Golf Canada and adidas Golf today announced an agreement that will see adidas Golf become the official apparel and headwear outfitter for Golf Canada’s National Team Program.

The adidas Golf performance products will be worn by Team Canada athletes, coaches and sport science staff in training as well as during competition at domestic and international golf championships.

“We are honoured to be a part of the Team Canada program—supporting the next generation of elite Canadian golfers,” said Lesley Hawkins, Brand Director for adidas Golf. “A key area of focus for adidas Golf is the growth of the game through the pyramid of influence, and Golf Canada has done a tremendous job connecting with these athletes. We’re very excited to kick off the 2017 season together.”

The partnership marks the second Golf Canada program to be supported by adidas Golf, who are also the official apparel partner of the Golf Fore the Cure program.

“The adidas mark is rooted in elite athlete performance and we are thrilled to have them align their brand with Team Canada as our official apparel outfitter,” said Golf Canada Interim Chief Executive Officer Jeff Thompson. “Performance is the foundation of our partnership and the athletes and coaches are excited to train and compete in adidas Golf’s leading edge competitive apparel.”

PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Jim Herman was persuaded to play the Valspar Championship by an influential acquaintance, and he made it pay off Thursday with a 9-under 62 for a two-shot lead.

No, it wasn’t President Donald Trump this time.

Herman wasn’t getting much out of his game – three missed cuts and a tie for 27th – when he played the Seminole Pro-Member the day after the Honda Classic. Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric, came along for nine holes and liked what he saw from Herman, who said he would have had a 65 that day.

“Had a really good day there, and got urged on from Jack Welch – he’s a member there – to play here,” Herman said. “I was looking at taking two weeks off, so I was kind of a late commit to this tournament. I guess I’m certainly glad I took his advice.”

David Hearn of Brantford, Ont., and Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., both shot 68s to sit in a tie for 11that 3-under par. Graham DeLaet (71) of Weyburn, Sask., was tied for 56th at even par and Nick Taylor (72) of Abbotsford was in a group at 79th at 1 over.

Herman putted for birdie on all but two holes, and except for a 35-foot putt from the fringe on No. 10 (his opening hole), the rest of his birdie putts were all from 15 feet or close. He only came close to bogey once, making an 8-foot par save on No. 2.

He wound up missing the course record by one shot, but still had a two-shot lead over British Open champion Henrik Stenson and Russell Henley. The first round did not finish because of a one-hour fog delay Thursday morning, though it should be back on schedule by the weekend.

Herman, of course, is most famous for his relationship with Trump.

After grinding on the mini-tours for longer than he cares to remember, he took a job as an assistant pro at Trump National in New Jersey and one day was summoned to play with the boss. Herman played great that day, and Trump encouraged him to give the PGA Tour another attempt.

He eventually made it, and picked up his first PGA Tour victory last year at the Shell Houston Open. Herman still has an endorsement deal with Trump, and he has the Trump golf logo on the crest of his shirt and on his golf bag.

The two weeks he missed on the West Coast Swing was to attend the inauguration.

Herman has only one top 10 since his victory in Houston last year and has slipped to No. 89 in the world, meaning he likely will need a victory in the next few weeks of he wants to return to the Masters.

This was only a start, and looming behind him is Stenson.

The powerful Swede has a plan for the tree-lined Copperhead Course at Innisbrook, and Stenson stuck to it on Thursday by hitting 3- and 4-iron off the tee when Charl Schwartzel and Bubba Watson were hitting driver.

Stenson’s strength is his irons, however, and he kept giving himself ample birdie chances.

He even laid so far back on the par-5 opening hole after making the turn that he 270 yards to the pin. He put that in the corner of a bunker next to the green and blasted out to a few feet for an easy birdie.

For the 456-yard sixth hole, Stenson hit 4-iron off the tee and another 4-iron toward the green. He missed it well to the right toward the gallery, but answered with a pitch-and-run to 3 feet for par. He also played bogey-free, needing a 12-foot par putt on the 12th hole to keep a clean card.

“When the putter feels good and the short game is in good shape, a lot of times I see it more as guaranteeing having a second shot into the green, even if it’s a longer club,” Stenson. “That’s what I’ve done around here the previous two times, and it’s worked out fine.”

Stenson tied for fourth in 2015 and tied for 11th last year.

“There’s certainly a few holes where you can try and push a little bit,” he said. “Thursday is not really the day where you need to make those kind of decisions.”

Henley opened with a bogey on No. 10 and then made eight birdies over his next 11 holes before finishing with six pars.

