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Mission Statement
VGT has been developed for our local
Professionals and Amateurs – giving them the
opportunity for a high level of competition in a
PGA Tour environment without spending excess
travel dollars. We want to give our players the
opportunity to learn how to win while at the
same time building their confidence to play on
Worldwide Major Tours.
The mission statement of VGT is to send a
minimum of one Professional down to compete in
the PGA Tour Qualifying School every year. Our
top ranked player on the 2008 Order of Merit
will be granted a fully paid entry to compete in
the 2008 PGA Q-School. Our hope is to soon send
multiple players down to PGA Tour School and see
a growing surge of VGT players graduating to the
PGA Tour. We are working alongside the Canadian
Tour to secure positions in the two local
Canadian Tour events for our top VGT members. In
2007, our Spring OOM leader Jeff Hallborg was
granted an exemption into the Greater Vancouver
Charity Classic. We are also setting our sights
on getting our top OOM player an entry to
compete in the 2008 Canadian Tour’s season
ending Tour Championship and a birth into the
2008 Canadian Open.
The Vancouver Golf Tour
is a based on a culmination of ideas borne from Canadian PGA
professional Fraser Mulholland. Like many youngsters, Fraser
had the childhood dream of reaching the PGA Tour, winning the
Masters, and slipping on the coveted ‘GREEN JACKET’. At times
throughout his career, he was closer to this dream than ever
imagined, playing in two PGA Tour events, an Australian Open, a
South African Open and Masters, winning his first ‘major’, the BCPGA
Championship and qualifying to play on both the Canadian Tour and
Malaysian PGA Tour. However, along the way, he endured countless
set-backs that made the journey to his dream seem very hard indeed.
During his 14 years as a
professional, Fraser has witnessed limitations with local sponsorship as
well as opportunities to make a full-time living playing professionally
without being on one of the top 3 or 4 tours around the world or without
spending endless amounts of travel dollars. With these facts in mind,
Fraser, and many other Canadians who tried to fulfill their dream of
reaching the PGA Tour found it very hard pressed indeed. Seeing the
trend of a majority of our fine Canadian players running out of finances
and then trading in their hopes of continuing their pursuit of golf
excellence for a managerial position at dad’s company spurred Fraser on
to make a difference for the many rising Canadian golfers.
 “The
Vancouver Golf Tour will be the first developmental tour of its kind in
Canada” states Mulholland. “We have created a locally based tour for our
young and aspiring professionals, amateurs and juniors to compete
against each other for seriously needed competition in a “PGA Tour” run
environment. We are currently developing a professional cash and prize
structure that will give our young professionals an opportunity to make
a living while they are preparing to compete on either the PGA Tour or
one of the top tours around the world”.
The tour will give our young
rising stars (juniors and amateurs) a chance to compete head-to-head
against the best professionals in our province on a regular basis. “The
youth movement in golf will have an opportunity to see how some of our
best professionals play the game earlier than ever before and learn how
to win against them before they are out of their teens” says Mulholland.
“I want our youth to learn how to win against the best professionals in
our country so early that by the time they are 17 or 18, they are ready
to win on the PGA Tour! This is the biggest reason Tiger Woods is where
he is today”.
Audio Interview with
BCGolfNews.com
click to listen
In the past 10 years, Mulholland
has seen the growth of professional golf tours accelerating almost
everywhere else in the world (USA, Asia, Australia, South Africa,
Europe) except for Canada. The VGT’s goal is to make the acceleration of
growth in professional tournament golf start right here in Vancouver!
The tour’s five year vision is
to see five of Vancouver Golf Tour’s members rising to and playing on
the PGA Tour. “We want Vancouver, and eventually Western Canada to be
THE force to be reckoned with on the PGA Tour within the next five
years” says Mulholland. Within this same five year period, the
Vancouver Golf Tour will grow into other regions in BC and Western
Canada.
Other than the ‘Drive for Five’
on the PGA Tour, Commissioner Mulholland has three ultimate goals for
the Vancouver Golf Tour.
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The first is to increase the
tournament prize money for the tour through added corporate
sponsorship.
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The second main goal for the
tour which will aid the first goal is to create more awareness about
the tour and its many great players through the media to our golfing
public. “Our Vancouver golf fans need to recognize our future stars
if they are to support them in their quest towards the PGA Tour”
states Mulholland. “By creating this awareness, we can not only
recognize players for their tremendous skills, but harness the
required relationships with our corporate community so the next wave
of talented young golfers has the greatest chance of fulfilling
their dreams”.
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The third and likely most
important goal of the tour is to set aside fundraising dollars to
help develop the future of our junior golfers. Through the
development of scholarship programs, we can help our young players
choose the school best suited for their academic and golf goals in
mind. And through the building of a junior golf academy for the
tour, young kids of all ages and means can learn the game of golf
from our local professionals at a very subsidized cost and in some
cases no charge.
We are currently developing a
membership structure for the tour and will have a full schedule of
events for 2008 that will lead up to a two-day Championship and an Order
of Merit winner at the end of the season who will have their 2008 PGA
Tour Qualifying School Entry paid for. The top two Order of Merit
winners on the 2009 Vancouver Golf Tour will have their PGA Tour
Qualifying School entry fees paid for. As mentioned before, our
long-term goal is to see more of our VGT members playing on the PGA Tour
every year.
If you have any further questions regarding the tour, including sponsorship opportunities, please feel free to contact us at our
office details below.
Vancouver Golf Tour
Box 18, #112-1151 Mt. Seymour Road
North Vancouver, BC V7H 2Y4
info@vancouvergolftour.com
local: (604) 980-GOLF (4653)
Sponsorship
Opportunities Email:
info@vancouvergolftour.com |
