(Oakville, Ont. and Ponte Vedra, FL) – PGA TOUR Canada Qualifying School will take place at three separate sites next spring, heading to Oak Valley Golf Club in Beaumont, California April 7-11, the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at Reunion Resort and Club in Kissimmee, Florida April 14-18 and Crown Isle Resort and Golf Community in Courtenay, British Columbia May 5-9.

Players will have an opportunity to qualify at one of the three sites, with fields of 132 players maximum. The top 18 players at each site will earn exempt status for 2014, with players finishing 19th through 40th plus ties earning conditional status.

“With these three qualifying sites, the access and opportunity for players to earn status on PGA TOUR Canada has greatly increased,” said PGA TOUR Canada President Jeff Monday. “These qualifying tournaments should be extremely competitive and will enhance the level of competition in our second season. We look forward to seeing the next generation of players to make an impact on this Tour.”

Oak Valley, a 7,003-yard layout designed by Lee Schmidt, has hosted qualifying school for the PGA TOUR and will host the first week of qualifying April 7-11, while the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course at Reunion Resort and Club, a Salamander Resort, is a 6,916-yard Jack Nicklaus design and will host qualifying the following week in Kissimmee, just outside Orlando.

The spring’s final qualifying tournament will take place at Crown Isle Resort and Golf Community in Courtenay, British Columbia, part of a two-year deal that will see PGA TOUR Canada qualifying take place at Crown Isle in 2014 and at Morningstar Golf Club in Parksville, British Columbia in 2015. Crown Isle, a 7,025-yard Graham Cooke design, is located just minutes from Comox Valley Airport.

The application to enter PGA TOUR Canada qualifying will be posted to PGATOUR.com/Canada in the new year.

The full 2014 PGA TOUR Canada schedule will be announced at a future date.

SUN CITY, South Africa – Lightning halted the first round of the Nedbank Golf Challenge and Luke Donald’s rapid start at the 30-man invitational on Thursday.

Donald opened with a birdie and an eagle on his first two holes and was 5 under after 11 when a second interruption for lightning caused players to come off the course for good.

The former top-ranked Englishman is two ahead of Jamie Donaldson and Thomas Bjorn. Donaldson played 12 holes, while Bjorn was 3 under with three birdies in six holes.

Playing for the first time since ending last season with the FedEx Cup and European money list titles, Henrik Stenson was 1 under after seven, with six straight pars after a birdie on No. 1.

SUN CITY, South Africa – Ernie Els is considering cutting his golf schedule even more to spend time with his family, saying life on the road after 25 seasons as a pro is getting “tougher and tougher.”

The four-time major winner has already slowed down over the past few years, playing 19 tournaments on the PGA Tour and only seven European Tour events last season.

The 44-year-old Els expects to trim that again, he said at the Nedbank Golf Challenge, his first tournament in a month.

The South African, who turned professional in 1989, said that with his daughter Samantha now 14 and son Ben now 11 “there are other things that come into play.”

“It’s always been difficult leaving the house, but now you really see your kids growing up and it gets more difficult,” Els said.

He almost skipped the Nedbank to stay on vacation with his family, and had to send Samantha back home to Florida on her own for school while he set off in search of a fourth title at Sun City.

“I feel a little bit guilty about that,” he said.

Els is recognizing the trend with a couple of other players on tour.

“Family life is important and you don’t want to miss out on their best years before they leave the house,” he said. “A lot of us are in that boat now. Phil (Mickelson) has kids the same age as mine, so does (Steve) Stricker. Guys get to my age and your kids get to teenage years and it becomes a bit of a difficult scenario. It’s getting tougher and tougher. The younger guys don’t have too many hassles traveling … but things change.

“I haven’t really got a game plan for next year yet, but I definitely have to play a slightly different schedule. I’ve got to look at my schedule and see where I’m going to.”

One thing that will remain is his commitment to trying to win another major – maybe two. His British Open title in 2012, a decade after his first Claret Jug, bolstered Els’ hopes of another big win before he eases off completely.

“I’m 44 and with the equipment I can really stay with the longer hitters,” Els said. “I feel I have a chance. I just need to sharpen up some things, get the right venue and get the right mojo. Then I think we can pull something off again. It’s not going to be easy, but I believe there are one or two left, so I’ll keep searching.”

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Tiger Woods believes it’s harder than ever to win on the PGA Tour because of the increasing depth of talent of the players.

And most of them are at his tournament this week.

The World Challenge gets underway Thursday, held at Sherwood Country Club for the last time, and the field is so strong that the entire 18-man field is in the top 30 in the world ranking. That’s what makes it difficult to win trophies.