One day after an amateur’s shot in the pro-am hit a tree and struck Schwartzel on the wrist, he appeared to be free of pain. He just didn’t make enough putts, only had two birdies and opened with a 70.

Seamus Power of Ireland had a 66, the best score among those who played in the afternoon when the greens became crustier and the wind picked up a little more. Charles Howell III was in the group at 67.

The board of directors of British Columbia Golf was held up as a shining example of inclusion at the United States Golf Association’s North American Golf Innovation Symposium in Vancouver.

“What makes the organization unique and quite frankly unique in golf, as well as unique generally in business, is the nature of inclusion that exists on the board of directors,” the USGA’s Steve Schloss told the symposium at the Marriott Pinnacle hotel.

“Every organization around the world is asking themselves the same question: how inclusive is our board, how effective is the board serving its customers, serving the members, and in this case you have an organization that has far exceeded what most boards do. They have become consciously aware of how to be inclusive to serve their particular marketplace.”

British Columbia Golf executive director Kris Jonasson and four members of the 12-member board of directors — Patrick Kelly, Helen Jung, Jasvinder Dhaliwal and Michelle Collens — participated in a 45-minute session entitled Driving Innovation through Inclusion.

Jonasson told the audience that in recent years British Columbia Golf had cut the size of its board to nine from 50 when the men’s and ladies provincial golf associations amalgamated in 2004. Two years ago, he asked the board to approve adding three more members to help make it more representative of B.C’s diverse golfing population.

“We started to look around and we looked at a lot of the demographic data . . . and we said, you know what, when we show the population of British Columbia who the board of the golf association is, it doesn’t look like the same people that are out on our golf courses. We needed to change that.

“We recognized that we couldn’t do it in a reasonable period of time with only nine people on the board so we said to the nominating committee at British Columbia Golf, we want to increase the size of the board to 12, we want to use those three additional spots to make sure we are more reflective of who actually plays golf. That’s how we got to where we are today.”

Jung, who is of Korean descent, is director of golf at Belmont Golf Course in Langley. She said her background helps her at a club that gets a tremendous amount of play from Metro Vancouver’s growing Korean population.

Kelly, who also serves as president of British Columbia Golf, drew applause when he spoke about how the membership at his course, Gorge Vale Golf Club in Victoria, got youngsters from a nearby First Nations reserve involved in the club’s junior program.

About three years ago, Kelly was informed by a fellow Gorge Vale member about some problems the course was having on weekends. The course borders one of the communities of the Songhees First Nation and on Friday and Saturday nights, some of the band’s young people were hopping the fence and doing some partying on one of the greens.

Kelly was asked if he could speak to the band’s elders and he did a lot more than that. With the blessing of Gorge Vale’s membership, he asked the band’s elders if they would be interested in having some of their young people join the club as junior members.

“They had never been asked before in all the 77 years up to that point and the reaction was very positive,” Kelly said. “We now have 15 First Nations juniors involved in our junior program and they are integrated with everybody else. All the members play with them, help them understand the game and we all provide whatever we can to help them out.

“The other interesting thing about that is the issues on that hole, ever since we took this initiative, have totally disappeared. It’s great.”

LAS VEGAS – National Amateur Squad member Jared du Toit continued his impressive run on Wednesday, finishing in a tie for third at the Southern Highlands Collegiate.

The 21-year-old senior (and captain) at Arizona State closed the event at 5-under par—one stroke off the lead. His final-round scorecard included a hole-in-one on the par-3 2^nd hole, lifting him into contention down the stretch.

du Toit, a Kimberley, B.C., product, is coming off a hot streak which includes a victory, a T1 (playoff loss), T11 and now T3 in his last four collegiate events with the Sun Devils. His efforts helped him earn Pac-12 Golfer of the Month for February; he’ll look to keep rolling when Arizona State plays host of the ASU Thunderbird Invitational from March 18-19.

Click here for full scoring.

For the first time in event history, Presidents Cup team captains have the option to add a fourth assistant to their respective teams.  Today, U.S. Team Captain Steve Stricker and International Team Captain Nick Price announced Jim Furyk and Mike Weir (Canada) as their fourth captains’ assistants, respectively, for the 2017 Presidents Cup.

Weir will join the International Team as a first-time captain’s assistant after having competed in five Presidents Cups (2000, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009); he was a teammate of Price in the 2000 and 2003 events. The eight-time PGA TOUR winner is 13-9-2 all-time at the Presidents Cup and one of five International Team members with 10 or more match wins in the competition. In 2007, the Presidents Cup was staged in Canada for the first time, and Weir put on a show for his Canadians fans with a 3-1-1 record that was capped by a thrilling 1-up victory over Tiger Woods in Singles.

