Canadian Open 2010

After a disappointing week in St. Andrew’s Mike and I have returned home to play one of our biggest events of the year, the RBC Canadian Open. 

Last week, Mike was hitting the ball the best he has in months. This is a great sign that his ball striking is coming around. Unfortunately his putting was not producing the same results and we were on the bad side of the draw with the tough weather conditions. On the Old Course it is so hard to get the ball close to the hole leaving you with so many lengthy putts -you need to be dead on.

With the weekend off in Scotland I got the chance to enjoy my own round of golf at Kings Barn. It was great to get out and play at such a beautiful course.

On Sunday night, RBC arranged for a charter flight to get us all back to Toronto. RBC has really gone the extra steps to make sure they take care of players and their families as well as their caddies. This was great and made coping with the jetlag a little easier Monday morning.

On Monday I got to play in the Mike Weir Charity Classic with the Thomson Reuters team. Even though I played poorly this event is always a great time. We had a lot of awesome celebrities and TOUR players come out this year. The auction was hosted by Jon Montgomery and Jerry Dee who undoubtedly did a great job. The unique auction items such as a trip to next year’s Masters, a weekend with Mike and a trip to Fenway Park to watch the Sox were all a hit. Together, $350,000 was raised for the Mike Weir Foundation! 

I cannot say enough about RBC and how much they have done for The Mike Weir Foundation. All of the sponsors were a huge help and one of the main reasons why we raised so much money. AirSprint and Citation Air, two of Mike’s partners, even threw in free airfare for all of the auction items. 

The tournament on Monday allowed for Mike to really get a feel for the course again and reminded me of how beautiful it was. I remember when I was young and use to spend my summers in Toronto playing in the junior program at the National. I had played St. George’s quite a few times back then but never remember it being this good. It is by far one of the best courses I have seen in Canada. This is the type of course that could host a major with no trouble at all.

It is at this course that we face some of the most severe greens and by far the thickest rough of the year. St. George’s is an old school course where all the greens slope back to front and you have to keep the ball below the hole or you will have no chance of making par. With the deep rough you have to be able to drive the ball well or you will be laying up and trying to make pars. It’ll be a tough week but it feels good to be back on a Canadian course.

This is a great week in Toronto as Jack Johnson, Bon Jovi, and Brad Paisley are all in town, leaving nothing but excellent entertainment for tourists and maybe even some of the players. I am really looking forward to this week and would like nothing more than to win this tournament. Taking the title at home here at St. George’s would just be icing on the cake!

Brennan Little