PGA Tour Canada returns with Victoria Open after lengthy pandemic hiatus

It's not quite a sigh of relief, but Blair Bursey is very pleased to have the PGA Tour Canada back.

Bursey, from Gander, N.L., is one of 37 Canadians in the field at this week's Royal Beach Victoria Open, the first PGA Tour Canada event since 2019. Then known as the Mackenzie Tour, the third-tier men's professional golf circuit had two take two seasons off due to travel restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I think people are overall pretty grateful to have things maybe settling back to the way they were before," said Bursey, who won the Victoria Open last year at Uplands Golf Club in B.C.'s capital. "Obviously, everybody's gone through the last couple of years differently and coped with it differently and had different experiences.

"But I think that overall, it's nice to see something that was in place before kind of get back closer to where it was."

The Mackenzie Tour had to cancel its 2020 season because of the pandemic but still held the Canada Life Series in August and September of that year to give Canadian-based golfers some playing opportunities. As travel restrictions continued into 2021, the Forme Tour — based in the United States — was created for non-Canadian PGA Tour Canada members to compete in.

The Fortinet Cup will mirror the competitive structure of the points-based competitions on the PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions and PGA Tour Latinoamerica. Fortinet has sponsored a new $100,000 player bonus pool, with $25,000 to the winner of season-long points competition.

"The people that run PGA Tour Canada did a an amazing job of getting events in place over the course of the last two years," said Bursey. "To have it be elevated back to the stature it was previously I think is really cool.

The Fortinet