OAKVILLE, Ont. – The stars of the PGA TOUR will take to Glen Abbey Golf Club for the 106^th playing of the RBC Canadian Open starting Thursday, July 23. The 2015 edition of Canada’s National Open Championship marks the 27^th time that the competition will be held at the historic club in Oakville, Ont.

Sixteen Canadians will take on Glen Abbey in an effort to end the 61-year gap between Canadians claiming the national title. Brantford, Ont., native David Hearn is excited for the opportunity to end the drought.

“Winning the RBC Canadian Open would mean a lot, without a doubt,” said Hearn. “Winning any PGA TOUR tournament would mean a lot. It just doesn’t happen that often. To be able to do it in Canada in front of everybody here would be the highlight of my career.”

Pat Fletcher was the last Canadian winner, having claimed victory in 1954 at Point Grey Golf & Country Club in Vancouver. The significance of an RBC Canadian Open champion from the host nation is not lost on Graham DeLaet.

“It would mean everything for me,” said the Weyburn, Sask., native. “This is a major for us. I couldn’t imagine what it would do. I know how much support and how much kids look up to us. Obviously (winning) would take it kind of to a new level, but we all want to win this. Not just for ourselves, but for everybody else who just wants to end (the drought).”

The Canadians in the field are not the only players hoping to emerge victorious at Canada’s only PGA TOUR stop. Bubba Watson, the No. 3-ranked player in the world, has a unique connection to Canada as the Florida native’s wife Angie hails from Toronto.

“Any tournament is a big win, but winning a national Open and an Open that is part of my family now – me being part of Canada, I guess you could say,” said the eight-time tour winner. “I’ve got two flags at the house, so it’s a big deal. It would be a great honour, but a big deal for the family, as well.”

The return to Glen Abbey also holds significance for Hunter Mahan. The Dallas native has fond memories from the 2013 RBC Canadian Open, where he held the 36-hole lead with a two-stroke advantage. Despite leading, he withdrew and tended to his wife who had gone into labour.

“It’s unfortunate that it had to happen at the time it did,” Mahan explained. “I was still playing so good, and this is a place that I do want to win at and be the RBC Canadian Open champion. It’s something I want to be, but it is what it is. It’s a great moment in my life. I still have great memories here, and hopefully will continue that play into this week.”

The field of 156 players will tee-off Thursday, each looking to earn their share of the US$5.8 million total purse. First and second round tee-times are available here.

GREENING THE 2015 RBC CANADIAN OPEN
This year’s RBC Canadian Open is set to be the greenest yet. RBC, Golf Canada and other partners and suppliers have come together to ensure that environmental best practices are again being implemented.

“We are committed to reducing the environmental impacts of the RBC Canadian Open every year,” said Brent McLaughlin, tournament director for the RBC Canadian Open. “Glen Abbey is a great foundation for our environmental initiatives, we have a solid track record of environmental programming here and the golf course has been certified as an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary since 2004.”

Earlier this year, the 2014 RBC Canadian Open was recognized for its environmental initiatives and named as a winner of the Sustainability Challenge. For 2015, there are new initiatives that will help to divert more waste from landfill. Additional information regarding the key environmental initiatives at the 2015 RBC Canadian Open can be found here.

TSN tees up new expanded live coverage of Canada’s national golf championship as Graham DeLaet and David Hearn lead the field of Canadians competing at the 106^th RBC Canadian Open. TSN has tripled its live coverage of the first two rounds of the tournament this year and will deliver more than 10 consecutive hours of live coverage beginning Thursday, July 23 at 7:30 a.m. ET on TSN4 and TSN5.

TSN has expanded its coverage of the first and second rounds this year through a partnership with PGA TOUR LIVE, the PGA TOUR’s new digital subscription service. The newly launched PGA TOUR LIVE features exclusive, live, Thursday and Friday morning coverage of two morning featured groups at more than 30 PGA TOUR events per season. PGA TOUR LIVE marks the first time ever that fans have been provided with complete, live coverage of morning marquee groups at these events.

