Sad State of the Canadian Tour

The British Columbia Golf News has a column on the sad state of the Canadian Tour. Highlights:

To run even the limited 2012 schedule at all, the Canadian Tour had to borrow an undetermined amount—but rumored to be at least $750,000—from the PGA Tour. Few other details on the partnership are known, but spring qualifying school has been held at Morningstar and Fairwinds on Vancouver Island or The Dunes and Rivershore in Kamloops in the good old days.

When they added tournaments in the U.S. and co-sanctioned events in Mexico and other Central American countries they added schools in Florida or Texas and California.
With the schedule reduced to seven full-play, official money events and the purse total at $900,000 down from who knows what it was last year because purses were slashed halfway through schedule, but about half the total of $1.7 million 2009 total when there was 10 full field events, including the City of Surrey $150,000 four-rounder at Hazelmere when American veteran Mike Grob nipped Graham DeLaet of Weyburn, Sask.

It deserves a better fate. Perhaps some sort of merger with the Nationwide Tour?

Read the rest.