Changes in Name Bring Clarity & Focus

The sponsors of the Victoria Open golf tournament and the PGA Tour Canada are making some changes to bring clarity and focus...

For the Victoria stop on the PGA TOUR's developmental circuit, it's going to be business as usual with four days of great golf at Uplands from June 20-23.

The only change here is in the name. It will now be called the Beachlands Victoria Open. This reflects the intention of the title sponsors, Seacliff Properties & Reliance Properties, to bring awareness for plans to develop lands closer to the ocean.

Ground has already broken on a commercial building that will be a 12,000 square foot sales centre for the future development on the Beachlands 134-acre site

The PGA TOUR has a somewhat different reason to rebrand.

The PGA TOUR has decided to merge the PGA Tour Canada and PGA Tour Latinoamérica, under the name "PGA Tour Americas" to streamline operations. This means one tour with two swings: the first from March to May across Central and South America, and the second from June to September primarily across Canada.

Clearly, the PGA TOUR is looking to bring increased stability with the move.

Each tournament will offer a $225,000 USD purse, totaling $3.6 million for the season. The top 10 players on the final 2024 Fortinet Cup Standings will earn exempt Korn Ferry Tour membership for the 2025 season.

The PGA Tour Americas' schedule now meshes with the rest of the Korn Ferry schedule and PGA TOUR Q-School

There will be some impact from this on the Beachlands Victoria Open. They may need to get more flags to put around the putting green :)

If the southern swing’s first event is any indication, we could easily see players of more than a dozen nationalities make the grade and tee it up when the Victoria tourney goes June 20-23.

The only major difference this year at Uplands is that you might see a few more national flags

At the end of the southern swing, the top 60 on the Fortinet Order Of Merit will qualify for the second (northern) half of the season.

Unfortunately, it's not likely that many of them will be from Canada. There are less than a dozen Canadians playing the southern swing (including Victoria locals Jeevan Sihota and Lauren Rowe).

Add to that, the Tour's website only lists 13 Canadians as having playing privileges (see list below) so most Canadian players will have to qualify through Q-Schools held in May across North America culminating at Crown Isle the week before the Beachlands Victoria Open.

Expect to see a field dominated by Canadians at Crown Isle eager to secure their spots.

In 2022, Courtenay’s Riley Wheeldon (L) rode local knowledge to medallist honours at Crown Isle and a year later Dawn Coe-Jones' son Jimmy, who lists Lake Cowichan as his home town, repeated the feat

As always, there will be a local "Monday" qualifier, this year at Highland Pacific GC on June 17th, where eight final spots will be up for grabs.

Canadians Listed On the PGA Tour Americas website as having playing privileges:

Matthew Anderson
Chris Crisologo
Jared du Toit
Thomas Giroux
Jimmy Jones
Stuart Macdonald
Brendan MacDougall
Lawren Rowe
Joey Savoie
Max Sekulic
Jeevan Sihota
Noah Steele
Johnny Travale
Chris Wilson
*Bolded players are from BC

To find out more about the Beachlands Victoria Open,
visit thebeachlandsvictoriaopen.ca

To find out more about the PGA Tour Americas,
visit pgatour.com/americas