TSN golf analyst Bob Weeks files daily reports for SPORTSCENTRE all week long from Glen Abbey, delivering post-round reaction, one-on-one interviews, and more. Fans can also visit TSN.ca for frequent columns and analysis from Weeks, as well as daily highlights and up-to-the-minute news from the RBC Canadian Open.

The RBC Canadian Open returns to its signature course this year – the famed Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont. DeLaet and Hearn headline the 14 Canadians participating in golf’s third-oldest national championship. They take on a world-class field featuring many of golf’s elite players, including Jason Day, Bubba Watson, Matt Kuchar, Ernie Els, Angel Cabrera, Jim Furyk, Luke Donald, and defending RBC Canadian Open champion Tim Clark.

TSN’s live coverage of the RBC Canadian Open is available for live streaming and on-demand viewing to TSN subscribers through TSN GO. Viewers can also watch French-language coverage on RDS.

OAKVILLE, Ont. – Golfers at the Canadian Open should put away their umbrellas and grab their sunscreen.

After rain and wind delayed the British Open and forced the first Monday finish since 1988, weather is setting up almost perfectly for Canada’s national open at Glen Abbey Golf Club.

Now that the wet, wild and windy time in Scotland is over, the almost 30 golfers turning around to play the RBC Canadian Open are looking forward to some dry weather and a course that provides a stark contrast to St. Andrews.

“You’re expecting hard, tough conditions at the British Open, at The Open Championship. But not unplayable weather and conditions,” said Jason Day, who tied for fourth at the British. “You can attack this golf course a lot more.”

Golf Canada CEO Scott Simmons knocked on the wood table in front of him even discussing the weather. But the forecast is for mostly a clean four rounds of play.

That’s a world of difference from the wind-beaten, rain-soaked British Open that was forced to finish Monday. The Canadian Open, back at Glen Abbey for the 27th time, is a more predictable style of game.

“You can get a lot more unlucky over there,” said Canadian Graham DeLaet, who finished tied for 68th at the British. “Usually when you hit the ball on the fairway, it stays on the fairway here. When you hit a ball and land the ball on the green, you know about how far it’s going to go before it (stops).”

The charm of links golf in Scotland and the challenge that presents in one of golf’s four majors is valuable. But the Canadian Open should be a more enjoyable experience for players and those watching in person and on television.

One element of that is the weather, where temperatures are forecasted to hover just below 30 degrees and three of four days shouldn’t have rain. There’s a 30 per cent chance of rain Saturday afternoon.

“It’s pretty exciting to think of a Canadian Open no rain, isn’t it?” Canadian David Hearn said.

Day, world No. 3 Bubba Watson, No. 7 Jim Furyk, DeLaet and Hearn are among the players who barely dried out before getting on the charter flight back to Toronto for the Canadian Open. The Monday finish gave them a late start to their preparations

But their first look at the course was a favourable one, even if wind might make the greens faster and raise the degree of difficulty.

“It’s in unbelievable shape, the best I’ve ever seen it,” DeLaet said. “It’s firm, quick. There are some balls rolling down the fairway. If you get something downwind, you can hit one hard.”

American Hunter Mahan said driving the ball will be more important at the Canadian Open, unlike the British, where the hilly fairways are so vast.

“You’ve got to hit it well off the tee here, you’ve got to put the ball in play,” Mahan said. “Good aggressive iron play is going to be rewarded.”

The 524-yard par-5 18th will give players plenty of eagle opportunities and the fan excitement the comes with it. But players still consider the Canadian Open demanding.

Hearn, a native of Brantford, Ont., doesn’t want this to be easy and doesn’t mind if Glen Abbey has “a little bit of teeth” this time around.

“It really comes down to how you feel about the tee shots and how you’re going to be able to give yourself birdie chances,” Hearn said. “It still comes down to being able to control your ball off the tee and give yourself chances coming into the greens.”

