Just play it!

The Canadian PGA released their tournament schedule this past week and for the fourth consecutive year there is no CPGA Championship. That means that Jon Mills is still the reigning champion, having won the trophy at Whistle Bear Golf Club back in 2005.

The CPGA Championship is, or perhaps was, one of the oldest professional championships in North America. It was first played in 1912 at Mississaugua Golf & Country Club and won by Charlie Murray of Montreal. Over the years, the event has had many notable winners including Canadian Golf Hall of Famers Stan Leonard (8 titles), George Knudson (5), Al Balding (4) and legendary Moe Norman , who notched a couple of victories in 1966 and 1974.

From 1978 to 1983 the Canadian PGA decided to open the event to non-Canadians and the PGA Tour pros took over. Winners included Lanny Wadkins, Ray Floyd, Jim Thorpe, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino twice. After that brief interlude it was back to Canadians and Jim Rutledge, Dave Barr, Dan Halldorson and Rick Gibson among others won titles between 1984 and 1990.

In 1991 the Canadian PGA made yet another change and aligned the tournament with the Nationwide Tour and its predecessors (Hogan, Nike, Buy.com etc). For the next fourteen years a mix of Canadian club pros, Canadian touring pros and international touring pros vied for the title. During that span four Canadians, Ashley Chinner, Stuart Hendley, Richard Zokol and reigning champion Mills, managed to triumph. The rest of the trophies went to up and comers on the PGA Tour like Americans Steve Stricker and Aaron Oberholser and Tim Clark of South Africa.

Other than some hiccups during the war years (1915-18 and 1943), the Canadian PGA Championship has been played continuously, albeit not always in the same format nor with the same set of qualifying criteria. In many ways the different formats have added colour to the event and it certainly never hurts to to say that past champions include the likes of Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino.

Following the 2005 event at Whistle Bear, the tournament lost Samsung as its title sponsor and the Canadian PGA decided to suspend the tournament in 2006. Reaction was mixed. Most Canadian PGA members hoped it was a temporary thing and a new sponsor could be found so play could resume the following year. It didn’t happen. The CPGA engaged IMG to help look for a title sponsor but nothing came of that. So no tournament in 2008 either.

Officially, the CPGA’s stance on this has been “they want to do it right.” That means a title sponsor, big purse, perhaps a TV contract and alignment with a recognized Tour. Over the past four years they haven’t specified what a new CPGA Championship would look like but they have resisted calls from many quarters to play the Championship in a watered down form.

So now we come to 2009 – perhaps one of the worst years on record to be looking for sponsorship of any kind. It will be a miracle if anyone, let alone the CPGA, can find a sponsor willing to pony up the kind of dough required to host a significant event with all the bells and whistles. Again the question has to be asked, why not just play it? There are 3,200 Canadian PGA members. Some of them have game. At least a few of them know how to run a tournament. Many would be willing to host the event and more than a few could and would volunteer in whateve capacity is required. How difficult is it to find 144 players who want to engrave there name on a trophy alongside Arnold Palmer and George Knudson?

Over at the Ontario PGA, they’re running a forum on the member’s portion of their website, asking if the CPGA Championship should be restored, even in a very basic form. The response has been overwhelmingly in favour. The common sentiment is “we need to get back to basics.” They don’t need a big purse, courtesy cars or fancy sponsor galas. There is a strong sense of history and tradition for this Championship amongst the Ontario PGA members and that probably extends to PGA pros across the country too.

Based on last week’s announcement it doesn’t appear that the CPGA will be resurrecting the Canadian PGA Championship this year. It would be pretty neat if the Canadian PGA members stepped up and said, “the hell with it, we’re going to do this anyway.”