Great Lakes Tour de force
Fledgling Canadian golf loop not only surviving, it's thriving
By KEN FIDLIN, TORONTO SUN
The tour is coming to Hidden Lakes Golf Club this week. No, you won't see any corporate marquees. The players won't come tooling into the parking lot in courtesy cars from Buick. Equipment manufacturers won't be handing out $600 drivers like so much candy on the range. You won't have to jockey for position at the ropes because, well, there won't be any ropes. No pesky autograph-seekers, either. You won't see Tiger, but you might see a Tin Cup or two.
What you will see, however, is golf played at a high level and that is a testament to the vision and determination of a guy named Dennis Hendershott, who recognized a gaping hole at the bottom of the professional golf food chain and set about to fill it.
Now in its fourth year of operation, the Great Lakes Tour consists of 18 pro golf tournaments, self-funded and self-sufficient, structured on a two-tiered system. Twelve of the tournaments are one-day events, each with a total purse of $11,000. The other six, including the season-ending Tour Championship, are 36-hole, two-day "Platinum" tournaments, each with a $10,000 first prize and total purses of $40,000.
That adds up to $372,000 in total purses for the entire summer. Might not seem like much when compared with PGA Tour paydays (an average PGA Tour event pays more than $350,000 for a third-place finish) but that's not the point. For many players, the amount of money is secondary to the opportunity to learn to play and win under pressure.
PLATINUM SERIES
With two regular events already completed in the 2004 season, the Platinum Series begins Tuesday with a $40,000 event scheduled at Hidden Lakes, just north of Burlington. The tournament schedule runs all summer, culminating at the Tour Championship set for Brantford Golf and Country Club in October.
Unlike many fledgling minor-league sports endeavours, the Great Lakes Tour not only is surviving, but thriving, a testament to the vision of its co-founders, Hendershott and Kara Kelly.
In the summer of 2000, Hendershott found himself in that catch-22 situation that has faced so many young aspiring professionals. Having decided to turn pro, he had failed to obtain his Canadian Tour card and came back home to Brantford looking to get some experience so he could give it another try.
Problem was, there was no place for him to get experience except on the Canadian Tour, which, of course, he had failed to qualify for.
"It turned out to be a dead end," he said. "There was no place for an unattached player to play. The only option was to join the CPGA but I didn't want to work in the golf industry, as far as working in a pro shop. I wanted to play."
Even before that, an idea had been percolating in his brain. Faced with his own dilemma, Hendershott started to take action.
"It was then that I started talking to friends and other players about establishing a mini-tour here and there was definitely some interest," he said.
During that summer of 2000, Hendershott met Kelly, who would become not only his partner in life, but also in business. She had been working for the Canadian PGA in the Ontario zone. She knew all the right people, all the courses and was plugged into the professional network.
"We started very small," Hendershott said. "I think we had 150 members the first year and were averaging about 60 players for a one-day tournament. "But even at that time it was clear we were on to something. We knew there was a definite void in the development of Canadian players."
The winner at the very first event that summer of 2001 was Brian McCann, a young professional who has inadvertently become a poster boy for the Great Lakes Tour and its mission. He had found himself in the same no-man's land that Hendershott had been in. Four years later, a few months shy of his 30th birthday, he is a regular on the Nationwide Tour, one step below the PGA Tour and credits Great Lakes with helping him along the way. He still competes whenever his schedule allows.
"I've been playing from the very start and I've seen a steady improvement in the money, the quality of the fields and the organization of the events," McCann said.
"It's pretty clear that Dennis had the right vision and recognized a need. There just weren't that many opportunities for pros to make money and get experience in this area if they couldn't get on the Canadian Tour."
McCann played in last week's event but he won't be in Burlington this week. He's leaving on Monday for his next three Nationwide Tour stops in Richmond, Va., Raleigh, N.C., and Knoxville, Tenn.
In recent years the Royal Canadian Golf Association's Future Links program and its elite amateur camps have given a huge boost to youngsters and teenagers and even the occasional post-college star as they attempt to build a Canadian stable of world-class professionals.
"It takes kids through their college days but from that point on, unless they are very, very good -- a Jon Mills, a Derek Gillespie -- not every player comes out of college and gets a tour card," Hendershott said.
"Now they've come out and maybe lost their amateur status by way of going to Q-school, but they still want to play and get better. But there's just nowhere to go unless you have the ability to make the big jump right away.
"That's a very important time in a player's development, between the end of school and up until your 30s. But that's one of the reasons we don't have a lot of players playing at a high level because that developmental stage has been lacking."
That's where the Great Lakes Tour comes in. Players are required to pay a membership fee ($200 for the Regular Series, $500 to join the Platinum Series). Once a player becomes a member, he (or she -- the tour is gender neutral) pays an entry fee for each tournament entered. Regular Series events cost $150 to enter. Platinum events cost $500. Eighty percent of the entry fees are paid out in prize money and Hendershott has no trouble filling his fields.
It may be the minor leagues, but you have to be very good to get a sniff at the winner's cheque in any given event. Players such as Gillespie, former PGA player Ben Ferguson, Michael Hospodar and last year's overall money winner, Zoltan Veress of Kitchener, create a very competitive atmosphere.
LOVE TO COMPETE
"We have some club professionals who love to compete but they know they cannot win on our tour," Hendershott said. "But they want to be out there and they love to compete against the guys in our fields.
"We have a lot of other players, either unattached pros or high-calibre amateurs, who might not be able to beat some of the top players but who are realizing developmental goals themselves.
One of the keys to success has been Kelly and Hendershott's refusal to try to go too far, too fast. They have some ultimate goals that include big-name sponsors, $100,000 purses and national exposure but they're proceeding carefully.
"We're still a couple of years away from where we intend to be but we're not going to jump the gun and do anything silly like try to run too many events or try to be too big," Hendershott said.
SELF-FUNDED
"We're relying on the players to be there. It's a self-funded tour and it's success is based on that. We're not relying on a corporate deal and we will always maintain a high Canadian content.
"We do have some Americans who come up here but we're never going to allow more than a 10% foreign content.
"If you provide the right format, it's surprising how many of these kids will develop and show their talent, rather than fall off the face of the earth. With our tour, they have a place to play and develop."
And not a moment too soon.