DeLaet and Hearn headline the group of 16 Canadians in the field. No Canadian has won this tournament since Pat Fletcher in 1954.

Defending champion Tim Clark is back, one of eight previous winners: Furyk, Scott Piercy, Sean O’Hair, Nathan Green, Chez Reavie, Vijah Singh and John Rollins.

Watson, who missed the cut at the British Open, is a two-time Masters winner, but he’s taking special value in the Canadian Open in part because his wife, Angie, is from Pickering, Ont.

“Any trophy is a good one,” Watson said. “Any time you can hold a trophy – major, non-major, doesn’t matter – holding a trophy is what we’re trying to do.”

OAKVILLE, Ont. – In the lead-up to the 106th playing of Canada’s National Open Golf Championship at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont., the start times for the 2015 RBC Canadian Open Championship Pro-Am, as well as, pairings and start times for the opening two rounds of the competition, have been released.

PRO-AM START TIMES
Wednesday, July 22 will see 52 professional golfers take to Glen Abbey Golf Club to entertain 156 amateurs for the 2015 RBC Canadian Open Championship Pro-Am. Click here for pairings and start times.

PAIRINGS FOR ROUNDS ONE AND TWO NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
Pairings for the first two rounds of the 2015 RBC Canadian Open on Thursday, July 23 and Friday, July 24 are now available here.

MARKHAM, Ont. – RBC Canadian Open organizers are adding a lot more red and white to the expanse of green at Glen Abbey Golf Club.

First-year tournament director Brent McLaughlin heard from players that there’s not enough “Canadiana” at the RBC Canadian Open. They’ll get their wish on the course this week with the addition of many Canadian flags, including a 30-by-15-feet one behind the 18th green.

It’s all an effort to make the RBC Canadian Open more Canadian.

“I think we’ve struck a balance of the Canadiana,” McLaughlin said in a phone interview last week. “We’ve lost touch with kind of the stuff that makes us uniquely Canadian: the Mounties and kind of those stereotypes that you always hear.

“I know we don’t like it when it’s talked about about us, but it’s nice when we can sort of say, ‘Yeah, you’re in Canada. It’s a little bit different here.”‘

Sixteen Canadian players are expected to be in the field for Canada’s national open. That group features Graham DeLaet, David Hearn, Adam Hadwin and recent PGA Tour winner Nick Taylor.

No Canadian has won this event since Pat Fletcher in 1954. Mike Weir, the 2003 Masters winner who withdrew for personal reasons to take a leave of absence from golf, came the closest when he was a playoff runner-up to Vijay Singh in 2004.

Golf Canada CEO Scott Simmons said the organization had to close the gates and stop selling tickets at Glen Abbey twice: when Tiger Woods was at his peak and won in 2000 and then when Weir had the Sunday lead in 2004.

“It just shows you what can happen when a homegrown does well on Canadian soil, and I hope we see that (this week), come Sunday we’ve got some Canadian flags at the top of the leaderboard,” Simmons said Sunday after the inaugural Pan Am Games golf tournament.

Of course the event will be a smashing success and keep up the Pan Am nationalism in the Toronto area if a Canadian is close to the lead this weekend. But there’s no safe bet on that, what with a field that includes world No. 3 Bubba Watson, No. 7 Jim Furyk and No. 9 Jason Day, who tied for fourth at the British Open.

Even though Brandt Snedeker pulled out with a hip injury, Simmons considers this one of the deeper fields the RBC Canadian Open has had in a while. That’s certainly a selling point, but McLaughlin also instituted “Red And White Day” on Friday to encourage fans and golfers to show off national spirit and added food trucks serving things like poutine and Beavertails.

“This is a festival,” he said. “It’s just a fun atmosphere to get involved with. More so than just focusing on the talent and the Canadian players and anybody in the field in general, it needs to be an event. People love events.”

