Windsor showed snobs just what this city can do
The 40th anniversary of one of Windsor’s greatest triumphs slipped by unnoticed last summer, which was a shame because that event spoke volumes about how this city can rise in collective fury when it gets its face slapped.
Mayor Drew Dilkens wants city residents to share memorable moments for the city’s 125th birthday party on May 20, moments that made us proud, moved us forward and ultimately defined us as a community.
My easy choice, given those criteria, would be Windsor’s bare-fisted mid-1970s battle to win back one of Canada’s most prestigious sports events, the 1976 Canadian Open, after it was ripped away by elitist Toronto decision-makers because we were too poor to host a world-class golf tournament.
Windsor is still a city that doesn’t take kindly to criticism from snotty outsiders. We prefer to keep our collective self-loathing in-house where it belongs.
But four decades on, it’s hard to explain just how enraged Windsorites were in April 1975 when the mucky-mucks of the Royal Canadian Golf Association yanked the $200,000 ($870,000 in today’s funds) tournament, our biggest ever sports event, away from the border city and back to an undisclosed but surely better-heeled Toronto location.
Imagine the reaction if the CHL pulled the Memorial Cup out of Windsor on spurious economic grounds. And then quadruple that.
Windsor, which had little experience with hosting major events, went ballistic when it learned RCGA officials had pulled the plug just 56 days after awarding the tournament to the area’s top course, Essex Golf and Country Club.
The officials explained to shell-shocked Essex club directors, who included some of the region’s wealthiest individuals, that “economic conditions in the Windsor-Detroit area could not support a successful Open.”
In other words, you rubes in the boonies don’t have the bucks to pay to see the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, so the tournament, held at the same time as the Montreal Olympics, could end up awash in red ink.
Windsor wasn’t a wealthy city. It still isn’t. But nothing sticks in the craw more than a claim that something is beyond one’s means. Sorry. Too big a deal for you little people so we’re taking it back and never mind the millions of dollars that were to be spent by golf fans in Windsor hotels, bars and restaurants.
Then mayor Bert Weeks harnessed that civic outrage, as only he could, and led the campaign to convince the RCGA it had made a horrible mistake. He had massive media backing, especially from The Star, which called the decision “unmitigated balderdash” and “utter nonsense.” In a piece headlined “Toronto Picks Windsor’s Pocket,” golf writer Jim McKay said the likes of Nicklaus and Player “would attract large galleries even if they were to play in Far Cry, Saskatchewan.”
Committees were formed. Area businesses raised $100,000 to guarantee the Open wouldn’t lose money and 8,000 ticket pledges were signed. All in a matter of days.
Before the month was over, following a closed-door meeting at Toronto’s Constellation Hotel where it was pointed out that five million people live within an hour of Windsor, the RCGA saw the light and again reversed course. Now the heat was on Windsor to deliver. And God did it ever deliver. With 800 volunteers and a slick shuttle system delivering huge crowds (including many who had never been on a golf course but wanted to make a statement) from Windsor Raceway to a course that received rave reviews from the pros, that Open was a monster success. It drew a record 75,000 spectators over four days, including more than 21,000 at the July 25 final round won by Jerry Pate with a course-record 63.
I’ve had many reasons to be proud of Windsor. But those four glittering days in 1976 and the civic crusade that rescued that national event from those who had no faith in our city, rank right at the top.
Nothing sticks in the craw more than a claim that something is beyond one’s means.