And what’s why Woods laughs at using the phrase “pretty good” to describe a year in which he won five times on the PGA Tour.

“I think it’s deeper now than it ever has been,” Woods said. “There is more young talent. There are more guys winning golf tournaments for the first time. If you look at the major championships, how long did we go from basically Phil winning and Phil winning?”

He was referring to the 13 majors played between Phil Mickelson winning the 2010 Masters and the British Open this year. Eleven of those champions had never won a major, the exceptions being Ernie Els and Rory McIlroy.

Of those 11 first-time major champions, only Darren Clarke has fallen lower than No. 40 in the world.

“It’s more difficult to win events now,” Woods said.

He pointed to advancements in equipment, particularly from wood drivers and wound golf balls. Woods says the younger players who hit the ball high “are shocked to see the ball get moved by the wind.”

“For a lot of us who grew up playing balata balls, you wanted to get that thing down. You didn’t want it up in that wind because it got pushed around like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “It’s a totally different game. Guys have evolved, and I think they’ve become much more aggressive now than they ever used to be because of equipment.”

Separating the best players is getting more difficult.

Graeme McDowell set a target to get back into the top five in the world at the start of the season. He wanted a certain amount of world ranking points that he figured would do the trick, and he about reached that level. Little did he know that so many other players also raised the level of their game.

“It’s fun to be part of it,” McDowell said.

Woods dominated the PGA Tour with five wins against five tough fields, which also gave him another Vardon Trophy and money title. Henrik Stenson became the first player to win the FedEx Cup on the PGA Tour and the Race to Dubai on the European Tour.

Adam Scott and Phil Mickelson had multiple wins around the world that included historic majors – Scott was the first Australian in a green jacket at Augusta National, Mickelson won a British Open that not even he thought he could ever win.

Jordan Spieth finished No. 7 in the FedEx Cup even though he didn’t have status on the PGA Tour at the start of the year. Hideki Matsuyama became the first rookie to win the Japan Golf Tour money title, and he didn’t even turn pro until April.

And this list of characters doesn’t include McIlroy, who began the year at No. 1 and is just now starting to emerge from a slump.

“You’ve got to play really well to win,” McIlroy said. “I think that’s why you see so many first-time winners, because the field is so deep, and it is tough to win out here. But I think golf is in great shape.”

Comparing eras is never easy, though Woods detected a big difference from a generation ago.

At the end of the 1990s and early in the 2000s, golf was strong at the top – Woods, David Duval, Mickelson, Els, Vijay Singh. But there was a reasonable gap between the biggest stars and the next level. From 1999 through 2002, there was a massive gap between Woods and the other stars.

Woods said a player now has to be consistent to be among the best.

The World Challenge is the end of the year for the majority of the field – a few players are headed to Thailand next week – and it should set the table for a fascinating season in 2014. Stenson and Scott will try to sustain their excellence, along with a newcomer such as Spieth.

Woods said that he still looks at the way players hit the ball to determine who has game, though the direction is different. When he first joined the tour in 1996, it was players who could work the ball both ways. Now he looks at the players who can manoeuvr the trajectory.

“You don’t see shot-makers like you used to. The ball doesn’t curve like it used to,” Woods said. “It just doesn’t move as much. But you look at the guys who are pretty good players at the top. They cannot really shape the golf ball necessarily, but they can move their trajectory up and down. I think that’s where the shape has changed. They don’t shape it as much from right to left, but more in altitude.”

After this year, the tournament is going through a change in latitude.

This is the 14th year the World Challenge is held at Sherwood, a Jack Nicklaus design with emerald fairways set against the brown foothills of the Santa Monica mountains. The Tiger Woods Foundation announced last month that it is moving to Isleworth outside Orlando.

In the latest vote conducted by the Golf Coaches Association of Canada (GCAC), the University of Fraser Valley men’s squad and the Université de Montréal Carabins women’s team were both selected as the top-ranked male and female post-secondary golf programs in the country.

According to the GCAC Top 20 Fall Rankings, the Fraser Valley Cascades, the 2013 PACWEST and CCAA Champions, earned 41 points, edging out the University of Western Ontario Mustangs by two points. The University of Victoria Vikes (36 points) finished in third in the poll, while the Université de Laval Rouge et Or (30 points) and University of Toronto Varsity Blues rounded out the top-5.

The defending Canadian/University College champion the Université de Montréal Carabins (36 points) are the leaders of the GCAC Top 10 Fall Rankings on the women’s side. The Carabins narrowly edged out the University of Victoria Vikes (35 points). The University of Toronto Varsity Blues followed in third place (33 points), while the Cascades and the University of Waterloo Warriors completed the top-5.

