Canadian Open News
Previously, the 2011 Canadian Open was held in British Columbia.
2012 brought the Canadian Open back to Ontario - for 2013 it will be back at Glen Abbey Golf Course.
Glen Abbey Canadian Open 2009 Recap:
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
With the soggy Canadian Open 2009 now concluded eyes are already looking forward to the 2010 Open at St. George's in Toronto. That setup will mean more constricted space and limited attendance as it is downtown and does not benefit from the sprawl of the Oakville Glen Abbey course. 2011 will see the Canadian Open heading west to Vancouver at Shaughnessy. There is talk about moving the next open back a week.
This year's champion Nathan Green from Australia got to participate in downtown Toronto activities during his stay including attending a ball game. He edged out Retief Goosen for the title. Green saved par on the 18th hole forcing the playoff after he hit the ball over the green and into the crowd.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Nathan Green from Australia won the Canadian Open and his first PGA Tour victory. He beat Retief Goosen with a par on the second hole. After Green missed a 12-foot birdie attempt on the par-4 17th, Goosen's 8-foot par attempt went to the right. Green completed a third-round 69 with an eagle on 18 and shot a 68 in the fourth round. Goosen three-putted the 18th for par and an 67 in the morning, then eagled it in the afternoon for a 69. Goosen had a putt to win on the first extra hole, but missed a 6-foot birdie try on the 18th.
Mike Weir finishes the competition with a 10 under. Fellow Canadian Stephen Ames finishes with a great 12 under.
Competition heightened earlier today as a Monday finish was in sight. As of 9:20am Goosen has 1 shot lead. TV only broadcasted after 2:30 today.
Unfortunate weather prevented the resumption of play yesterday after having been called off around noon Sunday. Because of this, ticket holders from Sunday can attend Monday free. Hopefully the event can be concluded today, otherwise the scores may roll back to the end of the second round. Weir summed it up by saying, "instead of reading the green, you have to read the current". Weir took the penalty stroke after all as officials reapproached him about the moving ball issue as more video was reviewed. So he shot 5 under par 67 in the second round instead of previously reported 66. When play stopped Sunday, Jason Dufner was still leading with 14 under par. Anthony Kim was 13 under par (through 9 holes) and tied for second place with 4 under Jerry Kelly.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Officials confirm play goes into tomorrow because of the rain delays. Thunder and lightning rolled in again in the early evening suspending third round play for the rest of the day. Hopefully they will be able to get the third round completed tomorrow, Monday.
Lightning rolled through Glen Abbey around noon today suspending play. Prior to that Weir made a hole-in-one on the 200 yard fourth hole. This was the first ace on the fourth hole ever at the Canadian Open.
The start of the third round was delayed until this morning because of the rains yesterday. Only 4 Canadians are left at Glen Abbey: Mike Weir, Stephen Ames, Chris Baryla and Graham DeLaet.
Weir and Ames are among a group of four players that are tied for 20th place with seven under which is six shots off the lead held by Jason Dufner. Weir had a better Saturday with his six-under 66. His approach on the 18th caused some contention as the ball moved just before he hit his approach shot to the 18th hole, but reviews allowed the 4 for par 5 hole to stand as he was ruled to having played it correctly.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
More rain is expected this afternoon. So far there have been more than 2 inches of rain in the last couple of days.
Mark Calcavecchia makes history with nine straight birdies on the back nine.
The 49-year-old American birdied nine straight holes at Glen Abbey on Saturday morning, breaking the previous PGA Tour record of eight held by six other players.
Jerry Kelly had the lead at 12 under because of the seven birdies in a nine-hole stretch in the first round , shooting a 7-under 65 in the first round Friday and he finished off the last three holes of a second-round 67 this morning. He then birdied the par-5 16th and closed with two pars.
Nathan Green was 11 under after rounds of 65 and 67. Camilo Villegas (63-71) Martin Laird (65-69), Pat Perez (67-67) and Bob Estes (67-67) were at 10 under. Goosen and Na were also 10 under with a dozen holes left.
The regulations stipulate that 72 holes must be played by the end of Monday. Then the next option would be to go back to 54 holes, but they will try to get the 72 holes by the end of the day Monday. This event could go on into Tuesday if say half the field finished the third round Monday evening, then the rest would have to finish on Tuesday.
Withdrawals included Mark Brooks, Aaron Baddeley, Tag Ridings, David Gossett, Robert Garrigus, Carl Pettersson Greg Owen and Brian Davis.
Stephen Ames was the leading Canadian with 7 under after rounds of 68 and 71 yesterday. Ames complained of the jerky nature of play with stopping and starting multiple times making it more difficult to get into any sort of consistant play. Mike Weir was 4 under overall after eight holes today.
Arjun Atwal and Briny Baird both made a hole-in-one at the 15th hole yesterday and won new BMWs. Thunderstorms in the forecast today. Yesterday a few more holes were played around 7pm after a three hour hiatus between thundershowers, but lightning soon forced all of the players off the course again around 7:35 p.m. Will see if all will get through the rounds by tomorrow but increasingly unlikely depending on the weather for the rest of the day today.
The Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and Museum officially opened it's Mike Weir exhibit yesterday at the Hall, which is located at the Golf House on the Glen Abbey Golf Course grounds.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Play suspended because of thundershowers moving through the area. The rain held off all day till after 4:30pm EST.
89 players were not able to complete their opening round yesterday because of the rain delay. Kevin Na fired five consecutive birdies for a leading score of 63 in his opening round. Na shot 28 over his final nine holes resulting in a 9-under 63 following yesterday's delay. That put him up two shots on Scott Verplank, Joe Durant and Retief Goosen.