People don’t love traffic, a Toronto hallmark that’s worse given that the Pan Am Games are going on throughout the region. With high-occupancy lanes set up for three or more people for the duration of the Games, McLaughlin said the RBC Canadian Open has done everything possible to warn people what to expect.

Golf Canada will offer shuttle service from the Oakville and Bronte GO stations Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and trips home on those days are free with a RBC Canadian Open ticket. Kids under 17 are also free, part of the reason McLaughlin thinks the HOV lanes won’t stunt any crowds.

“Our statistics have shown that most people that attend sporting events and other functions travel in larger groups,” he said. “So I think it actually helps us. It’s almost like a true event feel having the 3-plus. I don’t think it’s going to affect us.”

If anything, the timing of the Pan Am Games, where Canada is enjoying substantial success on home soil, could benefit the RBC Canadian Open. Simmons hopes the 2010 Olympics and “Own the podium” movements stir up more nationalism at Glen Abbey.

“We’ve always known to be a very respectful bunch,” Simmons said. “But it’s time to kind of puff our chests out and be proud of who we are: our country, our players.”

Inside the ropes of the 1990 PGA TOUR, no one performed better than Wayne Levi.

Sure Greg Norman put a few more dollars in his bank account. The Australian finished first on the money list with $1.17-million to Levi’s $1.02-million. Sure Nick Faldo won both the Masters and British Open in 1990.

But nobody won four times like Levi did in his season to remember. That’s why when the time arrived for his peers to vote they named Levi the the tour’s player of the year.

“It’s just been an incredible year,” said Levi after he was presented with the award. “I’d never thought I’d have this kind of a year. I never thought I’d win as many tournaments as I have, have the success I’ve had.”

The golfer from Little Falls, N.Y., then 38, put an exclamation point on his season when he won the 1990 Canadian Open at Glen Abbey Golf Club in mid-September with a 10-under total for a one-stroke victory over Ian Baker-Finch and Jim Woodward.

Levi jumped out to the 36-hole lead with back-to-back rounds of 68. The second round was more impressive because of the nasty winds and thunderstorms that interrupted play, and Levi joked afterwards that he didn’t want too late of a tee time on Sunday afternoon because he wanted to watch his beloved New York Giants play against the rival Dallas Cowboys.

About the same time the Giants, who would win the Super Bowl a few months later, put the finishing touches on the Cowboys in Dallas for a 28-7 win, Levi holed his title-clinching putt on the 18^th green.

“To win four in a year, that’s the sort of thing you think of Jack Nicklaus or Tom Watson doing back in the 1970s,” said Baker-Finch, who would go on to win the British Open 10 months later.

Despite his outstanding start at Glen Abbey, Levi checked in with a third-round 72 to trail 54-hole leader Buddy Gardner by three shots. But Gardner faded early on the final day with a double-bogey at No. 6. Meanwhile, Levi notched birdies at Nos. 8, 12 and 13 to take the lead for good.

He added a birdie at the par-5 16^th, but bogey No. 17 to make the closing hole tense for his two-putt par.

“I always wondered what it would be like to be a national champion, what it would be like to be a celebrity as the No. 1 golfer in Canada or Poland or Romania. I’ll put this on my resume,” the colourful Levi said afterwards.

The knock on him was Levi simply didn’t practice enough. Rather than practice when he returned to his upstate New York home in between events, he enjoyed spending time with his wife Judy, daughters Michelle, Lauren and Chris as well as son Brian.

What spare time he had left after his family was divided between his hobby as a stock market speculator and his Giants.

“Some guys hunt and fish. I follow the stock market,” said Levi, who visited the Toronto Stock Exchange floor when he returned to the area the following spring to promote the 1991 Canadian Open.

There were no signs that Levi was about to enjoy a breakout year in 1990. He had not contended in any majors throughout his career and hadn’t won since the Atlanta Classic in June 1985.

Prior to his first win in 1990 in May, Levi had missed the cut in 6 of his previous 11 events. So he visited his long-time friend and instructor Rick Christie in Tampa Bay. He changed putters and made an adjustment to his setup.

