Caledon, Ont. - The players will know long before they get to the 14th hole at the RBC Canadian Open that something exciting is happening on the back nine.
A tunnel under the bleachers connects the players from the previous hole to the 14th tee. Walking through the tunnel the sound of the crowd above is loud... very loud! Players talk about goosebumps that form on their arms and back of the neck when they hear the sound of the notorious Rink Hole.
There’s a constant blast of cheers and sounds emanating from the bleachers, corporate boxes and chalets that surround the hole. People are yelling, clapping, stomping their feet and banging on the sides of the rink boards.
Every time a Canadian player in the field walks onto the tee the galleries of upwards of 10,000 break out in a chorus of ‘O Canada.' Next comes the wave.
It looks like a small arena with real hockey boards surrounding the hitting area on three sides. As in a hockey arena, the sponsors logos of the RBC Canadian Open and FedEx are prominently positioned. The volunteers on the hole wear the black & white striped shirts of NHL referees to add to the atmosphere.
It's like one just went from the quiet confines of the library to a raucous crowd at an NHL hockey game. You know when the next group of golfers has arrived at the notorious Rink Hole. The fans let our a cheer that could be heard in downtown Toronto.
In Phoenix, AZ at the Waste Management Open their 16th hole is billed as ‘the loudest hole in the golf.’ It’s also the wildest, wackiest hole with the most inebriated fans in golf. This hole is called ‘the Coliseum,’ but maybe should be called ‘the Pub.’
If Phoenix has the loudest hole in golf then Caledon, Ont. has the ‘second loudest hole.’ It also brings goosebumps to the spectators. How do you think it affects the players?
The walk-up music to the The Rink Hole is the original theme song for Hockey Night in Canada. The familiar organ music of a hockey game stops just before the players hit. Adding to the hockey atmosphere is a hockey net, sticks and a puck for the players to try a slap shot.
The 144-yard par three hole plays downhill to a green guarded on both sides by enormous gaping bunkers. They look like giant Mickey Mouse ears on either side of an undulating green. It’s no more than a pitching wedge for these players hoping to hit the green and escape with no worse than par.
The Rink hole first appeared on the par-three 7th hole at Glen Abbey GC in 2017 and ever since has become synonymous with Golf Canada and the Canadian Open. Last year at Shaughnessy GC in Vancouver at the CPKC Women’s Open, the par-3 17th acted as The Rink hole.
Golf Canada expects to reach the same attendance total as last year. When Scotland's Robert MacIntyre won last year in Hamilton a record 130,000 fans came out to watch some of the best PGA TOUR players put on a show.
With 1,500 corporate seats sold in advance, a forecast for good weather and an anticipated record crowd - it will be extra loud this week at The Rink hole.
Perhaps because the Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t made it to the Stanley Cup Finals since 1967 these Ontario fans need a release of their frustration. The Rink hole gives Leaf fans a perfect hockey/golf opportunity to let go of their 58 years of not winning the cup.
The Course
There are 54-holes of golf at the TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley with the parkland-style North (formerly the Toot), wasteland-style Hoot and the original Heathlands course.
Designed by Canadian course architect Doug Carrick, these three courses annually are ranked by SCORE Golf among the Top-100 courses in Canada. The owners have 1,800 acres of land with the intention of making TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley a destination golf resort.
In 2023 architect Ian Andrews was commissioned to add length and enlarge many of the bunkers to prepare the course to PGA standards. In 2024 TPC Osprey Valley played host to the Fortinet Cup and players from PGA TOUR Americas.
It has been a mild, cool spring in the Greater Toronto region with plenty of rain and not much sunshine. This kind of weather leads to thick, deep and gnarly rough. Hosel snagging grass where at impact the club is strangled and torn left (or right) by wire-like grass.
The bentgrass fairways are firm and lush where the ball usually finds a good lie. And then there are four cuts of fairway rough. The first cut is reasonable and even though the ball won’t get much spin from this cut it is better here than in the next cut where thick grass comes over the players’s ankles and often worse. They cut the second rough last weekend to 3 1/2 inches and the past four days it has grown at least two more inches
If your shot finds the third cut is almost impossible to find your ball. And if you do find it, good luck in hacking it back out and into play.
“The rough is up enough that if you are hitting from there it will be hard to stop,” said 2023 RBC Canadian Open champion Nick Taylor, “there’s birdies out there but they will be hard to find if you're missing a lot of fairways.”
This is a National championship and the venue should play championship tough. The TPC Toronto North Course for the tournament measures a demanding 7,389 yards and will play to a par 70.
Four par fours can be set to play over 500 yards. A fifth par four measures 497 yards. The wind starts every day around noon and for the past week has been strong late in the day.
“The only thing that matters is you have to hit the fairway,” explained Tyler Bakich, regular caddie for Coquitlam golfer A.J. Ewart. “I make sure A.J, sees small targets. Small targets result in small misses. Some places the rough can be very nasty.”
From the Fringe
Golf Canada will move their corporate offices to TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley from their former home at Glen Abbey GC. Construction of the new Golf House is well underway. The Canadian Golf Hall of Fame will also be on site.
Players in the field include: Rory McIlroy, Ryan Fox, Nick Taylor*, Sean Lowry, Ludvig Aberg, Taylor Pendrith*, Cory Conners*, McKenzie Hughes*, Justin Rose, Adam Hadwin* and Adam Svensson*.
* - denotes Canadian
Field: 156 players cut to low 70 and ties after 36 holes…Purse: $9.8 million (USD) purse…Winner: $1.764 million (USD)…Defending Champion: Scotland’s Robert McIntyre…Official Charity: First Tee Canada…2,100 volunteers haver signed up to work the tournament…First played in 1904, the Canadian Open is the third longest-running national open golf championship.