Vancouver Golf Tour

VGT has the goal to Prepare Tomorrow’s Champions

While the US Open was dominating golf news during the second week of June, another important event was taking place at Meadow Gardens and Swan-e-Set Bay in Pitt Meadows. The tournament was the Vancouver Open, the marquee event of the Vancouver Golf Tour (VGT). Adam Cornelson of Langley came from third place to finish one up on Michael Gligic and Riley Wheeldon, collecting $10,000 in prize money.

So what is the Vancouver Golf Tour?

The VGT was founded in 2006 by a group of professionals with a mission statement of Prepare Tomorrow’s Champions, which sums up what the VGT is doing successfully. The purpose of the tour is to allow juniors, amateurs, women, seniors and professionals an opportunity to compete against their peers. The ultimate goal is to allow the province's best golfers to move from the VGT to the PGA Tour Canada, the Web.com tour, Q-School and finally onto the big stage. This is a development tour that gives golfers the opportunity to experience PGA-style competition while improving their skills on some of the better Lower Mainland golf courses. Over the fall/winter and spring/summer seasons, as many as 40 tournaments take place for all levels of golfers.

Some of the B.C.’s better golfers who have emerged from the VGT include Cory Renfrew, Eugene Wong, Darren Wallace, Ryan Williams, Brad Clapp, Justin Shin, Bryn Parry and Nick Taylor. There are presently seven B.C. golfers on the Web.com tour.   Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford is probably the most successful graduate of the VGT and will likely join Mike Weir, Steven Ames, David Hearn and Graham DeLaet on the PGA Tour in 2015.

The president and Commissioner of the VGT is Fraser Mulholland. He has been a PGA member since 1992, has over 20 years of experience teaching golf and co-ordinating tournaments. He has qualified twice to play on the PGA Tour. His passion for the VGT has helped the tour grow from 50 members and 12 events to over a thousand golfers and a 40 event schedule. All of these accomplishments led Score Golf Magazine in 2012 to rate the VGT as the Most Influential Golf Association in Canada.

Sponsorship and charity

For eight years now MarketPlace IGA has been the VTG's title sponsor, and there are over 20 official and supporting partners as well. The result is that the tournament in the last seven years has been able to pay out over a million dollars in prize money. In addition the VGT gives back to the community, conducting free golf clinics and raising money through partnerships with charity pro-am golf tournaments. For example, the VGT has partnered with the Flora Aasen Memorial and Hadassah Wizo Pro-Am, successfully raising $800,000 for the Alzheimer disease and prostate cancer. In addition, the VGT has raised over $25,000 for the First Tee of Greater Vancouver, Kids Up Front and the CKNW Orphan’s Fund.

Fraser Mulholland can be heard frequently on AM 650 CKNW Sportstalk Sunday Night Golf Show with Dan Russell. The work of Fraser Mulholland and his VGT reminds me of a quote from President Obama. He said, “give young people the tools to be successful and then just get out of their way."