Can We Bridge The Development Gap?
April 20, 2010 by Ian Hutchinson
The Canadian Tour has released a discussion paper about bridging the gap between the time that a young player turns pro and the time he makes it to the highest level of the game.
I use the word “he” because the paper deals solely with male players, but points out that the status of women’s professional golf “merits similar discussion.”
If the point of this paper is to start a discussion, you can’t talk about one and not the other – men and women need to be addressed at the same time, especially with the 2016 Olympics coming fast, which makes development such a hot button issue, according to the paper.
The Canadian Tour has been a prime development ground for both Canadians and players from around the world with names such as Mike Weir, Graham DeLaet, Steve Stricker and others going on to careers on the PGA Tour. It could be argued legitimately that it’s one of the best at developing talent.
The tour is looking to lock in with the Royal Canadian Golf Association and the Canadian PGA, two other major players in the development food chain, to ensure that talented players from this country don’t fall through the cracks once they turn professional due to financial difficulties.
There’s no doubt that this is a tough time in a player’s career. A couple of months ago, I had a discussion with Weir about how important his sponsors were when he was first starting out and if not for them, we may not have the 2003 Masters to crow about as Canadians.
This brings us to a theory that is brought up in the paper and is brought up quite often in other places, that being the notion that Canada needs a bunch of players at the top level of the game to encourage participation in the game. That’s conventional thinking among many.
The question I always have is that if we have so few players on the PGA Tour (or LPGA Tour) now, as the paper suggests, then how is it that we still have the highest per capita participation in the world? Could we possibly just enjoy the recreation of golf?
That’s not to say that Canadians aren’t proud of the accomplishments of Weir and others who make it, but as I’ve written several times in the past, they don’t pay much attention to players on the rise.
It’s only when a player gets to the show that Canadians seem to take notice. Ask the average person on a golf course who the Canadian men’s and women’s amateur champ is and few would be able to answer.
Through the popular culture of the PGA Tour, many golf fans think that even developing players make decent money out there, even if it isn’t at the same level as the major tours. That isn’t the case, but it should be pointed out that’s that way it is for most young people starting out in any career.
A young assistant club professional, for example, works long hours, but many have told me that they also struggle financially throughout their 20s and even beyond in some cases. They can also slip through the cracks and just give up.
The paper suggests that corporate Canada get involved, as well as diehard golf fans, but this comes at a time when the RCGA is unveiling its Golf Canada branding initiative that will ask golfers to purchase membership cards that run as high as $500 to be used for existing programs.
Will the RCGA be able to add another development layer should it team with the Canadian Tour and Canadian PGA in this initiative, or will it try to be all things to all people once again?
Will players who benefit from such funding and programs be required to contribute back in time and finances if they do make it to the tour, especially since Mike Weir and Stephen Ames apparently got their knuckles rapped by the paper which hints they might not be doing enough for developing players?
The tour’s paper doesn’t quote any statistics and is mostly comprised of opinions from those who have been there.
It also doesn’t come to any real conclusion, other than to say it’s a starting point for discussion.
Fair enough.
What should be formulated first is a list of priorities for Canadian golf — junior golf, national team, public golf, amateur championships, supporting young professionals?
If supporting young professionals does enter into the top priorities, let’s put some real cost to it and decide if it’s realistic or not. Certainly, if you’re expecting corporations to pick up the tab, which will be a tough sell, they’re going to want to know the cost, so let’s determine what it is from the beginning.
- The entire paper in PDF format can be downloaded and read via the Canadian Tour website here. Your comments, as always, would be more than welcome below.
Let’s start the discussion on GNN.
Ian Hutchinson is a veteran Canadian golf writer, whose history in the game includes an extensive background with Canadian golf trade publications. A golf columnist with Sun Media, Hutch is also a regular contributor to publications and websites in Canada and the United States.
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very interesting reading although I preferred Tim’s book about Moe Norman.
Like all white papers the stats are used to promote their point, as in the Long Odds section:
“a Canadian male junior competitive golfer trying to make it to the PGA TOUR has a chance of 1 in 10,200 compared to a collegiate player at the NCAA etc faces odds of 1 in 386.” This makes no sense, the collegiate player has already faced the same 1 in 10,200 odds and has now advanced to the next level, NCAA scholarship. A Canadian junior has the same or even better odds of getting into the same schools.
As I said very interesting. I also thought Moe Norman, Bob Cox , Panny, Wilf and others had won the Order of Merit.
Canada has a problem in the fact that most of our companies are also US companies.
I just provided a squeegee kid with a shiny loonie after he diligently cleaned my dashboard window on the way into the city this morning. The window was dirty, he earned the dollar. Maybe he’ll buy a cup of coffee and or maybe he’ll wait in line for a lottery ticket. Either way won’t make one iota of difference as to how many Canadians get onto the PGA Tour.
I think the mention of the order of merit winners was based on results dating back to the mid-1980s and the birth of the modern-day Canadian Tour. Corporate Canada always seem to be the one that everyone goes running cap in hand to but no company is just going to get involved without expecting a return on their investment. It is hard to explain to shareholders why you are supporting a young golfer when that same money could go to a cancer center or some other initiative that may affect someone directly.
The RCGA, or Golf Canada needs to find a way to develop golf at the grass roots level. As an ex-pat Australian, I grew up watching pennants golf where juniors aspire to represent their club or their province playing without handicaps. As a former Club Captain in Toronto, I was saddened to see the interclub process where kids play off full handicaps, and the weaker player resort to using the pencil to win their matches.
By learning to beat your peers on a regular basis via inter-club competition playing without handicaps, good players will learn how to win, and developing players will have more meaningful hurdles to aspire to such as representing your club.
Good juniors can aspire to making senior teams; good seniors can test their games against the best amateurs in the country before embarking on a pro career prematurely.
Find a way to make junior golfers better in canada, and you will find a way to get more Canadian golfers playing on the pro tours.
I couldn’t care less about having more Canadian Golfers on the pro tours. I certainly do not want my dues going to support someone trying to make a living on a pro tour. I agree Tony on supporting junior golf and a by-product of that would probably be more tour pros. Right now I don’t see a lot juniors out on the courses in my area.