The Canadian Open Blues

Lorne Rubenstein devotes a Golfobserver.com column to the dire situation with the Canadian Open and it's date on the 2007 PGA Tour schedule, easily the worst possible date you could give an event:

The date's hopeless, but both PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and the Royal Canadian Golf Association's executive director Stephen Ross still said they were "bullish" on the new date when it was announced on January 13th. Another word that begins with "bull" comes to mind.

And...

 The RCGA didn't have any say in the new dates from 2007 forward, and tried to spin its new summer date as wonderful and all that when it was announced.

But really, what sort of field will gather come 2007 when the tournament will be held the week after the British Open, the week before the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, and two weeks before the PGA Championship? The Canadian Open could be held in Newfoundland, in the far east of Canada, the RCGA could again charter flights from the British Open, and most top players still won't play the next week.

Let's see: Which of those four tournaments do you think Tiger Woods and his colleagues at the top of the tour will pass on? As for Weir and his fellow Canadian Stephen Ames, they'll have quite a month. The Canadian Open is the fifth major for both Weir and Ames. There's no way they wouldn't play in it.

"The Canadian Open is the perfect week to take off," Zokol said. "The PGA Tour gave the tournament the dates because it doesn't have a sponsor. It's the RCGA's fault for not keeping pace. The PGA Tour moved the tournament to the back of the bus."