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OAKVILLE, ONT. — The National Golf Club of Canada in Woodbridge, Ont., was buzzing Tuesday evening because Mike Weir had played the course that day and shot 66, five under par. Nobody noticed that Parker McLachlin, a fine young player who tied for fifth place at the AT&T Classic in Atlanta in May, had just come in with his wife, Kristy, for dinner as the guest of a member. They were all talking about how Weir had played the National.
The National is Canada's strongest course and the No. 1-ranked course, according to ScoreGolf magazine. Golfers in the RBC Canadian Open, which starts today at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, and who have played the course, know its power. Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Golf Association, and the Royal Bank of Canada, the tournament's new title sponsor, want the country's best courses to hold its national championship. So why shouldn't the National be at the top of the list?
Weir wondered that same thing yesterday at Glen Abbey. He had played St. George's in Toronto on Monday, and spoke highly of this Stanley Thompson-designed course that will stage the 2010 Canadian Open. But he was effusive in his praise of the National, which Tom Fazio and his uncle George designed in the early 1970s, and which, with some recent changes, stands up as Canada's most stringent examination of a golfer's abilities.
"It's the strongest course I've played in this country," Weir said. "It's stronger than here [Glen Abbey] and St. George's. I don't know why they couldn't have the tournament there."
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The answer has nothing to do with issues of infrastructure or getting tens of thousands of spectators around the course in certain tight places. The RCGA and the PGA Tour claim to have solved those problems for the tournament at St. George's. They're even going to create a practice area offsite because St. George's doesn't have an adequate range. So what's the problem?
The problem is that the National is a men-only club. That's only a problem if the club is actually interested in hosting a Canadian Open. There's no indication that it wants the tournament, although members are quite rightly proud of the course and many would love to see how the best players would cope with it. Weir handled it nicely on Tuesday. He'd love the opportunity to test his game there under Canadian Open conditions.
Told that can't happen because of the club's membership policy, Weir grimaced. He wasn't necessarily grimacing at the policy — a bylaw allows a private club the right to maintain whatever membership policy it chooses — but at the fact that the club couldn't host the Canadian Open based on the current tournament agreement between the PGA Tour and the host organization.
The wording is as follows: "Host Facility represents and warrants to Tour and Host Organization that the employment and/or membership practices and policies do not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin."
The policy is the reason the AT&T National Pro-Am in Pebble Beach, Calif., no longer uses the ultraprivate Cypress Point Club in the area as one of the courses for the tournament. Cypress Point is a majestic course that every player was thrilled to play. The late George Knudson pictured the holes there as he lay in a hospital bed in 1989, because the images kept him calm. Knudson, who died that year of lung cancer, always said Cypress Point would be the one course to play if he had but one to play.
The National doesn't have Cypress Point's stunning setting on the Monterey Peninsula, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. But it has one powerful hole after another. It's impossible not to feel excited about playing there as one drives along the road beside the 17th hole, turns the corner and drives up the hill to the club. Weir played there on Monday with his friend and club member Dan Keogh. He knew the course's narrow fairways and small, well-defended greens would push him.
"You're hitting tour quality shots all the way around," Weir said. "There's not a lay-up shot on the course."
Weir didn't even lay up on the twisting, par-five 12th that bends sharply to the left around a corner, protected by a stream and forest. Weir's usual left to right flight doesn't suit the shape of the hole. He hit his drive straight down the fairway, then, and had 240 yards to the sinuous green behind the creek that meanders back in front.
"I hit my rescue club there to four feet and made eagle," Weir said. Was he excited? You bet.
Weir was excited because the hole demanded precision and would exact a high price for a missed shot. The National was built to do that, although, unlike Glen Abbey, which can be a demanding course under the right conditions, it wasn't built to play host to a professional tournament.
Still, the National did host the awkwardly named Labatt's International for the CPGA Championship, back in 1979. I caddied there for the Canadian pro Jim Nelford. He hit the prettiest spinning wedge from a bunker about 80 yards from the 12th green to within a foot of the hole across the creek. He finished fourth when Tom Watson holed a shot from a greenside bunker on the final hole to finish third.
Lee Trevino won, shooting three-over-par 287. The course played hard, fast and treacherous, start to finish. It was a true test and it would be a true test today. Weir said yesterday that St. George's would be a top-10 course on the PGA Tour. The National would surely be top-three.
The Canadian Open is the country's most significant golf tournament. It's a major to Weir and his fellow Canadians. It should go to the most demanding courses. The Canadian Open at the Abbey is usually a fine event and is about to take place here for the 24th time since 1977. It can even be a tremendous event, as in 2000, when Tiger Woods won, and in 2004, when Vijay Singh beat Weir in a playoff.
The National opened a couple of years before Glen Abbey and hasn't held a single Canadian Open. The tournament there would be tremendous from the first hole on Thursday to the final hole on Sunday. But as PGA Tour and club rules stand, it won't happen, not even once. That's a shame, and a loss, for both the club and the Canadian Open.
