Nick Taylor went, in 12 years, from Uplands to a date with destiny Sunday at Oakdale. Taylor’s first professional golf tournament was the Victoria Open in 2011, the initial of three appearances in the annual Island pro tournament. On Sunday, the Abbotsford-raised Taylor snapped one of the greatest droughts in Canadian sporting history by becoming the first Canadian to win the Canadian Open since Pat Fletcher of Victoria in 1954.
Keith Dagg has a story for many of the golfers who made world headlines over the past four decades, including Taylor. That’s because many of them have played in the Victoria Open, now known as the Royal Beach Victoria Open presented by the sa国际传媒, a pro tournament Dagg has been associated with since its inception in 1981.
“Taylor was the top amateur in the world at the time and we gave him his first pro start in 2011 because our tournament leads off the Canadian Tour,” said Dagg.
“And now look what he has done. It’s amazing.”
But far from an isolated stand-alone.
Taylor played in the Victoria tournament from 2011 to 2013 when on the PGA Tour sa国际传媒. C.T. Pan, who led the Canadian Open after the third round Saturday, played here also. Canadians Adam Hadwin and Corey Conners, 12th and 20th respectively in the Canadian Open over the weekend, also played here. So did Steve Stricker, who won his first pro tournament at the Victoria Open in 1990 at Gorge Vale, before winning 12 PGA Tour events and earning nearly $45-million over his career and captaining the U.S. to a Ryder Cup victory. He is still at it and won a PGA Tour Champions event Sunday in his native Wisconsin for his 15th win on the seniors tour. The runner-up to Stricker in 1990 at Gorge Vale was Todd Hamilton, who went on to win the 2004 British Open. Tony Finau played at Uplands in 2013 before winning six PGA Tour events and with four top-five placings in majors.
You get the point. You can get there from here.
“I remember Finau driving the 10th hole at Uplands with an iron,” said Dagg, still in awe.
Dagg is a founding director of the Victoria event, and is still the driving force behind the venerable tournament, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this week at Uplands.
“These guys, who got their starts on the PGA Tour sa国际传媒, stick together,” said Dagg.
He was contacted last month by Taylor and Hadwin to make sure Riley Wheeldon of Comox received an exemption into his home-Island Royal Beach Victoria Open this week at Uplands. Although he didn’t make it to the PGA Tour with them, Wheeldon was part of that group of rising Canadians when they were younger, and they still look out for each other.
“It’s an amazing group,” said Dagg.
Even the older generation.
“You saw Mike Weir run out to congratulate Nick [Taylor] when he won the Canadian Open on Sunday,” said Dagg.
“Mike Weir played here in our tournament five times before he made it to the PGA Tour and won the Masters. The list of players who have gone through our good ol’ Victoria tournament is remarkable.”
The Victoria Open has been played since 1981 through various Canadian pro tour incarnations with the only interruptions being the pandemic-cancelled 2020 tournament and pandemic-truncated 2021 tournament. Numerous former Victoria Open players have gone on to the PGA Tour from Stricker, Stuart Appleby, Scott McCarron, Kirk Triplett and Craig Parry to Taylor, Conners, Hadwin, Finau and Mackenzie Hughes. The 2019 Victoria Open champion and runner-up, Paul Barjon and Doc Redman, are both on the PGA Tour. The 2016 Victoria Open runner-up Taylor Moore won his first PGA Tour event, the Valspar Open, this year.
Dagg remembers the first tournament at Glen Meadows in 1981, won by home-province veteran Dave Barr.
“It’s hard to believe but it cost about $50,000 to put it on back then. Now it’s over $600,000 to stage the tournament. It’s not cheap to do this, but it brings so much to the community” said Dagg.
The Victoria Open has raised more than $700,000 for Island charities since 2013.
The plans were to have Barr present the trophy to the winner on Sunday in honour of the 40th anniversary (the cancelled 2020 and reduced 2021 tournaments are not counted in the series). But Barr is unable to attend for personal reasons.
The Royal Beach Victoria Open begins the 10-event 2023 PGA Tour season from Thursday to Sunday and is the lone sa国际传媒 stop this year. Next week the players are at Elk Ridge for the Saskatchewan Open. The Tour runs through the Fortinet Cup in September at Country Hills in Calgary. In-between Victoria and Calgary are the Saskatchewan Open, ATB Classic in Edmonton, Quebec Open in Bromont, Ottawa Open, Osprey Valley Open in Caledon, Ont., Windsor Championship, Manitoba Open in Winnipeg and the CRMC Championship in Brainerd, Minnesota.
Six qualifying tournaments led up to the 2023 PGA Tour sa国际传媒 season, including the final qualifier at Crown Isle in Courtenay last week, which was won by Jimmy Jones, son of the late Island golfing legend and former LPGA Tour player Dawn Coe-Jones of Lake Cowichan.
The final eight qualifying spots into the Royal Beach Victoria Open, four from a tournament at Bear Mountain and four from a qualifier at Gorge Vale, were being decided Monday.
“There were 200 players vying for eight spots at Bear Mountain and Gorge Vale and 150 last week for 10 spots at Crown Isle. That’s unbelievable,” said Dagg.
It’s called chasing the dream.
At stake in the 2023 PGA Tour sa国际传媒 are five spots into the 2024 Korn Ferry Tour, which is the tour directly below the PGA Tour, and the gateway to the big time in the pro golf ladder.
The former Canadian Tour became the Mackenzie Tour PGA Tour sa国际传媒 in 2013 and 56 PGA Tour sa国际传媒 alumni have advanced to play on the PGA Tour over the past decade with 18 PGA Tour victories between them. More than 300 PGA Tour sa国际传媒 alumni have gone on to play on the Korn Ferry Tour since 2013 with 52 victories between them.
“I am constantly amazed and impressed at the level of play and abilities of our players. The fact they are going on to success on the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour should come as a surprise to no one,” said PGA Tour sa国际传媒 executive director Scott Pritchard, in a statement.
Next year it gets even bigger with a major reconfiguration of the hemispheric minor-pro golf system with the PGA Tour sa国际传媒 and PGA Tour Latinoamérica to merge into a single entity to form PGA Tour Americas beginning play in 2024. The Royal Beach Victoria Open presented by the sa国际传媒 will be a part of the new entity.
It’s a positive move, said Dagg, and will make for a tournament of greater scope “that feels more like a world event.”
The new combined PGA Tour Americas will feature 16 tournaments. It will start February through May in South America and Mexico and conclude from June through September in sa国际传媒 and the U.S., with the North American portion starting at Uplands.
The PGA Tour sa国际传媒 and PGA Tour Latinoamérica currently each offer five spots into the following season’s Korn Ferry Tour. Those slots will be amalgamated with the new PGA Tour Americas offering a combined 10 spots into the following year’s Korn Ferry Tour, which is the direct pathway to the PGA Tour.
“PGA Tour Americas will be an extremely competitive Tour aimed at identifying, developing and transitioning top-performing players to the next level as they ascend through the ranks and strive to reach the highest level of professional golf, the PGA Tour,” Alex Baldwin, who oversees PGA Tour Americas and the Korn Ferry Tour, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Uplands’ four-decade-plus master superintendent Brian Youell and his staff have been busy getting the course up to the challenge of facing this week’s batch of pro golfers.
“Because of the dry weather since November, the fairways are fast with lots of roll on them, so there could be some low scores recorded because of that extra roll,” said Youell.
“The greens are exceptional and firm. The course will be up to tournament speed.”
That will be good for these golfers, who are chasing not only a little white ball, but also their aspirations.
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