SHAW CLASSIC BOWING OUT FOR THIS YEAR
Popular PGA Tour Champions event becomes latest COVID-19 cancellation
The incredible crowd support has made this a favourite stop on the PGA Tour Champions circuit and a marquee event on Calgary’s summer sports calendar.
With a ban on spectator gatherings, there will be no Shaw Charity Classic in 2020.
The latest edition of the senior birdie-fest, scheduled for Aug. 28-30 at Canyon Meadows Golf & Country Club, was cancelled Thursday due to the COVID-19 crisis. The tournament will return in 2021.
“We looked at every scenario — without spectators, without hospitality, all those things — and it just ultimately didn’t make sense,” said Shaw Charity Classic executive director Sean Van Kesteren. “For us, to run the event without spectators, that would have been the best-case scenario, and it just didn’t make sense. That’s not what we wanted to have happen. The event is bigger and better than that. It’s a community event. We want people to be there, to feel it. We want people to participate and to have the charities on-site and have everyone involved.”
In seven previous instalments, the Shaw Charity Classic has averaged more than 40,000 fans per year. When a World Golf Hall-of-famer such as Fred Couples or Colin Montgomerie is on the tee, spectators stand several rows deep to get a glimpse of those silky swings.
With the city cancelling all event permits through the end of August in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19, there would have been no galleries.
The border closure — and mandatory quarantine period after any arriving flight — added another layer of uncertainty. With a different tournament every week, Canada’s 14-day isolation requirement for all travellers would have been a non-starter for the players, even if the Shaw Charity Classic has the sterling reputation as a three-time winner of the President’s Award as the top stop on the 50-and-over tour.
Thursday’s decision was made after consultation with health authorities, government officials and tour brass.
“I think we’re all disappointed,” said Van Kesteren, who runs the only PGA Tour Champions shootout on Canadian soil. “We know this is an important event for the community. Obviously, for our team and all the stakeholders, including Shaw and our patron group and all the volunteers, everybody looks forward to the tournament every year — and especially the charities and all the people we support. So we’re sad about that.
“We tried to be as patient as we could to see if things could move in our favour, in terms of some of the restrictions for travel and events operating at a larger capacity. … But ultimately, those things won’t change soon enough for us to go forward.”
Their commitment to the community isn’t about to change, either.
The Shaw Charity Classic has been a game-changer for youthbased causes, making an annual tradition of shattering its own record for the largest charitable give in PGA Tour Champions history. Last year alone, donations topped $14 million. (That nudged the grand total to nearly $50 million since the event was founded in 2013.)
Tournament officials have already promised that the Shaw Birdies For Kids initiative will continue in 2020, with 200-plus organizations set to benefit. Not wanting Thursday’s news to be a total bummer, title sponsor Shaw Communications Inc. pledged $1 million to match community contributions to date.
“The real winners of the Shaw Charity Classic have always been the hundreds of thousands of kids and youth across Alberta who rely on charitable organizations for support in areas such as food security, health care, mental wellness and much more,” said Brad Shaw, executive chair and CEO of Shaw Communications, in Thursday’s announcement. “Charity has always been at the heart of this tournament, and this year it is even more important. While we are unable to physically come together this year, we are absolutely committed to working with the community and our amazing partners to continue the Shaw Charity Classic’s incredible legacy of giving.”
The PGA Tour Champions legends will be back at Canyon Meadows in 2021. In fact, Shaw Charity Classic organizers have already revealed the dates for next summer — Aug. 13-15.
“Our goal is to try to climb back as we know we can,” said Van Kesteren, whose staff will be refunding 2020 tickets or offering the option to donate the purchase price to the Shaw Birdies for Kids program. “We know that things have changed. Who knows what is in front of us? But we’re feeling pretty confident. In making this decision, we talked with a lot of our sponsors, a lot of our stakeholders, and everybody steadfastly still wants to be involved and help us to the extent that they can, and that’s a great thing.
“Our event is much more than a corporate outing, more than our sponsors wanting to get their name out there. That’s not what it’s all about. So everybody that is involved, from top to bottom, knows that this event probably means more now moving forward.”