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 The Great Lakes Tour is Canada’s premiere developmental golf tour. The Great Lakes Tour was created to give Canadian players an opportunity to hone their skills and to act as a springboard to take players to the next level. Young or old, amateur, or professional players are encouraged to test their game against Ontario's best and gain valuable professional tournament experience.
Great Lakes Tour supports golf's Long -Term Player Development Guide an intitiative spearheaded by the RCGA in partnership with the CPGA and will be revolutionizing the Platinum Series to become a nationally qualified developmental series.
Great Lakes Tour was established in 2001. Since our inception, the Tour has awarded over 2.2 million dollars to aspiring Canadian Golf Professionals. In the Tours inaugural year, it accepted over 200 members and has since more then double in popularity. The Tour’s mission has remained constant: to provide a higher caliber of tournament golf, open to all golf professionals, in one region. The Tour has been recognized as being "The Best Place to Develop Your Game" in Ontario and Canada, and was quoted to have filled a niche for more competitive, open competition in Canada.
Great Lakes Tour was recognized by the Golf Journal (UGSA Publication in 2001) as the first open golf tour in the world: “The Great Lakes Tour has transcended all gender and age differences to becomes North America’s first truly “Open” pro golf tour.”
Great Lakes Tour is owned and operated by Dennis Hendershott and Kara Kelly.
Dennis is a CPGA Professional originally from Brantford, On. He has gained his professional golf experience while playing on numerous U.S. Mini Tours and competed on the Canadian Tour over the past few years. Dennis is also a four-time Great Lakes Tour champion (Paris Grand 2002, Whistle Bear 2005, Carlise GC 2006, and Glen Eagle 2008).
Kara is a native of Toronto. Upon finishing her degree at the University of Waterloo, she took a position with the CPGA of Ontario, coordinating tournaments and membership over 4 years. She then moved on to a Special Events Management position with a global multi- media company for 3 years. There she gained significant experience in event planning, sponsorship, marketing, public relations and media communications.
Great Lakes Tour has a tremendous operations crew made up of players, rules officials and volunteers:
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