Last year RBC and Golf Canada announced the RBC Community Junior Golf Program, an initiative that will focus on building greater diversity and equity in golf by enabling affordable access to the game for youth in underrepresented communities in Canada. PGA TOUR professional golfer Harold Varner III will join Team RBC and serve as an ambassador for the new program.
As part of the RBC Community Junior Golf Program, Golf Canada will implement the First Tee – Canada and Youth on Course programs at municipal and especially accessible public golf courses across Canada. By 2023, the program is expected to engage more than 10,000 young people by delivering free First Tee programing, which integrates the game of golf with life skills curriculum and $5 Youth on Course green fees to select courses from coast to coast.
Having Varner III joining the program to promote and develop the game was logical and he made a great impression with the kids who met him during this year’s RBC Canadian Open held at St. George’s Golf Club just outside of Toronto. This was before Varner III decided to leave the PGA Tour and take a lump sum of cash to play the controversial LIV Golf Series.
Dustin Johnson another top player also wanted the money and left the PGA Tour for the LIV series. RBC who sponsored Johnson for years on the PGA Tour said it was “extremely disappointed” in Johnson for shunning the PGA Tour and ended their sponsorship.
Now that Varner III has also moved to LIV Golf will he continue to represent the First Tee program? Somehow, I doubt it. Time to look for a new ambassador.
