Inside Golf House

There is no truly fitting way to thank Doug Roxburgh for everything that he has done for Canadian golf.

Last week, it was with mixed emotions that Golf Canada announced that the Canadian Golf Hall of Famer would be retiring from him position as Director of High Performance at the end of December.

Doug spent 12 years with Golf Canada helping to identify and develop Canada’s most promising amateur golfers. His contributions to the game both as a competitor and administrator have been simply outstanding.

The man is an amateur golfing legend – four Canadian Amateur titles; 13-time British Columbia Amateur champion; winner of the both the British Columbia and Canadian Junior; and a member of 21 Willingdon Cup Teams. He’s also answered the call for his country, having represented Canada at numerous international team and individual competitions including seven World Amateurs.

He was deservingly inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 1990 and has since become an honoured member of the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame (1995), the British Columbia Golf Hall of Fame (2003) and the Pacific Northwest Golf Association Hall of Fame (2011).

Doug is one of those players often mentioned (with the likes of fellow Hall of Famers Marlene Streit and Gary Cowan) in the ‘what if’ conversation – whether his success at the amateur ranks would have continued had he chose to pursue a career in professional golf. That debate will always be tied to his storied career but if you ask Doug, you’ll quickly learn that he has no regrets.

Doug is anything but amateur in the way he has represented Canadian golf throughout his 40 year playing career and the past 12 years leading our High Performance Program. He has been a respected mentor to hundreds of athletes and one of the Canada’s finest ambassadors both on and off the course. One of the nicest men you’ll ever meet, Doug Roxburgh is a gentleman and a true professional.

I give a lot of credit to my predecessor Stephen Ross, who as Executive Director of the Royal Canadian Golf Association in 1999, asked Doug to come on board to lead the association’s player development efforts. What began as a series of player development camps and sporadic international competitions has evolved into a comprehensive program that offers world-class coaching, funding, sport science, nutrition, mental management and access to international competition to the this country’s most talented amateurs. The evolution of the Team Canada program will be counted among Doug’s many contributions to the sport.

There are those that criticize Golf Canada’s involvement in high performance player development, questioning whether it’s an area that we should even be involved in. To those critics, the answer has been unwavering – if not Golf Canada then who?

In 2005, Sport Canada designated Golf Canada as the National Sport Organization with two primary mandates – participation and excellence in the sport. While there’s a leadership role that Golf Canada has taken on, player development is a collaborative effort that also includes partners such as the provincial golf associations, the PGA of Canada, the Canadian Tour and others. Player development starts at the grassroots and local club level and includes the support of individual coaches, collegiate golf programs and most importantly, family and friends.

As Doug steps away, the next evolution in Canadian player development is finding a way to address the young pro gap – supporting our most promising athletes as they make the jump from amateur to professional golf. Funding is critical, as is a viable support program. Over the next four years leading up to golf’s inclusion in the 2016 Olympics, addressing the young pro gap will be a major focus of Golf Canada’s player development mandate.

Timing is everything. How fitting that as we celebrate the career of a Canadian golf legend, 21 Canadian hopefuls will embark on golf’s most grueling tests – the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour qualifying tournaments. Of the nine men and 12 women vying for their card, 12 in total have been touched by some aspect of Golf Canada’s High Performance Program, a fact that I’m sure Doug is very proud of.

Doug’s vision for high performance excellence was to help build Canada into a leading golf nation – only time will tell and the measure of success will always be debated.

What won’t be debated is the indelible impact that Doug Roxburgh has had on Canadian golf throughout his storied career – the lasting legacy of a true professional.