What's next for Canadian Open after another 'gutting' cancellation?

The news was "gutting" for Canadian golf fans, tournament organizers and PGA Tour players – but it was inevitable. The 2021 RBC Canadian Open was cancelled on Tuesday due to complications surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now what?

The Canadian Open, first contested in 1904, is one of the oldest golf tournaments in history. It’s a national open. It had so much momentum after 2019’s event – won by Rory McIlroy in front of a raucous Greater Toronto Area sports crowd hyped up on the Raptors in the NBA Finals and the integration of new on-site concert series – but is that all gone?

Given how popular golf has been during the pandemic, it’s best to pump the brakes on thinking the tournament won’t garner any excitement when it does return to the schedule.

"There will be natural enthusiasm and there will be pent-up demand to be at the RBC Canadian Open," Mary DePaoli, the chief marketing officer at RBC, told Sportsnet. "It won’t just be the return of the sport, with world-class players, but cultural events like the concert series. And, we’ll have two years where golf is the safest sport to play (during the COVID-19 pandemic) so there will be a generation of new golf fans introduced to the Canadian Open.

"It’s going to be a tournament like no other."

While tournament organizers are exuding confidence for 2022, the event taking place may again be out of their hands. In the end, the cancellation for 2021 came down to a collection of hurdles that were too great to overcome.

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Laurence Applebaum, the chief executive officer at Golf Canada, said organizers would start to make progress with government entities but then another challenge would pop up. The most substantive of challenges was the border restriction and quarantine measures still in place by the Canadian government. The City of Toronto had its own local restrictions placed on permitted gatherings through July 1 (of which the Canadian Open was one as it had to close some of Islington Ave. in Toronto’s west end in order to get players between Islington Golf Club and St. George’s Golf and Country Club, the two host venues) but there were upwards of 600 people, according to Applebaum, who would have to cross the U.S.-Canada border.

Given the U.S. Open is scheduled for the following week – and Jack Nicklaus’s event the week prior – there wasn’t the opportunity for the Canadian Open to happen without innumerable exemptions, plus extra safety precautions.

"It just wasn’t possible in this environment," Applebaum said. "It’s so gutting for us. We’ve been in this situation, sadly, before. We’ve worked so hard to try to figure this out with the PGA Tour and RBC and do it for the fans, for golf, and for the joy of what we remember from 2019.

"Unfortunately, we were up against some restrictions that were just not able to move."

One of the tougher aspects of cancelling the Canadian Open is the inability for Canadian fans to see homegrown talent attempt to win their national championship – many of whom are currently playing some of the best golf of their careers.

David Hearn, of Brantford, Ont., was in the final group of the 2015 Canadian Open. He’s also part of the PGA Tour’s Player Advisory Council and said the general feeling of guys on the tour – not just Canadians – when the announcement was made official was one of disappointment.

"At the end of the day it was probably an inevitability with the way things were going with the border security and quarantine and things necessary to come into Canada, but we’re gutted we won’t have the opportunity to play our national championship, again, this year," Hearn said. "We’re all sad at this news, even though everyone understands it. It’s the sign of the times but I just hope we’re back bigger and better in 2022."

As far as the 2022 edition of the Canadian Open is concerned, the membership of both St. George’s and Islington will have the opportunity to vote on if they want to host the tournament again. Perhaps the third time will be the charm, as Applebaum said both the membership and the clubs have been patient and supportive of the unprecedented situation that Golf Canada and RBC have found themselves in.

"It’s been the longest preparation in the history of the tournament," Applebaum said with a smile. "We’ll move quickly to planning for 2022 and it’s our hope and desire that we would plan to be there. There is work to be done at both the clubs to go through their processes and we’ll support them as they go through that process."

The 2021 Canadian Open’s spot on the schedule sits empty for now, but PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a press conference at this week’s Players Championship that although it was "really tough news" to know the PGA Tour was not playing Canada’s national open two years in a row, it would "find a solution" to fill that space. A one-time U.S.-based event is set to take place instead, once a sponsor has been confirmed.

Canada’s other professional golf event, the CP Women’s Open, is scheduled for late August. While it has a much longer runway, the LPGA Tour and its players will be travelling from Scotland the week prior to Vancouver, which may pose its own logistical problems. The Scotland event, the AIG Women’s Open, is a major on the LPGA Tour schedule.

"There are a lot of similar obstacles that we face for the CP Women’s Open, but with the added benefit and opportunity of time," Applebaum said. "We’ve got some time for status to improve, the situation to improve, and we’re continuing to work with our partners at the province, the city … and we’ve got the right partners having the right conversations."

Still, an unfortunate conversation took place Tuesday for Canadian golf fans: there will not be an RBC Canadian Open for the second year in a row.

"It’s been a tough day, Applebaum said. "I can promise you."