Poof, Levi piled up wins at Atlanta, the Western Open in Chicago, Hartford and at Glen Abbey in four months.

“It was something I didn’t expect, but I also wasn’t surprised,” Levi said.

The win at Glen Abbey was his final career victory on the PGA Tour. But his impressive play put him on the U.S. Ryder Cup team a year later and on the 1991 U.S. World Cup team with Joey Sindelar.

He did win twice on the Champions Tour in 2003 and 2004. But again, joked that he never planned to play with the 50-and-over set until the stock market tailspin in the late 1990s and he lost “millions.”

“I never wanted to play out here,” Levi said about the Champions Tour. “But I’ve got a family to take care of, so here I am.”

He certainly took care of things at Glen Abbey 25 years ago.

MARKHAM, Ont. — Colombia got the rare chance to celebrate as a team on the 18th green after winning all three gold medals at the Pan Am Games’ inaugural golf tournament on Sunday.

Marcelo Rozo shot 13-under to win the men’s competition, while teammate Mariajo Uribe went 9-under to capture the women’s gold. Colombia blew away the field for the mixed team gold.

Uribe held up the yellow, blue and red Colombian flag on the hill above the 18th hole at Angus Glen Golf Club and then, along with teammates Mateo Gomez and Paola Moreno, doused Rozo with water after he finished the final round.

“At the end having all them on the 18th green hugging each other, making Colombia proud, it was pretty special,” said Rozo, who tied the course record Saturday with a 9-under 63. “Golf is not a team sport. Once you get that kind of feeling, you get excited.”

Rozo finished a stroke ahead of Argentine Tommy Cocha and Chilean Felipe Aguilar. Cocha won a two-hole playoff to earn silver, as Aguilar got bronze.

Canada’s Austin Connelly, a Dallas native with Nova Scotian roots, shot his fourth-consecutive subpar round to finish fifth at 8-under for the tournament. Connelly said having three medals instead of just first place to shoot for “brings another level of pressure.”

“It’s a much different experience than any other golf tournament I’ve ever played,” Connelly said.

Canada’s Austin Connelly (Anil Mungal/ Golf Canada)

American Andrea Lee won women’s silver and Paraguay’s Julieta Granada bronze. The United States, which leads the medal count, won team silver and Argentina bronze.

Golf made its Pan Am debut a year before returning to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro for the first time since 1904.

“It’s pretty big for golf,” Rozo said. “This is a great step looking to that.”

Rozo gets a spot in next week’s RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey in Oakville, Ont., as another prize for winning gold. It’ll be his first PGA Tour event.

While the 25-year-old is still trying to make his way into Olympic contention, Uribe is right in the thick of it for Rio. She was smiling thinking about that and reflecting on triple gold at the Pan Ams.

“Colombia is not a team that gets a lot of medals, so it really matters to us,” said Uribe, who earned an exemption into the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open next month in Vancouver. “It’s fun… I’m getting ready for the Olympics.”

Golf Canada is getting ready for the Olympics, too. The Pan Am Games being on home soil represents progress toward that goal.

“To get this experience to prepare us for Rio and the Olympics next year, you can’t get that experience anywhere else,” Golf Canada CEO Scott Simmons said. “This is really going to help us.

“It’s helped the players, it’s helped the coaches, it’s helped our support staff. That’s probably the biggest benefit coming out of this week for us.”

After Connelly, Canadians Garrett Rank finished 15th in the men’s competition at 5-over and Lorie Kane tied for 19th at 23-over in the women’s event. Canada was eighth out of 16 countries in the team competition.

But federal sports minister Bal Gosal said all the feedback he has gotten from visitors has been positive. Angus Glen turned out to be a fitting reintroduction for the sport on an international stage.

“This venue, everything’s been great,” Gosal said. “(Visitors are) very happy with the course, they’re very happy with the fairways. … It’s been great.”

