The Royal Canadian Golf Association continues to work towards a Canadian Open golf course rotation and executive director Scott Simmons is still hopeful that the Hamilton Golf and Country Club will be part of it.

"Lets look at the courses in Canada that could host the open," Simmons said yesterday in a wide-ranging discussion with media yesterday at the Royal Bank of Canada Canadian Open at Glen Abbey in Oakville.

"There's this course, which I think is one of the best spectator courses in the world. There's Hamilton, Royal Montreal, Shaughnessy (Vancouver) and St. George's.

"London Hunt has hosted a very successful CN Canadian Women's Open. We've had no discussions with them but maybe we should be. And a lot of people think Westmount (Kitchener) could host it."

Simmons said in the past they've looked, perhaps too much, at whether a course could handle the Canadian Open outside the ropes. By outside the ropes they mean can it handle parking, and corporate tents, and spectators and all the other amenities?

He said they're rethinking that policy because the PGA Tour players have told them repeatedly that the course is the most important thing to them when they're deciding which events to play and they like historic old courses.

That fact that the RCGA is taking the 2010 Open to St. George's in Toronto is a perfect example of the shift in their thought process because it's a great old course that has virtually no room and a totally inadequate practice facility. Somehow the RCGA will find a way to make it work.

Next year's Canadian Open will be back at Glen Abbey and there's a good bet that it will go back to Shaughnessy in 2011.

That means that in 2012 it pretty much has to be in Montreal. In fact it's now scheduled to be played at the new Tommy Fazio designed Country Club of Quebec, which is under construction, but has suffered numerous delays.

Hamilton has hosted in 2003 and again in 2006. The logical time for the club to hold the event again would be 2016 which is the 100th anniversary of the club at its current location in Ancaster.

The tournament has to come back to Glen Abbey at least one more time before 2014. That was part of the agreement when the RCGA sold the course to ClubLink.

gMcKay@thespec.com

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