As a sports-loving kid growing up in North York, Laurence Applebaum, the newly announced CEO of Golf Canada, fell in love with golf on Toronto’s city-owned public courses.
He learned his way around the Don Valley Golf Course near Yonge Street and Highway 401. His older brother, Andrew, now a Toronto entrepreneur, sometimes sold used golf balls and soft drinks outside Scarborough’s Tam O’Shanter Golf Club.
“(Andrew) was a monopoly — he wouldn’t let anyone dig into the profits,” Laurence said with a chuckle.
Laurence would find his own way into the golf business soon enough. Named Tuesday as Golf Canada’s choice to helm the organization that oversees the country’s most popular participation sport, Applebaum’s two-decade career in sports business previously included a stint working on Nike’s since-disbanded foray into golf equipment. Also a former tennis coach, Applebaum had most recently been executive vice president of the WTA Tour, where he spearheaded the revamping and relocation of the WTA Finals from Istanbul to Singapore.
But after spending seven years in Europe working as a sporting goods executive, along with the past five years with the WTA Tour based in St. Petersburg, Fla., Applebaum said he couldn’t pass up a chance to return to his roots.
“Golf Canada as an organization hasn’t been able to resonate as loudly as I think there’s an opportunity to,” Applebaum said. “What two better things do you get in a role than golf and Canada? The chance to come home, the chance to be part of golf, the chance to affect change, to make an impact, to affect all levels of the game, is really exciting.”
Applebaum, an alumnus of the University of Western Ontario’s business school, arrived on the scene Tuesday with an obvious awareness of his environs. This wasn’t Tim Leiweke yanking down Stanley Cup photos at the Air Canada Centre. Applebaum paid his immediate respects to the giants of the Canadian game, arranging introductory conversations with the likes of Mike Weir and Lorie Kane.
But Applebaum wasn’t afraid to point out that, as much as past accomplishments need to be respected, change will be necessary. He is, after all, taking over at a moment when golf’s global forecast, from some angles, doesn’t appear particularly rosy. The competitive irrelevance of Tiger Woods has hurt mainstream interest. And the game’s reputation for being slow and expensive makes it vulnerable to predictions of doom.
“The face of the Canadian golfer is changing. They have options. They have a lot of things coming at them,” Applebaum said. “All the data is really clear . . . The barriers (to playing) are time and money. I think there’s a lot of innovative stuff going on throughout the world with shorter formats, whether it’s nine holes, six holes, three-hole practice courses.”
On the bright side, Canada’s touring pros of the moment have shown undeniable promise. Brooke Henderson, at age 19, is already a major champion on the LPGA Tour. And while Canada’s men’s contingent only boasts one player in the global top 100 — that’d be Adam Hadwin, the world No. 48 — Applebaum pointed out that the handful of Canadians currently holding PGA Tour cards, among them Mackenzie Hughes, David Hearn and Graham DeLaet, suggests breakthroughs are in the offing.
To that end, Applebaum, who will officially begin the gig on July 10, said his top priority will be to transform Canada’s duelling national championships, the RBC Canadian Open and the CP Women’s Open, into what he called “big sporting events.”
“I don’t say ‘big golf events,’ because our two national opens . . . are going to be big sporting events, not just big golf events. We’re going to really evolve these into next-level championships,” he said. “We want to get fans closer. We want them to see the incredible athletes.”
As much as golf is about to become Applebaum’s full-time business, the game is also a family affair. He described himself as a “passionate player” with “swing issues.” And while he’s been told the job of Golf Canada CEO doesn’t often involve the playing of copious golf, he said he’ll try to regularly squeeze in some holes with his 13-year-old son.
Said Applebaum: “We’ve perfected the art of nine holes together — probably about six for him and nine for me, and we still walk off the course with smiles.”