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TSN Senior Reporter

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At the same time as the PGA Tour was announcing its scheduled re-start in June, the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada was postponing its first six events.

It may not have grabbed as much attention as the news from its parent circuit, but the ramifications on golfers and tournament hosts is just the same. There’s an uncertain timeline ahead, and trying to build a schedule for a cross-country circuit for the developmental tour requires flexibility.

“We’re working with all of our partners all across Canada in terms of different models and different scenarios,” said Scott Pritchard, the executive director of the tour. “As you can probably appreciate, we’ve got seven or eight different scenarios. At this point, we feel we’re in a pretty good spot in rescheduling those events.”

While there will be uncertainty over the next few months, the Mackenzie Tour – PGA Tour Canada is in good hands with Pritchard. On Friday, the PGA Tour announced that he’d been promoted and put in charge of the northerly circuit. Over the past eight years, he’s held different roles with the Canadian operation and always had a deep passion for his work.

Now he’ll be tested with trying to keep the tour on the rails during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ll be honest, it’s been very positive,” said Pritchard. “The flexibility that our partners, including golf courses and sponsors, have shown us has been tremendous. It’s made the experience more enjoyable despite the crisis that’s going on.”

While there’s no official plan in place, the first step for the Mackenzie Tour would be to hold qualifying tournaments to get a roster of exempt players. Then it would be cobbling together a schedule that may see the tournaments on the West Coast, which traditionally open the season, moved to the end of the calendar to take advantage of the weather.

“We’re waiting on a few different confirmations from our schedule, in getting commitments and finalizing details from our partners,” Pritchard stated. “And then there are some other conversations that are happening at the PGA Tour level and the Korn Ferry Tour level and what the seasons are going to look like from a player perspective.”

Traditionally, the top five players at the end of the Canadian circuit’s season move up to the Korn Ferry Tour, but there’s no word on just how that will be handled this year.

Pritchard said his team has a number of scenarios in place but feels positive about rescheduling the 13 events on the original itinerary. Right now, the first event on the tour is the Windsor Championship, which is set to go July 16-19, in Windsor, Ont.

While the Mackenzie Tour does have a number of large Canadian corporations that support tournaments, it also has a healthy dose of smaller, local companies that are likely feeling the economic impact of pandemic. They could be the first to claw back their sponsorship dollars but so far that hasn’t happened.

“We haven’t had a lot of people pull out at this point,” Pritchard said. “We do have a worst-case scenario in place. Obviously we hope that won’t happen, but we’re prepared if we need to.”

In addition to working with the tournament operators and sponsors, Pritchard is reaching out to players on the tour who undoubtedly have concerns about the coming season.

Unlike the golfers on the PGA Tour, most don’t have a comfortable level of financial security. Many will qualify for help from both the U.S. and Canadian government programs that are in place.

“It’s just the unknown,” he said of the questions he’s receiving from the golfers. “Are we going to have a season? Am I going to have a job? There are definitely players concerned about what the future’s going to look like.”

Every day will bring new challenges for Pritchard, but with his experience, he’s the perfect person to deal with those. When the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada gets back up and running, it’s certain a large part of it will be due to his efforts.