly withdrew from the Canadian Open after the opening round with an apparent shoulder injury, the third time in the past five years he had pulled out of Canada’s national championship. Depending on who you talk to, Daly may or may not have enjoyed a little late-night carousing down at Casino Niagara a few hours before he pulled out of the event.
As they say, the legend continues.
And now, 13 years after winning the British Open, Daly finds himself once again on the far side of the pond, looking to shock the world. Despite his problems, Daly remains the people’s champion, the underdog that you just can’t help rooting for.
The odds are stacked against him, but, this week at Royal Birkdale, Daly has yet another chance to keep his name in the headlines, this time for the right reasons.
Somehow, you sense John Daly needs a decent finish this week.
There’s still time to get the train back on the rails.
But, sadly, time is running out.
Zzzzz: Rhoden wins celebrity event again, but we wanted Romo…and Jess
Surprise, surprise. Rick Rhoden holds off ex-NHLer Dan Quinn to win his record seventh American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Sunday out in Nevada.
Yawn.
I mean, can we get a little competition at this dog and pony show? Between them, Rhoden and Quinn have won this event 11 times. Where’s the drama? May as well just make this thing a match play between them.
Oh, and if you are mentioning those two guys and “celebrity” in the same sentence, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. In fact, you are getting pretty darn close to oxymoron territory.
Sure, Rhoden was an all star pitcher at one time – playing in his first All Star Game when Gerald Ford had run of the White House – and Quinn, well, played in the NHL and that’s about it. But stand these two side by side, and most people will have to flip a coin to figure out who is who.
Things could have been so much more interesting Sunday. Rubbing shoulders with the frontrunners was Tony Romo, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Now I am the furthest thing from a ‘Pokes fan but, like any red-blooded male, I am a Jessica Simpson fan.
What a trophy presentation that could have been, with Jess hanging off Romo’s arm. We’re talking record TV ratings - and, no, we aren’t gawking at you, football boy.
She could have been anything in this tournament and still would have been the biggest celebrity there. Official starter, beer cart girl, caddie, ball wa – oh, never mind.
As far as celebrities go, there were a lot more recognizable names near the top of the leaderboard Sunday. There was Grant Fuhr – five-time Stanley Cup champion and a Canadian Tour member had he not been DQ’d for signing for a wrong score after the final round of Q-School a few years back – tying for third with Romo. Brett Hull. Jeremy Roenick. Lawrence Taylor. John Elway. Carlton Fisk. Joe Sakic.
And yes, although she wasn’t playing – well, at least not golf – Jessica Simpson.
Which, trust me, was about the best thing about this event. And we could have seen more of her, but her squeeze couldn’t knock in a few more putts.
Damn you, Romo.
PGA Tour drug testing complete waste of time
It’s official. The Pee Police have started their patrol on the PGA Tour.
Beware, for the world’s best now have another cup they will be aiming for. No lip-outs allowed here.
How redundant.
Can’t your just envision guys in white lab coats, running from the clubhouse to a quarantined tent outside, carefully watching their step in order to, uh, not spill a drop?
And with all due respect to Gary Player, what a colossal waste of time. And for what? So Finchem can proudly proclaim that the PGA Tour is drug-free and the cleanest sport on the planet?
Wow. Shocking. Whowouldathunkit?
I mean, come on, this is golf. You have about as much chance of finding a steroid cheater as you do spotting a glass of milk at an Amy Winehouse house party. Until Roger Clemens decides to take up golf for a living, methinks the PGA Tour is safe.
Of course, it’s the fashionable thing to do. With steroids stealing the spotlight in baseball and cycling, everyone is aboard the “Our Sport Is Clean” bandwagon. Even Gary Bettman, the kingpin of the National Hockey League, stresses that, yes, the NHL is free from steroids (cough, cough).
Golf is different. Bulging muscles, how much you can bench press and your length off the tee does not guarantee success. Just ask Hank Kuehne.
The problem, of course, is where do you draw the line? If a player rubs himself down with ointment to relieve aching muscles after a round, is he a cheater? Of course not.
I see the PGA Tour has vaginal cream on the list of banned substances. Vaginal cream. Should someone test positive for that, I’m thinking there is a problem that goes well beyond the boundaries of cheating.
So, yes, the much-ballyhooed practice of drug testing on the PGA Tour has officially ushered in a new era in professional golf.
In the end, it will be nothing but a complete waste both time and money.
Just to prove what the sporting world has known all along.
Fairways Web Editor Marty Henwood spent more than six years as the Media Relations Director with the Canadian Tour and has been involved in sports journalism for more than a decade, including stints in newspaper, radio, new media and media relations. He will offer his unique take on the world of golf, with nothing and no one off limits.