The Canadian Tour, MacKenzie Tour, PGA Tour Canada and now PGA Tour Americas. Through all the name changes, the annual Victoria stop has been a constant on this country’s professional golf circuit.
Keith Dagg has seen it all. Dagg, who celebrated his 89th birthday on Sunday, helped found the event back in 1981 and is still actively involved. “I have been doing this for 44 years and I’m 89 today so I have been doing this for exactly half my life,” Dagg said with a chuckle.
“We are definitely the longest running professional golf tournament in Canada. To me, the real pride is when I look at the PGA TOUR and see how many guys out there that came through here.”
That list includes, among many others, current U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun, Nick Taylor, Tony Finau, Taylor Pendrith, Mackenzie Hughes and Joel Dahmen. Chances are, a handful of the players who will tee it up this week at Uplands Golf Club in the Times Colonist Victoria Open will find their way to the PGA TOUR.
The Victoria event, which goes Thursday through Sunday, is the final full-field event on the PGA Tour Americas schedule. The top 120 players on the tour’s Fortinet Cup points list following the Victoria tourney qualify to play in the season-ending Fortinet Cup Championship, which goes Sept. 25-28 at Morgan Creek Golf Course in Surrey. Ten Korn Ferry Tour cards will be handed out after the Morgan Creek event.
The Victoria tourney has survived despite some significant challenges along the way. Dagg, who owned and operated an advertising agency for many years in Victoria, said it hasn’t been easy finding sponsorship money to keep the event alive. “There just aren’t many big business left in Victoria,” he said.
But he and other key volunteers always find a way to keep the tournament running. Dagg tries to make sure at least one Victoria-area player is in the field. This year, he was instrumental in getting 21-year-old Victoria native Jeevan Sihota a sponsor’s exemption. Sihota has been dominating this year’s Vancouver Golf Tour and won last month’s Vancouver Open.
“He has been playing so well in Vancouver,” Dagg said. “He always plays well at Uplands. He is just 21 years old and I really wanted to give him a chance.”
The tour heads to the B.C. capital after last week’s ATB Classic at Northern Bear Golf Club near Edmonton, where Coquitlam’s A.J. Ewart tied for 22nd. Ewart heads to Uplands 25h on the points list.
FIRST IMPRESSION: Campbell River’s Hunter Auramenko made quite the impression in his debut with the UBC Thunderbirds at last week’s Wine Valley Invitational in Yakima, Wash. Auramenko was UBC’s sixth player at the event and played as an individual. He posted a 54-hole total of 10-under par that left him in third place. All six Thunderbirds finished in the top 10 as UBC won the event by nine shots with a team score of 25-under.
Assistant coach Keir Smith was delighted with his team’s performance and particularly impressed with Auramenko’s play. “He hit 35 of his first 36 greens,” Smith said. “He didn’t miss a shot for three days. He had a couple of three-putts, but his bogeys were nothing related to his ball-striking. I’m excited for him. He’s going to have a really good career.”
The UBC women also won the Wine Valley event and second-year player Keira Hou of Richmond Hill, Ont., took the individual competition by three shots with a 36-hole score of one-under par. The UBC men are competing in this week’s Canadian Collegiate Invitational at Öviinbyrd Golf Club in MacTier, Ont. It’s a NCAA Division 1 event co-hosted by Kent State University and Penn State University.
Auramenko’s strong play last week got him into the starting five this week. He will be joined by fellow freshman Manny Lahl of Nanaimo, Jake Houston of Point-Claire, Que., Aneesh Kaura of Calgary and Owen Crockett of Abbotsford.
TOUGH START: The PGA TOUR’s fall season did not begin the way Surrey’s Adam Svensson and Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford hoped it would. Both players missed the cut at the Procore Championship in Napa, Calif. Hadwin fell three spots and is now 139th on the FedEx Cup points list, while Svensson remains 162nd. Players must finish inside the top 100 to remain fully exempt for 2026. Those finishing 101st to 125th get conditional status for 2026, but would likely only get into a handful of events. The fall schedule resumes Oct. 2-5 at the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Miss.
POSITIVE START: Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald began the Korn Ferry Tour Finals on a positive note with 12th-place finish at the Simmons Bank Open for the Snedeker Foundation in Franklin, Tenn. Macdonald moved up four points on the tour’s points list to 42nd. Merritt’s Roger Sloan missed the cut and fell three spots to 127th. The second event of the four-event KFT finals — the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship in Columbus, Oh. — goes this week.
SWEET 16: Vancouver’s Anna Huang continues to impress on the Ladies European Tour. The 16-year-old tied for seventh at last week’s VP Bank Swiss Ladies Open. Huang is now 50th on the tour’s points list and must finish inside the top 70 to remain exempt for 2026. Four events remain on the 2025 schedule, including this week’s La Sella Open in Alicante, Spain.
TOP 20 FINISH: Vancouver’s Leah John tied for 19th at the Epson Tour’s Guardian Championship in Pratville, Ala. John closed with an even-par 72 to finish the 54-hole event at five-under par, eight shots behind winner Melanie Green of Medina, N.Y. John remains 19th on the Epson Tour points list. Two events remain on the 2025 schedule, including this week’s Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout in Arkansas. John must move inside the top 15 on the points list to earn LPGA Tour status for 2026. Delta’s Mary Parsons and Yeji Kwon of Port Coquitlam both missed the cut at the Guardian.
ON TO MATCH PLAY: Nanoose Bay’s Shelley Stouffer comfortably qualified for match play at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Championship at The Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va. Stouffer, the 2022 champion of this event, completed 36 holes of stroke play tied for fourth at five-over par. The top 64 players qualified for match play, which began Monday.
SEASON OPENER: Simon Fraser University’s men’s team opens its season this week at Chico State’s Wildcat Classic in Marysville, Calif. Head coach Krysta Schaus has named Brendan O’Brien of Victoria, Junsu Im of South Korea, Max Corcoran of Ottawa, Justin Bjornson of Surrey and Liam Jackes of Vancouver as her starting five.
CLOSE CALL: Kimberley’s Jared du Toit came up one shot short at a DP World Tour first-stage qualifying school site in Newcastle, England. It took a 72-hole score of 10-under par to finish among the top 14 and ties who moved on to second stage. Du Toit, who is in this week’s Time Colonist Victoria Open at Uplands Golf Club, closed with a two-under 70 and finished at nine-under. Vancouver’s Scott Kerr and Jackson Jacob of Langley are scheduled to play this week at a first-stage site at Arlandastad Golf Club in Roserberg, Sweden.
SENIOR MOMENT: Andrew Pinette of Surrey and Michael Kennedy of North Vancouver both tied for 14th and were the top British Columbians at last week’s Canadian Senior Men’s Championship at KenWo Golf Club in New Minhas, N.S. Pinette and Kennedy, both former B.C. Senior Men’s champions, completed the 72-hole event at 10-over par. Don Martone of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., won by eight shots with a score of seven-under par.
CHIP SHOT: Clark MacPherson and Killian Cullen of Point Grey Golf & Country Club beat Finlay Young and Ryan Stugis of Groove4Golf in a sudden-death playoff to win the PGA of BC’s Pro-Pro Championship at Tower Ranch Golf Club in Kelowna.