Of his eight PGA TOUR victories, Weir’s career is highlighted by his breakthrough playoff win at the 2003 Masters – one of three titles he collected that season.

“The Presidents Cup has been such a big part of my professional career, and some of my fondest memories are from the competition and, perhaps even more so, the team cabins,” said Weir. “I’m excited to be a part of the International Team again, especially alongside Ernie, Geoff and Tony, with an aim to help Captain Price and the International Team win back the Cup.”

The biennial competition pits the United States against a team of players from countries outside Europe.

As a member of captain Nick Price’s crew, Weir won’t play in the Sept. 26-Oct. 1 event at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J.

His role will be to support Price in decisions on pairings and provide advice to the players leading up to and during the event.

A Masters champion in 2003, Weir defeated Tiger Woods 1-up in front of some 35,000 Presidents Cup fans at Royal Montreal in 2007.

At the time, Weir said when he looks back on his career, that win “may be even more special than winning the Masters.”

Weir also played in two matches with Price at the 2000 and 2003 Presidents Cups.

There are currently no Canadians with enough points to automatically qualify for the International team. Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., is the highest-ranked Canadian at 26th.

“I would certainly love to see a Canadian or two on the team, and they’re certainly capable of doing it,” Weir said.

Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., is the highest-ranked Canadian at 26th in the standings, and Hadwin said he would relish the opportunity if he ended up making the team.

“The Presidents Cup hasn’t really been on my radar, and I know I have a lot of work to do to make the team,” he said. “But no doubt it would be an honour play alongside some of the great international players, and of course to play for Nick Price and Mike Weir, a guy that I’ve looked up to for years, like so many other kids growing up in Canada.”

The native of the Sarnia, Ont., community Bright’s Grove doesn’t have any PGA Tour status this year. His play has been impacted in recent years by injuries and time off for personal reasons.

And although Weir said he has not spoken with anyone about taking the captain’s reins, he would love to have that opportunity, especially if the Presidents Cup comes back to Canada.

“Nick alluded to that, how they’re trying to have guys as assistants who can potentially be captains down the road. I’d certainly love to be a captain sometime,” stated Weir. “I’m just going to enjoy this year and this opportunity though, and if the chance came later, I’d be thrilled.”

A transcript of today’s announcement can be downloaded here.

The Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship tournament organizers are putting out a call to fans to be part of the event as the designer behind the Event’s Official Tournament Trophy. For the first time, the public will have the chance to design and select what will be the inspiration behind the trophy presented to the PGA TOUR Champions winner after the final putt drops on Sunday. 

The trophy design contest establishes an opportunity for the community to create a unique vision that represents the nature of golf in Canada and celebrates the winner, PGA TOUR Champions, the Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship, and the scenic and natural landscape of the island. 

From March 7th – 31st, 2017, fans are invited to submit their designs. Entries will be reviewed by the Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship team to determine the top three designs. These will go up on www.PacificLinksChampionship.com  from April 3rd – 12th, 2017 for the public to vote on their fan favourite. The design that receives the majority of votes at closing will serve as the inspiration for the 2017 Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship Official Tournament Trophy. 

In addition to bragging rights, the winner will receive:

• (4) Champions Clubhouse tickets to the 2017 Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship (clubhouse access; food and beverage incremental)
• (2) Honorary Observer Passes – inside the ropes access on Saturday September 16 with select grouping
• (1) round of golf for four on the Bear Mountain Valley Course during Event week (cart included)
• Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship apparel package, including golf polo, outerwear piece, and headwear.
• Winner will be incorporated into the 2017 Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship closing ceremonies and trophy presentation Winner will be recognized in follow up press release and media as designer of the trophy

Key Contest Dates

• Submissions Open: March 7, 2017 at 10:00am PST
• Submissions Deadline: March 31, 2017 @ 11:59pm PST
• Fan Vote: April 3rd, 2017 @ 10:00am PST – April 12, 2017 @ 11:59pm PST
• Winner Announced: April 18th, 2017

The trophy design contest is open to people of all ages in the province of British Columbia. Submissions are not limited to any material or size. One submission per person, and only one person shall be the winner. 

For more information, contest rules and regulations, or to submit your design, go to http://bit.ly/2lsKLjE  OR www.PacificLinksChampionship.com  and click on the “Spectators” tab to view the trophy design page. 

