RBC Canadian Open tournament director has a special father/son relationship

USA Today

2 days ago

RBC Canadian Open tournament director has a special father/son relationship
Like father, like son.
Ryan Paul doesn't only share a physical resemblance to his father, Bill. This week, he steps into his shoes as tournament director for the first time at the RBC Canadian Open, a role his father once held for 23 years. He retired in 2019 after 43 years with Golf Canada.
'It's in the bloodlines, I guess,' Ryan said.
Ryan Paul served as the tournament director for the CPKC Canadian Women's Open for the past seven years, and assumes the role previously held by Bryan Crawford, who left to become the commissioner of the Ontario Hockey League.
When Paul, 37, attended a meeting of the PGA Tour tournament directors late last year, he realized he was one of the younger people in the room and had joined a fraternity with many of his father's former colleagues. 'It's one of those dream jobs that's almost impossible to get because no one wants to give it up,' he said.
It would be easy to say that Ryan was born for this role but as he said, he didn't exactly like golf growing up. Hockey, baseball and team sports were his jam. But he grew up exposed to the golf business and clearly learned a few things through osmosis. In addition to overseeing the Canadian Open for more than two decades, his father served as tournament director of the Canadian Senior Open, the 1992 World Amateur Team Championships and helped secure an LPGA event, which became the CP Women's Open, under the Golf Canada banner.
Ryan's earliest memories of the Canadian Open? Sitting on a hillside at Glen Abbey at about age 5 watching the pros float by and tooling around in a golf cart alongside his father as he put out fires. In 2000, when the national championship was held in September, his father took him out of school for the week and let him work the range when Tiger Mania was in full throttle. 'I sold a Sharpie to someone who was dying for his autograph for like 30 bucks,' he recalled.
This was the year that Tiger clinched his 'National Open Slam' — U.S., British and Canadian in the same year — hitting one of his most memorable shots – 6-iron from 216 yards in a fairway bunker over water at the par-5 18th – and Ryan climbed the manual scoreboard behind the green to witness it.
He would work in other unofficial capacities while his father called the shots but in 2007, his summer job consisted of being on the operations team for both the men's and women's national opens, setting up the signage and slinging ropes as his dad had done years before. He did that for four years and then joined Wasserman, honing his executive management skills from 2011-2016 as an account manager on the agency's key golf accounts for RBC, CN, Shaw, Manulife, and CPKC where he managed operations, experiential activities, and player relations. He returned to Golf Canada midway through 2016 in the championship management department as an assistant director for both events until 2018 when he became the tournament director for Canada's women's open.
While father Bill is enjoying retirement, which includes a fair amount of 'Grandpa Daycare' for Ryan's three kids, he will be onsite this week for the first playing of the RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley in Caledon, Ontario, the 38th different venue to host the national championship in its 121-year history. Is Ryan calling his dad out from the bullpen to lend a hand and make sure things go smoothly? Not exactly but he does expect him to be riding shotgun with him around the course on the golf cart like old times.
'He'll probably be there for me when I'm putting out fires just on the other side of the wheel now,' Ryan said.