A rough stretch aside, Connelly got to enjoy a final round in the last group with a throng of hundreds of fans following. When the 18-year-old chipped in for an impressive par save on the sixth hole, he heard one of the biggest cheers of the day as the Canadian star on the course.

“It was hard to describe,” Connelly said. “The roar was incredible. It’s just nice having so many people behind me.”

The final four players joining the 2015 RBC Canadian Open field will be determined Monday following the conclusion of final qualifying play at Heron Point Golf Links in Alberton, Ont.

Sixty-three players, many of whom have earned their way via the three regional qualifying events across Canada, will battle over 18 holes of stroke-play in hopes of competing in the 2015 RBC Canadian Open being held July 20-26 at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont.

A total of 38 Canadians will take to Heron Point on Monday, including Team Canada Young Pro Squad members Albin Choi of Toronto and Mackenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont. Also looking to join the 14 Canadians already confirmed as part of the RBC Canadian Open field are Team Canada Development Squad member Étienne Papineau of St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Que., and Danny King of Milton, Ont., who recently captured the PGA of Canada and PGA of Ontario Championships.

Click here for pairings, start times and results for RBC Canadian Open Final Qualifying on Monday, July 20. Live scoring will not be available and results will be available as players complete their rounds.

OAKVILLE, Ont. – Golf Canada and RBC are pleased to announce the final field of competitors vying for the US$5.8 million purse at the 2015 RBC Canadian Open, July 20-26 at Glen Abbey Golf Club.

Defending champion Tim Clark will be challenged by a stellar field of PGA TOUR stars including World No. 3 Bubba Watson, World No. 6 and two-time RBC Canadian Open champion Jim Furyk, World No. 9 Jason Day, World No. 13 J.B. Holmes, World No. 15 Matt Kuchar, World No. 22 Brooks Koepka, World No. 26 and 2013 RBC Canadian Open Champion Brandt Snedeker, World No. 30 Ryan Palmer, World No. 44 Charley Hoffman, World No. 55 Graeme McDowell and World No. 64 Luke Donald, as well as, World Golf Hall of Fame member Ernie Els.

Other notable additions to the field for the 106^th playing of Canada’s National Open Championship include 34-time PGA TOUR winner Vijay Singh, 20-time winner Davis Love III, 12-time winner Justin Leonard, 12-time winner Steve Stricker, eight-time winner K.J. Choi, seven-time winner Retief Goosen, six-time winner Rory Sabbatini and three-time winner Angel Cabrera.

Clark, who captured the 2014 RBC Canadian Open trophy at The Royal Montreal Golf Club in Île-Bizard, Que., will be joined by nine other former champions including Team RBC members Brandt Snedeker – who won in 2013 at Glen Abbey Golf Club – and Jim Furyk who claimed back-to-back championships in 2006 and 2007. Other confirmed past champions include Scott Piercy (2012), Sean O’Hair (2011), Carl Pettersson (2010), Nathan Green (2009), Chez Reavie (2008), Vijay Singh (2004), and John Rollins (2002).

In total, 156 players will compete for the US$5.8 million purse next week in Oakville when Canada’s National Open Championship returns to Glen Abbey for a record 27^th time.

14 CANADIANS CURRENTLY SET TO COMPETE FOR THE NATIONAL TITLE

Leading the Canadian contingent will be World No. 80 Graham DeLaet of Weyburn, Sask., who recorded a fourth-place finish last month at the Travelers Championship, as well as, David Hearn of Brantford, Ont., who will look to build on a playoff runner-up finish at The Greenbrier Classic.

PGA TOUR rookies and Abbotsford, B.C., natives Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor, along with Roger Sloan of Merritt, B.C., will also be in the field alongside Web.com Tour player Brad Fritsch of Manotick, Ont.

Team Canada will be well-represented with Young Pro Squad members Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont. and Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., as well as, National Amateur Squad members Austin Connelly of Irving, Texas and Blair Hamilton of Burlington, Ont.

