Ben,
I guess I'm an idealist, and definitely a patriot. Still, I say the RCGA should demand to operate the Canadian Open under its own terms, not the PGA Tour's. Period.
It's an embarassment our national Open championship, the third oldest Open championship in the world behind the British and US Opens respectively, has been reduced to a simple and unattractive PGA Tour stop.
I also say, if the PGA Tour doesn't like it, then the RCGA should simply stage the Open itself, on its own terms. The field's notoriously weak with PGA Tour support, so how much different would it be as a non-PGA Tour event that's a national Open championship?
I guarantee the RCGA would still attract many of the world's greatest golfers to play in the Canadian Open... perhaps even more than they do these days as a run-of-the-mill event?
I hate to think that corporate sponsors would back away if our Open were no longer affiliated with the PGA Tour. That would be really sad. Bell Canada? Bank of Montreal? Nortel? Well, OK, maybe not Nortel