Jaye Marie Green fired a 10-under-par 62 on the Jones Course at LPGA International to set a course record and take the first-round lead at the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament. The 19-year-old Boca Raton, Fla. native takes a four-shot lead over LPGA Tour veterans Tiffany Joh and Seon Hwa Lee heading into Thursday’s second round of the 90-hole event.

As a 2013 Symetra Tour rookie, Green tallied four top-10 finishes in 15 events to end the season ranked 29^th on the Volvik Race for the Card. On Wednesday, she sent an early statement that she’s more than ready for the LPGA Tour as she carded 11 birdies and one bogey to leave her mark on the Jones Course at LPGA International.

“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Green of her record-breaking round. “I switched my irons back to my old ones because of the shafts. But it was really just everything. I really only just missed one fairway and two greens. You know how people say, ‘if I just made putts I would have shot this?’ Well it was just one of those days that the putts went in and I did shoot it. It was cool. The putting was just on point.”

Green began her first round on the 10^th tee and rattled off consecutive birdies on her first four holes. With two more birdies on the 16^th and 18^th holes, Green made the turn at 6-under. Her lone bogey of the day came on the par-3 sixth hole following birdies on three of the first five holes, and managed to finish her round with birdies on the final two holes. She says posting a 10-under-par score was much easier than expected.

“It was weird because I looked over at my dad and I was seven under through ten holes and I was like, I don’t feel like I’m 7-under,” said Green. “I’m just hitting it, finding the ball and then putting it. It was like, I don’t understand, like what’s going on?”

San Diego, Calif. native Joh, who also played the Jones Course, teed off on No. 1 and began the day with a bogey on the fourth hole but quickly recovered with two birdies on the fifth and seventh holes. Joh admits after seeing the leaderboard while making the turn, an aggression set in for the back-nine as she went on to record five birdies to end the day in second place at 6-under 66.

“I wasn’t really making a ton of putts on the front-nine and I think I was just a little more aggressive on the back-nine,” said Joh. “I think at Q School you kind of come into it with a mentality of just trying to play solid instead of taking it deep. I think it was just that and changing my mindset and being more aggressive.”

Sitting one stroke back at 5-under is a group of five which includes Ladies European Tour players Megan Grehan and Line Vedel, Japan native Haru Nomura, 2011 Symetra Tour Player of the Year Kathleen Ekey and 19-year LPGA veteran Nicole Jeray.

Maude-Aimee Leblanc and Jennifer Kirby lead the 10 Canadian contingent in the field. The pair sit tied for 33rd with a slew of players at 1-under par. Lorie Kane is tied for 48th after recording an even par 72.

The 90-hole tournament is staged at LPGA International, where 153 players will play the Jones and Hills courses twice, hoping to be among the top-70 and ties to advance to Sunday.  After Sunday’s final round, the top-20 finishers will earn Category 12 status for the 2014 LPGA Tour season, while those who finish 21^st through 45^th and ties will earn Category 17.

SUN CITY, South Africa – Ten days away from golf was just about enough for Henrik Stenson to get his “funky” right wrist back to being close to healthy.

Stenson knows he needs more time to recover fully, but when he’s in this kind of form it’s easy to understand why the Swede doesn’t want to slow down.

The hottest golfer in the world is returning after a brief end-of-season break for this week’s Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City, hoping to continue the kind of play that earned him both the FedEx Cup and the European money title this year.

“It’s going to take some golfing to keep this up, what I managed to achieve this year,” Stenson said Wednesday at the casino resort in northern South Africa. “It’s been a dream year and a fantastic season for me. I’m still having little niggles, but it (the wrist) still seems to be fine to play and hit. I hope we can keep my body together.

“This is my 30th event this year and I’m in serious need of rest, but we’ll try to mobilize for the last little bit.”

If he needs any kind of reminder for how quickly fortunes can change, the third-ranked Stenson only needs to think back to his last tournament in South Africa at the end of 2012. Back then, his ranking had plummeted and he hadn’t won a title in 3 1/2 years, but his victory at the South African Open helped spark his historic run this year.

Whether he can earn another title at Sun City – where he won by nine shots in 2008 – will depend on “how much energy we can mobilize,” Stenson said.

Nedbank is a tougher test this year, as well, with the field having been increased from 12 to 30 players this year and the tournament being part of the 2014 European Tour schedule. U.S. Open champion Justin Rose, former No. 1 Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia and major winners Charl Schwartzel, Ernie Els, Louis Oosthuizen and defending champion Martin Kaymer are among the starters.

