Air Canada Championship may be the last
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2002 Air Canada Championship | Preview | 25 Aug 2002
With the Royal Bank, who had been predicted as the sponsor most likely to succeed Air Canada’s role in funding a PGA Tour event on the West Coast of Canada, now indicating they will not be involved, this week’s Air Canada Championship may well signal the demise of the PGA Tour on the West Coast.
Despite the doubts about its future the event has opened the door for some of the tour’s bright young stars to step up to the mark and is likely to do so one more time.
Not sure just what it is about the British Columbian air but the Air Canada Championship has in just six years of existence produced five first time tour winners.
Last year it was thirty nine year old Joel Edwards who, in his three hundred and sixteenth start on the tour, won for the first time and in 2000, South African Rory Sabatini won his only event to date on tour with a one shot victory over New Zealander Grant Waite.
Only Mark Calcavecchia (1997) has won here as an established tour winner and so the door is again open in 2002 for another to claim his first title. Calcavecchia also finished third to Sabatini last year but his form of late has been so indifferent it is hard to be convinced about his chances this year.
Last year’s winner Edwards has played well this season but hardly great, making his last six cuts, and the horses for courses pattern will be sorely tested as he lines up to defend his crown. He has had but two top tens this season his best fifth at The Greater Hartford event but his win here last year and thirteenth in 2000 suggest a love affair and comfort zone with the Northview Course.
Vijay Singh is the leading ranked player, lining up with the likes of Scott Hoch, in form Fred Funk and Steve Lowery, in 1999 winner Mike Weir and 2002 tour winners Kevin Sutherland, Craig Perks, Spike McRoy and Shigeki Maruyama. Also included are two of the top money winners on this year’s Canadian Tour money list namely Hank Kuehne and Jeff Quinney, both ex US Amateur Champions with some sort of future it would seem.
The Northview Golf & Country Club is the home for two quality courses both designed by Arnold Palmer although the tournament this week, as has been the case in the last five years, played over the Ridge Course measuring some 6900 yards.
Australians Robert Allenby, who has been so brilliant this past week in Washington, Stephen Allan, Greg Chalmers, Steve Elkington, Mattie Goggin, Paul Gow, Bradley Hughes, Peter Lonard, Geoff Ogilvy, John Senden and Aaron Baddeley are all entered, as we go to print, as are New Zealanders Grant Waite, runner up in 2000, Phil Tataurangi, Frank Nobilo, Craig Perks and Michael Long.
If, as appears likely, this is the last event in British Columbia for some time then it will be fitting if the event can produce yet another first time winner. I had thought that Chris Riley may have been the perfect candidate but his win today at the Reno Tahoe event has taken him outside that category. He may, if he can overcome the obligations of, and demands on, a first time winner, win anyhow as he does have very good form here.
