Last year, Brooke Henderson dazzled the country by becoming the first Canadian woman in more than four decades to win the country’s only LPGA Tour stop. Henderson, a Golf Town athlete, will attempt to repeat the feat, this time at Magna Golf Club, an opulent private club just north of Toronto, Ont. This will be just the second time since 2001 (won by golf legend Annika Sorenstam at Angus Glen Golf Club in Markham) that Canada’s National Women’s Open has been contested in the Greater Toronto Area.
With 156 golfers teeing-it-up at Magna Golf Club next week, this will be one of the strongest fields on the LPGA Tour with more than 90 of the top 100 players on the LPGA Tour Official Money List expected to compete, including 2019 Major winners Jeongeun Lee6, Hannah Green and Jin Young Ko.
Henderson is one of seven past CP Women’s Open champions confirmed for Magna including Sung Hyun Park (2017), Ariya Jutanugarn (2016), So Yeon Ryu (2014), Katherine Kirk (2008), Cristie Kerr (2006) and three-time winner Lydia Ko (2015, 2013, 2012) who will be chasing a record fourth CP Women’s Open title.
About the club
Magna, created by auto parts legend Frank Stronach, sits next to the corporate headquarters of the company from which it gets its name. The club opened in 2001 to a select audience of the ultra-wealthy. What did they get for the cost of joining, which was reported at $100,000? A gated club where members have their cars parked by a valet after dropping it off in front of a palatial clubhouse that overlooks the closing hole. A staff member cleans your clubs between shots on the practice range, and meals after a round are outstanding and elegant.
Oh, and there’s a golf course too, designed by Toronto’s Doug Carrick. Though the course has been tweaked a bit since opening, it still is connected to its original design, which saw Carrick build a parkland course over a rolling setting. There are some outstanding holes on the property, especially on the back nine, including the 14th, a par five that plunges from the highest point of the property along a ravine. The green is reachable in two—for those that take the brave approach. The private club is ranked 60th in the country, according to SCOREGolf’s Top 100 Canadian Courses.
Beyond the design, the course is known for being among the best-conditioned in Canada, with perfect greens and nary a blade of grass out of place. That’s partially because it doesn’t get a lot of play, and also because that’s exactly how the members want it.
The who’s who of golf have played Magna over the years, ranging from Tiger Woods, who played in a Nike event at the club, to Ernie Els, Tom Watson, Sergio Garcia, Annika Sorenstam and many others. When it opened, the club was known as the haunt of numerous NHL stars who lived in Toronto in the off-season.
The stars of the LPGA Tour will challenge for the CP Women’s Open from August 19-25, 2019. To introduce more juniors to the sport, children aged 12-and-under get FREE admission for the entire week. To learn more, visit cpwomensopen.com.
Would love to see your article read “… since Jocelyne Bourrassa fenced off Judy Rankin in 1971…”
Let the fan do the math!
By giving Jocelyne’s win all the importance it had then, would make Brooke’s win as glorious as it really is.
In short it would emphasize that the ladies she fenced off are the Judy Rankins of our time.
Who knows history might prove it was Brooke, the Judy Rankin of our time !