The event will once again be played at The Westin Bear Mountain Golf Resort & Spa the week of Monday, September 11th – Sunday, September 17th, 2017. Tournament week will commence with Official Pro-Am’s on Wednesday and Thursday, where participating teams will play alongside a PGA TOUR Champions professional over 18 holes of premiere golf. Competitive action will follow with 54 holes of championship play from Friday to Sunday, with no cut.

The Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada schedule was announced Tuesday, featuring 12 events from May to September in 2017 as players look to make the next step on the path to the PGA TOUR.

The season will once again begin in May with the Freedom 55 Financial Open (May 29-June 4) at Point Grey Golf and Country Club in Vancouver, B.C., with purses of $175,000 (CA$) for the first 11 events and a $200,000 purse for the season-ending Freedom 55 Financial Championship (Sept. 11-17) at Highland Country Club in London, Ont.

“Our host organizations have done tremendous work to establish our tournaments for this season, and thanks to the support of our sponsors we have a wonderful slate of events from coast to coast again this year,” said Mackenzie Tour President Jeff Monday. “Our goal remains to provide players with the opportunity to make the next step on the path to the PGA TOUR while making a positive impact in the community, and we look forward to making an even greater impact this year.”

With 11 events confirmed, a 12th event taking place prior to the season-ending Freedom 55 Financial Championship will be added to the schedule in the coming weeks.

Mackenzie Tour players will look to make the next step on the path to the PGA TOUR by leveraging their performance into advantages to reach the next level. The Order of Merit winner will be fully exempt on the Web.com Tour for the following season, with Nos. 2-5 earning conditional status. Those players Nos. 2-10 will earn an exemption into the Final Stage of the Web.com Tour Qualifying Tournament while Nos. 11-20 will earn an exemption into the second stage.

Players will look to follow in the footsteps of PGA TOUR winners Mackenzie Hughes, Tony Finau and Nick Taylor, who are among the 10 PGA TOUR-era (2013-present) alumni competing on the PGA TOUR this season. 40 Mackenzie Tour players from 2016 went on to earn Web.com Tour status for this year and will look to make the next step on the path to the PGA TOUR.

Off the course, Mackenzie Tour events will look to build off a record-breaking 2016 season that saw more than $1 million donated to charity, bringing the total since 2013 to more than $2.1 Million.

After beginning the season with the Mackenzie Tour’s first event in Vancouver, the Tour will head to Victoria, B.C. for the 35th playing of the Bayview Place DC Payments Open presented by Times Colonist (June 6-12) at Uplands Golf Club, followed by the GolfBC Championship (June 12-18) at Gallagher’s Canyon Golf and Country Club in Kelowna, B.C. The Players Cup returns to Pine Ridge Golf Club in Winnipeg, Man. (July 3-9), followed by the Staal Foundation Open presented by Tbaytel in Thunder Bay, Ont. (July 10-16) and the inaugural Mackenzie Investments Open at Les Quatres Domaines Golf Club in Montreal, Que. (July 17-23), after which the top three players on the Order of Merit earn exemptions into the RBC Canadian Open on the PGA TOUR.

The season resumes in Alberta, with the Syncrude Oil Country Championship presented by AECON at Windermere Golf and Country Club in Edmonton (July 31-August 6) and the ATB Financial Classic at Country Hills Golf Club in Calgary (August 7-13), followed by the National Capital Open to Support Our Troops at Hylands Golf Club in Ottawa, Ont. (August 15-21).

The season’s home stretch begins with the Cape Breton Open at Bell Bay Golf Club in Baddeck, N.S. August 28-3, followed by an event to be added in near future. The top 60 players on the Order of Merit through 11 events will retain exempt status and play their way into the season-ending Freedom 55 Financial Championship at Highland Country Club in London, Ont.

The USGA has introduced Resource Management, a new web-based product that will help golf course superintendents, owners and operators be more precise, efficient and productive in maintaining their facilities.

Launched today during the North American Golf Innovation Symposium in Vancouver, USGA Resource Management is a map-based tool that allows facility managers to understand better their consumption of resources – such as labor, water and fuel – and to measure accurately, even down to the square foot, the allocation of these resources to each feature of the golf course. The data will help facilities to manage their maintenance practices in ways that reduce costs while also improving the experience of their golfers.

“As the cost of maintaining a golf course continues to rise, facilities increasingly need smart tools and data to operate efficiently,” said Rand Jerris, the USGA’s senior managing director of Public Services. “For nearly a century, the USGA has helped improve golf course operations and golfer experience through educational materials, research, and agronomic and environmental consulting services. This investment in technology is an important next step, which will help facilities realize immediate benefits through simple and effective behavioral changes.”

