OverDrive - Applebaum on long rounds at The Open, the performance of the Canadians, and the variance of weather during the first round

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Golf Canada CEO Laurence Applebaum joins OverDrive to discuss the long rounds at The Open. Applebaum shared his thoughts on the performance of the Canadians and described the variance of weather during the first round.

Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Bryan Adams. Hey, my name's Brett Emmons. I'm from the Glorious Sons. Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada.

The station that champions Canadian music. Loud, proud, and all yours. No passports required. Just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca or the free iHeartRadio app. And there's four Canadians in the field and to get into it, let's talk to a guy who knows Canadian golf very well, and Royal Port Rush for that matter because he's been over there all week and he was on the grounds all day today.

Here's the CEO of Golf Canada, Lawrence Applebaum. What's the weather like over there, LA? Well, it's still light out at 945. Sun is starting to set, if you can believe it. It's been four seasons and 15 hours on the ground here. No kidding, man. No kidding. It it was wild this morning and long rounds too. Like what you you you obviously are you know as as directly involved with an open championship as you can get with the RBC Canadian Open and they can be long rounds it's a big field but did this feel particularly painful the

amount like how long some of these rounds were taking or what brian you played with a lot of people to take painfully long to play you know you know what that's like and i'm not talking about frankie carano he's a he's he played with the uh... rights but i i would say full field when you've got a full field thursday friday of any tournament it's a long day they've got a lot of light, so that's okay.

The interesting part, when you think about where our Canadians played in is, the first tee ball's at just after seven, but Nick just finished his round, and so Nick will go out early tomorrow. So late finish, 9.45, and then he's added uh... you know it seven whatever it is seven twenty two more morning so it's a quick turnaround but full day that's for sure

l a prior to the tournament a lot of people were talking about the speed of the greens and how they would be significantly slower than what the players are used to playing on the p g a tour uh... how much have guys talked about that and how big of a factor was that today How much have guys talked about that and how big of a factor was that today? Yeah, I mean one thing we sort of heard from our Canadian guys and a few others that were sort of sharing some stuff around the practice green is it's really hard for the North American players to get there, to make their brains believe what their eyes are seeing, right?

It looks great, it looks pure, it looks fast, but when it actually comes to hitting the putts, they're just not rolling as fast. And with a golf course like this, we don't get a chance in Canada to see too much Lynx golf, or to play too much Lynx golf, but so much is affected by the wind, it's affected by how it's rolling towards the water away from the water and things like that so it's a bit of a it's a real experience it's it's super fun I mean I caught a lot of it on TV as much as live it just looks it really does look as as good live

as it does on TV you know there's not a tree on the property. It's these beautiful vistas. And then once you get out there, it's brutally hard. It's so hard. How did our Canadians make out today? By judging by their score, wasn't quite what they expected or wanted to do the first day? No, it was tough. It was a tough day at the office for the guys. They probably got a little short end of the stick where the meat of their rounds was in tough conditions. So it was a typical sort

of four seasons. You get in one day and our guys went out in pretty tough conditions. It was raining. Then it kind of cleared up a little bit and then it got windy. So it was a long day. Our guys probably didn't do what you were saying, Stretty, not as good as they expected. But I do think you get a good day tomorrow and probably the cut, they're sort of talking around the cut being around four over over so you have a good day tomorrow uh... you know quarry's right there and our boys uh... they have a good day tomorrow i think we're gonna do okay but

but it was a tough one out there absolutely with laurence apple of uh... golf can a court honors three over pendri four over taylor six over hughes eight over but like you said of the cut line's gonna be four over then uh... there's still a lot of opportunity to at a minimum make the weekend. Rory McIlroy has had such a fascinating year winning at Pebble, winning the players, winning the Masters, and then he hit that dip and it coincided with coming up here obviously to TPC Toronto and he performs

you know horribly let's call it what it is I mean on the Friday I think he shot 78 it was a real struggle but he seems to have really turned things around Lawrence and like you've been around him you've met him a bunch how what kind of kind of disposition are you seeing out of him what what kind of body language are you seeing out of Rory today compared to what we saw a month and a half ago? How significant is this tournament at this course in particular because it is in Northern Ireland?

Yeah, I think we'll both remember that you lost to him by one stroke. Your Pro-Am number at 79. You missed hitting him by one stroke, you know, your pro-am number at 79. Right, it's valid. You missed hitting him by one. Almost had him. Bad read off your putt. Almost had him. Bad read off your putt on 18. Blame the caddy.

You jammed me there. Yeah, he jammed you, but the thing was, nobody was more gutted, honestly, than Rory about, you know, just didn't have it up at TPC Toronto this year. And I mean, the guy was gracious and did everything that, you know, you can ever ask of the guy and sometimes it just doesn't, doesn't work out. And so we were excited that, you know, Rory has been synonymous with our event, the RBC

Canadian Open since when he went back to back, you know, on the bookends of COVID in 19 and 22. And he's just been, you know, such a great, um, uh, fan of our event and participated in, and we couldn't have asked for more. The interesting thing out here guys is seeing, you know, he's from nearby Hollywood, which is pretty funny to say, but he's from nearby. Um, the bars, the pubs, the restaurants are jammed to the gills rooting for him. Like he couldn't be a more proud son of the region.

