Inside The Ropes With Gary Bos

SirShanksAlot · November 16, 2006

Hello everyone! It’s been a few weeks since my last post as I just recently came back from some time on the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. The weather was great but I did not bring my golf clubs. It was a trip of rest and relaxation, something most of us probably need more of in our lives!

The thought of being in Mexico brings to mind the preview I saw recently of the Canadian Tour schedule for 2007. I have to say that I am very excited about the direction that I see the Canadian Tour heading in right now. This coming year’s tentative schedule has a number of new events including 3 stops in Mexico and events being added in Seattle, Southern Ontario and Ottawa. Some of you may remember that the tour has stopped in Ottawa in the past, formerly holding an event at the Eagle Creek GC. That city, among many others, has a variety of high level championship courses. It would be nice to see the tournament held at the Marshes which is a relatively new course on the west side of the city which hosted the Quebec PGA’s Casino du Lac Leamy Invitational this year, an event in which I competed. We will have to wait and see what happens!

Getting back to the schedule, the 2007 edition has 12 consecutive tournament weeks, interrupted by a two week stretch during the Canadian Open, going across Canada beginning at the Spring Q-School in BC and ending at the Tour Championship in the Toronto area. In my opinion, this is really what the tour needed to accomplish in order to allow the players to properly plan their schedules and consecutively travel across the country in a more cost effective way. I get the impression the marketability of the tour is increasing with more significant sponsorships and high calibre players using the Canadian Tour as their training ground to one day make their way to the big dance!

South of the border, there has also been some major changes in many of the professional mini-tours across the country. The formation of the US Pro Golf Tour has joined together many of these satellite tours and made them part of the bigger picture. The USPGT has larger purses, a celebrities division, great television coverage, and someone by the name of Trump associated with their major championships. Let’s see how it all plays out!

Check back again soon for more thoughts and information including details on my plans for the upcoming 2007 season.

Follow CPGA Professional Gary Bos as he chases his dream of playing on the PGA Tour. Check out regular updates on SirShanksAlot.com and Gary's own website. Gary is the Head Teaching Professional at the Grand Niagara Resort in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

www.sirshanksalot.com

theinsider · November 21, 2006

Gary,

Good luck with the season.

What does your schedule look like for this year? Are you "buying" in to a tour or just planning on trying to monday qualify for Canadian Tour events on top of regular CPGA events? Maybe Great Lakes Tour?

Just wondering if you can offer up some insight on what it is like to be an "emerging" touring pro and what your mindset is for determining your schedule? How do you balance it with your duties in Niagara?

I think any info you can provide would be helpful to any other aspiring touring profesisonals.

Thanks in advance.

;)

SirShanksAlot · November 21, 2006

Gary,

Good luck with the season.

What does your schedule look like for this year? Are you "buying" in to a tour or just planning on trying to monday qualify for Canadian Tour events on top of regular CPGA events? Maybe Great Lakes Tour?

Just wondering if you can offer up some insight on what it is like to be an "emerging" touring pro and what your mindset is for determining your schedule? How do you balance it with your duties in Niagara?

I think any info you can provide would be helpful to any other aspiring touring profesisonals.

Thanks in advance.

;)

I can probably give a bit of insight on behalf of Gary. He's going to be writing entries like this for our site (which will then appear on Golfwrx) over the coming months. He has played numerous events on the Great Lakes Tour and is now working on securing financing to play more mini tours this season both in Canada and the States. He also hopes to play some Monday qualifiers along the way.

He'll have some good entries once the season gets rolling and we're really looking forward to it. I'll pass your questions along to him and I'll see about getting him over to Golfwrx as well!!