New Golf Canada CEO Looks To Increase Golf’s Popularity

Golf is widely popular throughout the world but is yet to make a massive impact in Canada. The newly appointed chief executive officer of Golf Canada is looking to change that by coming up with new strategies and initiatives that looks to spread the popularity of golf in the country.

Golf Canada announced on May 16 that appointment of Laurence Applebaum as the new CEO. Applebaum takes over from interim CEO Jeff Thompson and brings extensive experience into the new role. Applebaum served as the vice president of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) from 2011 till 2017 in Florida and made significant contributions to making the WTA better.

He has now been given the responsibility of growing the game of golf in Canada and Applebaum is excited to return to his home country and work with the golf market – as it is a game that he and his family love. This is also not the first time that Applebaum has been involved with golf. During the start of his career he worked with Nike Golf as a sales and marketing manager.

Golf Canada

Applebaum believes that the two biggest drawbacks that has limited the spread of golf in Canada have been time and money. He believes that one of the ways to address this limitation is to come up with shorter courses such as 9 and 6 hole tournaments. The new CEO has also promised to look at forming new partnerships with golf course owners and golf equipment manufacturers to see if more sponsorships can be secured to making the game of golf more accessible to Canadians.

The Toronto native is expected to start his new role on July 10 and one of his first initiatives will be to look at changing the face of Canada’s two biggest championships which are the CP Women’s Open and the RBC Canadian Open. Applebaum’s aim is to not just promote these tournaments as golfing events but to market them as global sporting events. He also was very supportive of the Glen Abbey Golf Club which has struggled in recent times.

In a statement, Applebaum said

Glen Abbey has built an incredible tradition. It’s an amazing golf course that has a ton of support by players on the PGA Tour, to be quite frank. Our goal is to have a long-term venue strategy that really is well aligned with our key partner in RBC, and working really directly with the PGA Tour to really support that