Professional tournament in the deep rough
Sponsor withdrawal forces cancellation
The director of the Cape Breton Open won’t reveal which sponsor pulled out, resulting in the cancellation of the event.
In a phone interview Monday, tournament director Sandy Campbell declined to name the sponsor that backed out of the event. The cancellation was announced via press release late Friday afternoon.
The PGA tour event was due to be played at Bell Bay Golf Club in Baddeck, Aug. 27-Sept. 2.
Campbell did say that it was a returning high-level sponsor.
“It’s been a great event for five years,” Campbell said. “I might disagree with the pulling of the sponsorship but I’m not going to throw the supporting sponsor under the bus … That’s just not how I operate.”
When asked what reason was given for the decision, Campbell said it was because the event no longer fit the sponsor’s “strategy going forward.”
It was to be the third time that Bell Bay would host the Cape Breton Open. It was an official Mackenzie Tour–PGA Tour Canada event. The Celtic Classic was held at The Lakes Golf Club in Ben Eoin for three years before moving to Bell Bay in 2016. Campbell said he learned that the sponsorship was in trouble about 10 days ago. While he scrambled to try to find a replacement, he even considered putting more money into the event from his own business.
The overall budget of the tournament was more than $300,000.
Upon learning of the sponsor’s decision Campbell scrambled trying to get other potential funders onboard. One new sponsor did come through over the weekend following the cancellation announcement, but Campbell said it was “too little, too late” to make a difference.
“I went to three or four other potential sponsors in my industry to try and do a patch job for this year, (but) it was just too short notice,” Campbell said. “A lot of people set budgets 12-18 months out of a fiscal year and it just wasn’t in the cards. I contemplated funding it more through one of my companies as well but we had given enough.”
There are a lot of logistics involved in putting on a PGA Tour event, Campbell said, and with other complications they had encountered they were left with no choice but to cancel.
“We had many difficulties to overcome and I wasn’t prepared to cut budget again to put on a Brate event,” he said.
As for whether the sponsor’s decision came as a complete surprise, Campbell said he first sensed about a month earlier that there may be a problem.
The event had attracted many volunteers dedicated to making the tournament a success, he added. He said he doesn’t think another similar event is likely to take place in Cape Breton in the short term.
“Will it happen again going forward? I don’t know but I wouldn’t wait by the phone, I don’t think it’s going to happen soon,” Campbell said. “So many things have to happen to create the right environment to allow an event of its magnitude to come to Cape Breton.”
As for the timing of the cancellation, which came on the same day that it was announced that Cabot Links in Inverness will receive a $2 million loan from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency to expand its resort development, Campbell said: “Everybody can draw their own conclusions, that’s for everybody to speculate on.”
Victoria County Warden Bruce Morrison was among those sorry to hear about the cancellation of the Cape Breton Open. The municipality had agreed to a three-year sponsorship of $20,000 annually for the open, with Morrison saying they realized the value in its ability to showcase the community.
“It was a great event for the community, it allowed us to showcase our golf courses, it was good for the economy in kind of a soft week at the end of August,” Morrison said. “I’m not sure who bailed but it’s just unfortunate the funding wasn’t there.
“It brought players in, it brought their families in and brought lots of support staff that were involved around the event.”