The 37-year-old Stenson played through the pain in his wrist during the final swing of the European Tour last month to keep his lead in the Race to Dubai standings _ with the help of pain killers, anti-inflammatories and plenty of ice. His last few weeks have been more about recovering than celebrating.

“I have spent more time in the ice bucket than a bottle of Moet & Chandon over the last month,” he said earlier this week.

Having sprayed his share of champagne this season, though, Stenson is now facing constant questions over when he’ll win his first major. And for next year, that’s definitely one of the goals.

“The majors are the next step for me. I’ve won great tournaments on both the PGA and European Tours,” he said. “I won both the Order of Merits and played in the Ryder Cup team. … I’ve pretty much achieved everything in the game that I want to except for winning a major championship. I must keep on working on my game and following up on a great season.

“(But) There are a couple of traps and I think expectation is one of them. Another is handling my time. The demand for my time is probably five times as much now as it was six months ago. When you’re flavour of the month everyone wants a piece of you … and if you don’t get rest and practice in then it will show up in your game. It will be key to look after those areas.”

And after Sun City, Stenson will follow his own advice and finally take an extended break.

The Canadian Junior Golf Association (CJGA) announced Genevieve Stelmacovich of Holland Landing, Ont. as the recipient of its 2013 Helena Harbridge Sportsmanship Award.

Stelmacovich, a 17-year old member at Pheasant Run Golf Club in Sharon, Ont. is the third Ontario native to earn the honorable distinction for an award that recognizes sportsmanship, dedication, and commitment in the game of golf.

The award is named after Helena Harbridge, an outstanding junior golfer and CJGA alum that passed away in 2006 during her freshman year at West Georgia University.

“I am very honoured to receive the Helena Harbridge Award” said Stelmacovich. “Helena represented traits I find valuable in junior golf and I try to emulate these traits on and off the golf course.”

Similar to the path Helana took, Stelmacovich is planning to play collegiate golf. Last season, she finished second on the CJGA’s National Order of Merit and currently sits sixth on this years ranking with one event left to play.

“Having golf in my life has helped me learn how to stay positive, have the will to work at something – no matter what the outcome seems to be – and to persevere,” added Stelmacovich. “All of these things have developed as I continue to golf and are present throughout my daily life.”

Winners of the Helena Harbridge Sportsmanship Award receive a beautiful custom trophy and a complimentary life time membership to the CJGA.

Helena Harbridge Sportsmanship Award Winners:

• 2012 – Molly Molyneaux (Prince Edward Island)
• 2011 – Marlies Klekner-Alt (Ontario)
• 2010 – Shannon Lee Greenshields (Quebec)
• 2009 – Thea Hedemann (Saskatchewan)
• 2008 – Jocelyn Alford (Alberta)
• 2007 – Juanita Rico (Alberta)
• 2006 – Lauren Bowerman-Ritchie (Ontario)

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Joost Luiten better hope his decision to hit one shot at the BMW Masters doesn’t keep him out of that other “Masters.”

This is the last big week of tournaments around the world as players try to finish inside the top 50 to earn an invitation to Augusta National in April. Luiten is at No. 52 going into the Nedbank Challenge, but here’s where it gets interesting.

Luiten had a sore shoulder in Shanghai. He had to play two of three “Final Series” events on the European Tour to be eligible for the finale in Dubai. So he chose to hit one shot off the first tee at Lake Malaren in the BMW Masters and withdraw. He rested his shoulder for two weeks, played Turkey and then tied for fourth in Dubai.

However, that added one tournament to his total in the world ranking formula. If he had not been required to play the BMW Masters, Luiten would be at No. 49.

Ultimately, however, his performance will dictate whether he gets into the Masters. Even though it’s late in the year, the fields on three continents are packed with good players at the World Challenge in California, the Hong Kong Open and the Nedbank Challenge in South Africa.

The strongest field is in California, though it will have no bearing on the Masters because all 18 players at Sherwood are already eligible (and all of them are in the top 30).

Miguel Angel Jimenez (No. 48) is playing in Hong Kong, by far the weakest of the three fields. If he doesn’t play well, the Spaniard risks being passed in the ranking by Richard Sterne (No. 51) or Luiten in South Africa. Also playing in South Africa are Gary Woodland (No. 57 but already in the Masters), Kiradech Aphibarnrat (No. 60) and Peter Uihlein (No. 67).

The final tournament of the year is the Nelson Mandela Invitational, though the field is expected to be weak. Among those expected to play are Branden Grace, currently at No. 50.

For the players who don’t quite crack the top 50, Augusta National takes the top 50 one week before the Masters. Then again, Geoff Ogilvy missed the top 50 by one shot in Australia at the end of last year and went backward at the start of a new season.