The Canadian Open is on a roll

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The Canadian Open has one of the richest histories of any golf tournament in the world. First played in 1904, it's the third-oldest stop on the PGA Tour, behind only the British and U.S. Opens. Past champions include the legendary Walter Hagen, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino, while Jack Nicklaus was a seven-time runner-up. Tiger Woods' audacious 218-yard approach from a bunker on the final hole at Glen Abbey in 2000 is arguably the greatest shot ever hit by the greatest golfer of all time.

After Tiger's victory and Canadian Masters champion Mike Weir's memorable playoff loss to Vijay Singh in 2004, the national championship struggled to stay relevant as it moved from September to one of the worst spots on the golf calendar — the week after the British Open. The tournament's inconvenient scheduling and relatively small purse made it easy for the sport's biggest stars to skip, and most of them did, resulting in a series of mostly unremarkable champions like back-to-back winner Jhonattan Vegas.

But the Canadian Open started making a comeback in 2018, when American star Dustin Johnson (who later married into Canadian royalty as Paulina Gretzky's husband) became the highest-profile player to win the event since Woods. The following year, a realignment of the PGA Tour rotation landed the Canadian Open in a more desirable slot — the week before the U.S. Open — and an even more popular and successful star won it as Rory McIlroy prevailed at Hamilton Golf and Country Club near Toronto.

Then came COVID, causing the cancellation of the Canadian Open for two