And so, you know, he's just got that hop in his step. He's really, you know, he looks fantastic out there. He didn't start, he didn't start. He did some media where he said he was thinking about, you know, four years ago, he went out of bounds off the tee. And then he said, all I've been thinking about is coming back to Port Rush and getting off that first tee, okay, and he almost did that.

Unfortunately, he did bogey number one. But Rory McIlroy at Port, Royal Port Rush is kind of like, you know, it's almost like the energy behind a deep playoff game for the Leafs. It's just electric out here and there's a bunch of guys. You know, you've got Shane Lowry, obviously, who won in 19 and then you've got a few other famous sort of sons here. You've got Darren Clark and then Padraig Harrington was sort of first out this morning,

somewhat ceremonial. So it's great. Irish love their golf. It's a game for every person here, which is kind of the way the game has been starting to flow in Canada and places around where everybody's enjoying it. Everyone's playing. It's so funny to see so many relatively famous or people you recognize and they're so into their golf. Like I saw Nile Horan today walking with Rory's group, I saw a bunch of other athletes, footballers that were watching and being part of it. So it's an amazing phenomenon and the sport

is in a really lucky place right now. LA, what's the feeling around Scottie Scheffler? You talked about all those players that there would be big crowds watching those guys. I think a lot of people saw what Scottie said and said, wow, that's interesting that he would be that candid and that genuine and that open about what he's feeling. Have guys been talking about that and what's the feeling around Scottie this week? Yeah, I'm not super close to that camp. I did see the comments and the sort of the word

with some of the Canadians was really like, A, it's great to see the candour that Scottie is number one player in the world sort of sharing it makes you think about the work you put in and the drive to win or the drive to be number one or the drive for major championships and and sadly it's pretty fleeting like you know if you think about the guys who won the cup this year and they get a summer with it and they get their day but all of a sudden you turn the page and they're back at camp and you're back in the grind so you know you guys would understand that. I think what's so interesting about him is you look at his results and even his not so great results are t20s or top 20s or being being just outside of the mix and so I think the rest of the field

is somewhat feeling about chasing him. And you can see out here, you know, he's one of the featured groups. So when you look inside the ropes, you see a ton of cameras, a ton of people, a ton of media. But that group with Rory, Justin Thomas, and Tommy Fleetwood was probably the number one group that everyone was watching

and following. So, you know, to see there are so many neat guys who are doing so many cool things. You just think about the guys we haven't heard of in a while. You see guys like, you know, Colin Morikawa, or you see a Cam Smith, or guys who've been sort of not in amongst the PGA Tour mix at all. And all of a sudden you say, okay, gonna be something special out here and it's um it's just neat to see the buzz behind the Open Championship and and the connection in fact that they have to the RBC Canadian Open and Canadian Golf is is really really a special thing.

Absolutely yeah and we're just getting started day one is wrapped up but we got three more and we're definitely gonna haveadians into the weekend we have a great tournament over there were a poor rush uh... any is laurence apple on the c of gold canadians is on the grounds so enjoy yourself over there l a bring the clubs is so how we plan yet the club's might have snuck into the bag uh... not the carry on but they might have made it in yep and the beauty he the beauty here is that you can get a relatively full work day in and then sort

of sneak out and whip it around. And so there's a couple tracks here that have been on the life bucket list and we ticked off one with a very special place called Royal County Down. Ooh. So a big shout out to our friends who hosted us there, but that one's really special. And then you sort of turn every corner and there's another Lynx golf course that's facing the ocean. And as we're driving away from the golf course, we've passed three golf courses I'd never heard of that just looked you know better and better and better so it's like it makes us realize how much great golf there is in the world and and uh you know we're we're

on a nice slice of it ourselves and and Stretty you know we're coming your way we're coming your way uh in 2026 Royal Mayfair for the CPKC Women's Open we just announced in 2026 maybe we got to get you in the Pro-Am. Yes get Stretty out there hacking and whacking. My game's on the upswing I almost broke 80 the other day so I'll be ready. I'll be ready. I'll be ready. Put it in the calendars we can't wait you got to get through Mississauga first though coming up in August we cannot wait for that. All right Lawrence enjoy yourself over there thank you for doing this buddy we appreciate it. Okay thanks for all your time fellas. Thank you for doing this buddy, we appreciate it. Okay, thanks for all your time fellas.

There he is, Lawrence Applebaum, the CEO of Golf Canada. Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you. The artists raising the bar. Hi, this is Brian Adams. Hey, my name is Brett Emmons. I'm from the Glorious Suns. Hi, I'm Nellie Furtado. Made in Canada, the station that champions Canadian music.

Loud, proud, and all yours. No passports required, just press play. Tap into Made in Canada now on iHeartRadio.ca or the free iHeart Radio app.