Connelly’s 2015 Pan Am Games Team Canada teammate Garrett Rank of Elmira, Ont., will be in the field after earning an exemption through his 2014 Canadian Men’s Mid-Amateur victory.

PGA of Canada professional Billy Walsh of Markham, Ont., earned his way into the 2015 RBC Canadian Open field as the No. 1-ranked player on the PGA of Canada Player Rankings presented by RBC.

Former Team Canada member Richard Jung of Toronto earned his exemption into the field by topping the 144-player field at the RBC Canadian Open Regional Qualifier in Ontario.

The Canadians in the field have their sights set on becoming the first Canadian to capture the national title since Pat Fletcher claimed victory in 1954.

Golf Canada also confirmed today that Canadian Golf Hall of Fame member Mike Weir of Brights Grove, Ont., has withdrawn from the event for personal reasons. Weir was slated to make his 25^th appearance at the RBC Canadian Open.

“The field is nearly set and we’re ready to tee-up the 106^th playing of Canada’s National Open Championship starting next week at Glen Abbey Golf Club,” said Tournament Director Brent McLaughlin. “We’ve got a tremendous mix of international stars and Canadian talents ready to compete and a family-friendly festival experience ready to welcome spectators of all ages to the 2015 RBC Canadian Open.”

In addition, the winner of the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games Golf Competition will be granted an exemption into the RBC Canadian Open. The competition at Angus Glen Golf Club in Markham, Ont., began on July 16 and will conclude on July 19.

The top three players on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada Order of Merit following this week’s Staal Foundation Open presented by Tbaytel in Thunder Bay, Ont., will also earn exemptions into the field for the 2015 RBC Canadian Open.

The final four exemptions into the field for the 2015 RBC Canadian Open will be handed out at the Monday Final Qualifier on July 20 to be played at Heron Point Golf Links in Alberton, Ont.

Click here for the full list of competitors competing in the 2015 RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey Golf Club from July 20-26.

Former Masters champion Mike Weir won’t play in his 25th RBC Canadian Open and is taking an “indefinite leave of absence” from pro golf for personal reasons.

Weir said in a statement posted on Twitter and that he is taking time off to focus on his personal life and children.

I have decided to take some time off from golf competition for personal reasons. Thanks to my fans for their support. pic.twitter.com/hsfB6EXqNa

— Weirsy (@MikeWeir) July 17, 2015

He and wife Bricia divorced earlier this year. They have two teenaged daughters.

“Mike has recently endured some difficult times in his personal life,” agent Danny Fritz wrote in an email to The Canadian Press. “With everything that has been going on away from the golf course, Mike’s golf game has been impacted as a result.”

Weir withdrew from his last PGA Tour event, the John Deere Classic, earlier this month after shooting a first-round 73. He missed the cut at his previous eight tournaments.

The 45-year-old said there’s no time table for his return.

“Family is incredibly important to me,” Weir said in the statement. “I love the game and will return when the time is right.”

Weir was expected to be one of more than a dozen Canadian players in the field for the RBC Canadian Open, which is set to begin Thursday at Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont. He was the runner-up to Vijay Singh in 2004 when he lost in a playoff at Glen Abbey.

That second-place finish came a year after he was the first Canadian golfer to win the Masters.

Weir, a native of Bright’s Grove, Ont., said it was “extremely difficult” to decide to miss the RBC Canadian Open because he loves playing in front of home fans.

“That’s unfortunate,” Golf Canada chief championship officer Bill Paul said in a phone interview from St. Andrews, Scotland. “I understand. We’ll wish him well and be watching him, and he’ll be back for his 25th sometime.”

Weir first played the Canadian Open in 1989 and has been the top Canadian four times. He’s tied for the tournament record for most consecutive rounds under par, a mark he set from 2007-2009.

Canadians Graham DeLaet and David Hearn are set to go right from the British Open to play at Glen Abbey.