Camilo Villegas matched Kevin Na late Friday morning by playing the final six holes in 6 under. The Colombian hit to an inch to set up a birdie on the 152-yard 15th and holed a 15-foot eagle chip on the par-5 18th hole.
"What a great way to finish the round," said Villegas, rushing to have lunch before he headed back out for his second round.
Former Canadian Open champion Bob Tway withdrew mid-round today for personal reasons. Another injury forced Steve Flesch to leave the tournament.
Mike Weir posted a 1-under 71 Thursday. Fellow Canadian Stephen Ames was among the large group of players on the golf course early this morning.
tomorrow Saturday,Thundershowers are forecast with more rain (15-25mm). Sunday is clear.
Thursday,
July 23, 2009
Because of the rain delay, play of the first round will resume on Friday.
Scott Verplank and Retief Goosen are currently tied for the lead. Verplank (U.S.) caught up to Goosen (South Africa) with a series of birdies. Goosen had previously led with a -5 after a stellar set of nine holes.
Play resumes after rain delay for most of the day so the whole lineup will not be completed today. At least they got some playing done in the late afternoon. update: Mike Weir is 4 under through his first 11 holes with birdies on 4 of his last 5 holes.
--Rain Delay halts play for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Latest signs are that play will begin again at 3:10pm EST. Updates to follow. Mike Weir was par at 3 when play was halted this morning due to rain.
Unfortunately as recently forecast, it is a rain soaked day at the Abbey today. This unseasonable wet weather is bringing showers expected to strengthen to heavy rain and possibly jeopardizing game play for the rest of the day today, will keep an eye on this and report back. Embedded Thunderstorms and 20-30mm rain.
It is looking like a wet Open this year with more Thunderstorms forecast for Friday and Saturday. Sunday looks clear.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Kevin Costner onhand to perform with his band Thursday after the last putt drops.
Fred Couples withdraws from Canadian open with back injury sustained on Monday.
Golfers awoke to an overcast day with a slight breeze after getting some rain yesterday. Today is not supposed to rain much but the rain expected to come in later this afternoon/tonight may stay on Thursday possibly creating 10-20mm of rain in the area along with Thundershowers as forcecast by the local weather authority. We will keep an eye on the forecast and post updates, but for now don't forget your umbrellas on Thursday!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Favorite Jim Furyk will not play in this week’s Canadian Open as he is taking some time off after finishing T-34 at the British Open.
The highest ranked golfer competing is Camilo Villegas (T-53 in 2008) who just did T-13 at the British Open.
Mike Weir finished T-5 at Glen Abbey last year and is vying to be the first Canadian to win (since Pat Fletcher in '04) and it seems he will have a large fan base and crowd support.
27 year old Chez Reavie who hails from Kansas and became the first Canadian Open rookie champion (since Jerry Pate in 1976) last year at Glen Abbey beating out Mike Weir, Anthony Kim, Billy Mayfair and others.
This is how nice the course looked Monday prior to the rains moving in. If only we could play the picture instead of on the slower, wet actual course. Well, there is always Tiger Woods Wii Game!
Monday, July 20, 2009 Welcome to the 100th Canadian Open
Today celebrities helped kick off the Mike Weir Charity Classic. Famous faces such as Michael Jordan (in his pink shirt) and Kevin Costner had fans clammoring for autographs of memoriabilia and NHL stars Rick Nash and Joe Thornton were also on hand to take some warmup shots. Weir played in his Charity classic supporting his foundation for kids and was thrilled over the celebrity support.
Other players fresh from the British Open that made it were Anthony Kim, Camilo Villegas, Mark Calcavecchia, Trevor Immelman Fred Couples and Luke Donald.
Sunday, July 19, 2009 Preparations were being completed for the beginning of the Canadian Open today. A few pros were spied checking out the greens and taking a few practise shots. Conditions were beautiful today.
Updates to be posted here during the Open. Chez Reavie is ready to defend his Canadian Open title. If he successfully defends his title, he would become just the fifth player in history to do so. Because of his win last year he earned a spot in the winners-only Mercedes-Benz Championship at the beginning of this season where he finished T1
Hole 11 has been selected to be this week's Kodak Challenge hole. Check out more about the Kodak Challenge and this great view from the 11th tee.
Fencing was already installed and the fairways are in top shape for the competition.
c2009 GlenAbbey.ca
The RBC Canadian Open is is an integral part of the FedExCup now in it's third year. modifications for 2009 include
"• Shifting the points reset from the beginning of the Playoffs to after the BMW Championship, which means points earned during the PGA TOUR Regular Season will be carried through the first three Playoff events.
• Quintupling points awarded at Playoff tournaments relative to Regular Season tournaments
• Changing the field size of the Playoff events to 125 at The Barclays, 100 at the Deutsche Bank Championship, 70 at the BMW Championship and 30 at THE TOUR Championship; they previously were 144, 120, 70 and 30.
• Streamlining the points structure for ease of understanding."
Monday July 20th kicks off the Mike Weir Charity Classic. Mike Weir, the Eight-time PGA TOUR winner will be inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2009. “I am extremely honored to share a place in the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame with so many names who have done so much for golf in Canada, “Weir said. “I have so much that I still want to accomplish both on the course and in helping to continue to grow the game in Canada, but this honor will always rank as one of the greatest of my career.”
More Glen Abbey Golf Course News
Here is #17 next to the clubhouse:
