Vancouver Golf Tour springboard to greater heights
Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor both got their starts at Lower Mainland events
When Fraser Mulholland was an itinerant touring pro he asked himself a simple question. Why do I have to go halfway around the world to develop my game?
Grinding out a living, after all, was difficult enough on satellite tours in Australia or South Africa. But it became next to impossible when the cheques weren’t coming and he was trying to cover travel bills 8,000 kilometres from home.
“There was a missing link,” says Mulholland, the do-everything proprietor of the Vancouver Golf Tour. “I’d see the same guys struggling and spending and after a couple of years, they’d be broke and working a day job.
“There had to be something to do for eight months when you didn’t have a card (on a more-established tour).”
That was over a decade ago and there is now a place for those players. The VGT, which started with a Pro-Am at Northview in 2006, now boasts some 30 events for pros and amateurs running from April to October in the Lower Mainland.
They have an angel sponsor in IGA and support from over 20 other corporations, including Johnston Meier, the title sponsors of the flagship Vancouver Open. Graduates include Abbotsford’s Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor, who’ve both won on the PGA Tour, and rising star Adam Svensson. In April, Langley’s Adam Cornelson teed it up at the VGT Masters at Morgan Creek before heading back to the Web.com tour.
B.C., it seems, has never had a problem producing good players. Giving them a place to play where they could work on their craft without going broke, that was the problem. At least it used to be.
“We’ve grown every single year, but it’s little by little,” Mulholland said. “I want to pay out big money, but I’ve seen what that does. We’re competitive and guys know they have to shoot low scores. The goal is to simulate the tour experience.”
Mulholland then references Taylor, who was playing the McKenzie (née Canadian) tour in 2013 and moonlighting on the VGT. In the spring, he won three out of five events on the Vancouver tour, then came back and won five more in the fall.
Along the way he recorded a 66.3 stroke average. A little over a year later he won the Sanderson Farms Championship on the PGA Tour.
“He got that winning mentality,” says Mulholland. “When you have good players you know you have to shoot 66 to be competitive.”
OK, not every pro who plays on the VGT is going to win on the PGA Tour. But the mere fact that Mulholland can put pictures of Taylor and Hadwin on the VGT website does wonders for his branding. He can also draw on respected veteran pros like Bryn Parry and Phil Jonas, who’ve long supported the VGT, and up-and-comers like Cornelson and North Vancouver’s Eugene Wong to lend name-appeal.
“It’s huge,” Mulholland said of the VGT’s graduates. “We’re up 15 to 20 per cent in membership enrolment. I think it comes from having two guys (Hadwin and Taylor) coming out of this tour. Others see it’s a possibility if you put in this work.”
Mulholland, in fact, initially envisioned the VGT as a home for pros and elite amateurs but, after working a couple of golf shows, he was petitioned to open up events to a wider range. As a result, most of the events are now open to men and women with handicaps up to 18 and it’s hard to argue with the economies of scale the larger fields create.
“We saw the success of an event like the Chilliwack Open,” Mulholland says, “All of a sudden you have 220 players in the field, which means more money, more sponsors and more awareness.”
The role of the VGT’s commissioner has also changed over the years. Until recently, Mulholland was the tour’s CEO, marketing chief, lead salesman, media liaison, tournament organizer and the man responsible for putting up and taking down the signs. He’s since entered into a partnership with B.C. Golf that helps with the nuts and bolts of running events while freeing Mulholland to grow the business side of the tour.
And he has ambitions. He hopes to attract more sponsorship to increase the available prize money. He’d also like to establish an endowment to pay out scholarships and bursaries.
“It let’s me be a builder and developer instead of a 24/7 operational guy,” he said, before adding. “I never thought we’d have this many events. I think we’ve created some opportunities for some good players.”
And that was the goal all along.
We’re competitive and guys know they have to shoot low scores. The goal is to simulate the tour experience.