The Canadian Open

July 26 - 29, 2007
Angus Glen Golf Club
Markham, Ontario
Par: 71 / Yardage: 7,320
Purse: $5 million with $810,000 going to the winner
Defending Champion: Jim Furyk

List of Champions & Scores

Results & Scores 2006 Canadian Open

Box Score of 2006 Canadian Open

Tournament facts:

Tournament information:

The fledgling tournament was hosted annually through 1914 before being postponed from 1915 to 1918 due to World War I. When the event was re-instituted in 1919, it was never to be halted for reasons other than weather again. During World War II, its value as a national open skyrocketed as it, along with the British and U.S., were three of the only golf tournaments played during that era. The conclusion to World War II took some of the luster from the event.

Today, with the Canadian Open not being as prestigious as other national opens, it provides a great place for American golfers to seek a country's championship; seeing that it is the easiest to qualify for and typically has a lower quality field than other similar events, the Canadian Open affords those not likely to win a major championship the opportunity to still capture a national open.

Though the field can be underwhelming at times, the Canadian Open has been the site of many notable achievements. Arnold Palmer captured his first PGA Tour win at the 1955 Open. Lee Trevino's 1971 victory capped off his amazing run at three national open victories in a month. Tiger Woods, in 2000, became the only other player to accomplish this feat, winning the U.S., then the British, followed by the Canadian.

Course information:

At 7,403 yards, the monstrous Par 72 course has a course rating of 74.6 and a slope rating of 143. The course features Creeping Bent Grass on the tees, fairways, and greens, with 0.41" cut for the tees, 0.46" cut for the fairways, and a 0.115" cut for the greens. The Bent Grass greens make for a fast green, as evidenced by the stimpmeter rating between 11 and 11.5. The fairways at Angus Glen are a 4" cut of Kentucky Blue Grass.

The Angus Glen, North Course is a throwback course. Wide fairways lined with large dunes. Tight greens that require well-played approach shots; its layout, save for the surrounding woodlands, attempts to fool golfers into thinking they are playing somewhere across the Atlantic; the most noteable feature of this relic course are its large assorment of bunkers featuring a sod-wall lining. With 103 bunkers lining the course, and the majority of them featuring the sod-wall bunkers, golfers can easily find there way into trouble, but will have much more trouble getting out.

The only anomalies to this format are the Par 3's, which are much tighter and lined with trees, and Number 18. Number 18 is a long Par 4 that requires a tee shot down a wooded chute. Anything in the woods and five may be considered a good score. From the fairway, the hole is much more manageable, but it still plays as one of the hardest on the course.

The Buzz:

With that they were only able to get two top-25 players Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh. They do have to thank Furyk for honoring a commitment by coming as the defending champion.

Still they have a lot of mid-tier players looking to improve their status on the FedEx Cup standings, since that series is wrapping up with the final qualifying even being just four weeks away.

Again the big question will be if a Canadian can come to the fro-front this year, 2004 did bring a lot of excitment.

Here are some things to look for this week:

Photo: © Stan Badz/Wire Images The 18th Hole of The Angus Glen Golf Club, home of the 2007 Canadian Open..

This year the Bell Canadian Open moves to Angus Glen, a public course just outside of Toronto. The course is a blend of natural terrain with significant eleation changes that wonders through valleys and wetlands. The back nine has a stretch of Scottish-style links holes The greens are average in size that have undulations in them and are well bunkered.

• Key stat for the winner:
  Even though the fairways are wide under PGA Tour standards the fairways are demanding and very penal for those that miss the fairway. Rough will be 4 to 4 and a half inches in length so look for good drivers to have a big advantage.
• Greens are contoured and well bunkered which means that those that scramble will do very well.
• Not many of the players in the field have seen the course and those that have will be on a redesign from 2002 so it will take some learning to master it. Look for a player that spends a lot of time on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in educating himself on the secerts of the course to have a big advantage over those that just show up on Tuesday afternoon.
• The last time a first-time winner prevailed at the Bell Canadian Open was in 2002 when the course was last played and previous to that was in 1996 when Dudley Hart won and before that it was in 1981 when Peter Oosterhuis won. So the Bell Canadian Open hasn't favored non-winners and I don't see that changing this year. Of the 97 winners of the event, 49 including the last four champions have been won by a player who owns a major championship title
• Good putters should have a field day this week. That's because I hear that the severely-sloping greens will be a lot slower than normal.
• For those wondering about a Canadian-born champion, the last one was in 1954 when Pat Fletcher won. Lately its been a bit bare, Mike Weir lost a playoff in 2004, Dave Barr finished T4th in 1988.
  
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