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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Wooing the PGA Tour on Winnipeg

Membership in new loop a possibility

By: Tim Campbell

Posted: 08/24/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

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Ryan Hart: discussions with PGA Tour

The next step to keep Winnipeg on the schedule for the possible PGA Tour Canada comes this morning.

Ryan Hart, president of mf1 and executive director of the Canadian Tour's Players Cup, will host a breakfast meeting with the PGA Tour and its senior vice-president Jeff Monday at the Winnipeg Winter Club.

Hart told the Free Press on Thursday that 40 local business leaders had accepted an invitation to attend.

"It's pleasantly surprising but I think it's an indication of the power of the PGA Tour brand," Hart said. "We've had some conversations with some of these people and they seem to see merit in bringing into town another major-league sports brand, developmental or not, into the market."

Winnipeg's annual summer stop on the Canadian Tour has been a staple of the cross-country tour for decades and likely the steadiest pillar of the tour since the 1980s.

But this year, the Players Cup is just one of eight tournaments on the schedule and the tour itself has fallen again on hard financial times.

The PGA Tour, seeing an opportunity to shore up its developmental system as it reconfigures its qualification process for golf's biggest stage, has stepped in with financial assistance and has spent the summer evaluating the different events across Canada.

Monday, for instance, was in Winnipeg during Players Cup week in July.

In October, after reviewing its assessments, the PGA Tour board is widely expected to green-light the go-ahead to take control of the Canadian Tour.

Hart said his group will have to commit to a three-year contract to operate the Players Cup -- and its $400,000 budget -- by the end of September.

"That means we'll need some sponsorship commitments by then," he said Thursday. "And I should add that we're ready to have that conversation, and not just with the people we're excited to meet with on Friday."

He's hoping to have many letters of intent in hand by then, maybe even sponsorship deposits as he tries to position the Players Cup for the future.

Today's meeting comes on the heels of an update gathering and some planning at the recent RBC Canadian Open.

"They had all the (tournament) operators across the country in town at Hamilton and we had a good session, talked about what we all have to do to make this happen," Hart said. "One of the big things they put in front of us is that, 'We need to feel that your individual markets want our brand and want us there.'

"Our idea leaving that was to try to get them to come back and for us to put out some feelers to the business community in Winnipeg."

What Hart envisions for the future will include some of the ideas of the recent past, where the Players Cup is more than just a golf tournament.

"The PGA Tour creates events and gives back to the community," Hart said. "After studying what the tour does... we have tried to make this an event and create some buzz around charity, and we knew that we needed some celebrity draw during the week also."

In that light, the Players Cup has involved Winnipegger and Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews and other NHLers in the last two years.

Today's session will outline the PGA Tour's potential rebranding and reorganization of the Canadian Tour.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 24, 2012 C8

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