The USGA Resource Management tool features a user-friendly interface that empowers superintendents and facility managers to perform “what-if” analyses and develop models that quantify the financial impacts of proposed changes in maintenance.

Another key feature of the application is the ability to generate visual mapping of golfer traffic, allowing facility managers to focus maintenance and resources on the areas that are most heavily used, while reducing unnecessary costs on acreage that has little to no impact on golfer experience.

“Information and data are critical in our business,” said Darrell J. Marcinek, director of golf maintenance for the Somerset (N.J.) County Park Commission. “This tool would take the guesswork out of our budgeting, and the end product will be better for the golfers because we’re maximizing our limited resources.

“The USGA is at the forefront of our industry. There’s nothing on the market that I’m aware of that does what this tool does.”

The USGA Resource Management product will be an important part of the toolkit used by USGA agronomists across the country in 2017 as they work directly with facilities to improve the impact and efficiency of their maintenance practices. To contact a USGA Green Section agronomist, go to www.usga.org/greensectionstaff.html.

The USGA also has begun working with the industry to develop additional functionalities for the application and encourage innovations built on this platform. The ongoing development and refinement of USGA Resource Management reflect the USGA’s commitment to advance the game by making the benefits of science and technology available to all facilities. These advancements will help to elevate the golfer experience and improve productivity at 35,000 golf courses around the world.

Hosted by the USGA in conjunction with Golf Canada and the Mexican Golf Federation, the North American Golf Innovation Symposium provides golf course operators/owners and industry experts with an information-exchange forum to advance the game of golf and spark innovative thinking.

Although the logos of the USGA and the R&A dominate the wave of communications accompanying last week’s announcement of the proposed modernized Rules of Golf, picture a tiny maple leaf-shaped asterisk there as well.

Since 1952, when the separate Rules committees of the USGA and R&A came together to develop a single set of Rules, there has been a Canadian delegate on the Joint Rules Committee (JRC). This makes us unique in the world of golf as the USGA oversees the United States and Mexico and the R&A governs play in the rest of the world, with the exception of Canada.

For the past four years, that representative has been Dale Jackson of Victoria, B.C., in his capacity as Golf Canada’s Chair of Rules and Amateur Status. Although Jackson stepped down from his Golf Canada role at last month’s Golf Canada annual general meeting, he will continue to participate on the JRC for at least another year in the interest of continuity.

Jackson’s timing allowed him to be a part of golf history, witnessing the best Rules minds in the world blowing up the existing Rules and reformulating a new code consisting of just 24 Rules rather than the current 34. The last major shake-up of the Rules came in 1984; before that, there were significant revisions in 1899, 1934 and 1952.

But literally none of the previous episodes had torn the existing Rules apart like this one, which began in 2012 with what Jackson calls the “Rules Modernization Project Team” comprised of volunteers and staff from the USGA and R&A, plus representatives from the PGA Tour and European Tour. And Jackson, of course.

“The objective was to take every single line in the Rule book, every Rule, every note, every exception, and say, ‘How can we do this better? What makes more sense? What are the alternatives? What is the history behind this? Why does this exist?’”

In some cases, says Jackson, it was a case of “back to the future” in that the modernization project team found a former Rule was preferable to its modern version. Jackson points to the proposed Rule allowing the flagstick to remain in the hole while players are putting as a prime example. Until 50 years or so ago, that was permissible, but under the current Rule, if a player on the putting green putts the ball and it hits the flagstick while in the hole, he incurs a two-stroke penalty.

Jackson marvels not only at the incredible amount of time and energy poured into the project by all concerned, but the dedication and single-mindedness of everyone involved, no matter what organization they represented.

“Everyone on the team was pulling in the same direction,” Jackson says, “with the same goal: Make the Rules better, simpler, easier to understand, easier to apply on the golf course.”

While he says the proposed new Rules address most of the challenges faced by the modernization project team, one major bugaboo remains: the stroke-and-distance situation.

“Everyone, especially at the recreational level, realizes that hitting the ball out of bounds off the tee or hitting it out of bounds from the fairway and having to go back to play another stroke, especially on a busy golf course, is really difficult.”

Jackson says the modernization project team spent an inordinate amount of time searching for the answer and continues to do so.

“What we are hoping for is, by putting all this out there for anybody and everybody to review, that somebody comes up with a solution that works.”

Although the current Rules remain in effect until the new version becomes official on Jan. 1, 2019, golfers are encouraged to review them, play by them and provide comments and reaction back to the USGA and R&A by Aug. 31.

For details on the proposed changes in the Rules and to voice your opinion, visit www.usga.org or www.randa.org.