The PGA Tour's RBC Canadian Open tees off tomorrow at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario, and first-year Tournament Dir Brent McLaughlin "heard from players that there's not enough 'Canadiana'" in the event, according to Stephen Whyno of the CP. But the players will "get their wish on the course this week with the addition of many Canadian flags, including a 30-by-15-feet one behind the 18th green." It is an "effort to make the Canadian Open more Canadian." McLaughlin said, "We've struck a balance of the Canadiana. We've lost touch with kind of the stuff that makes us uniquely Canadian: the Mounties and kind of those stereotypes that you always hear." Whyno noted 16 Canadians are "expected to be in the field" this week. Golf Canada CEO Scott Simmons "considers this one of the deeper fields the Canadian Open has had in a while." That is "certainly a selling point, but McLaughlin also instituted 'Red And White Day' on Friday to encourage fans and golfers to show off national spirit and added food trucks serving things like poutine and Beavertails" (CP, 7/21). McLaughlin said that his focus "has been on trying to build up the spectator experience, to make the golf tournament 'more of a festival, an event.'” The NATIONAL POST's Scott Stinson notes playing back-to-back years at Glen Abbey "will make it easier to make some changes: a party house sponsored by a restaurant chain, a beer garden that puts revellers right next to the players as they walk from green to tee." McLaughlin: "All these little things you do, they take time to grow, so I think coming back in '16, we'll have momentum" (NATIONAL POST, 7/22).
