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This will be the sixth time the Canadian Open is played at Hamilton G&CC, the first being 100 years ago. just three years after the Harry Colt designed course was formally opened in Ancaster in 1916. The club’s original course opened in 1894 in Hamilton’s industrial northeast.

In this age of brawny golf courses and brawnier tour pros, it is unusual for the PGA Tour to stop at a century-old traditional parkland-style golf course. Fans have become used to watching pros play a power game they are completely unfamiliar with on golf courses looking nothing like the ones they grew up playing. Not that many Canadian golfers grew up playing a course the quality of Hamilton, but beautifully framed tree-lined fairways and doglegs that demand strategy off the tee is a style of golf most golfers are more familiar with than what they see most weeks on the PGA Tour.

“If it was up to me we’d go to a lot more venues that have more traditional parkland style,” McIlroy said Monday by phone. “I like tree-lined golf courses. I’m not really a big fan of this new trend of sort of taking trees out of golf courses. So I’m looking forward to it, I’m looking forward to getting there and playing a layout where you have to think a little bit, you have to shape shots, you know, display some versatility in your game.”

For the folks at Golf Canada it is important to get this one right. You only get one chance at a second impression or something like that. In many ways, Glen Abbey was a tournament organizer’s dream with its proximity to Toronto, stadium-style accessibility for plenty of fans, and overall familiarity for players and partners.