Staal Foundation Open tees off in Thunder Bay

More than 150 professional golfers from around the world are taking to the Whitewater Country Club course in Thunder Bay this week for the annual Staal Foundation Open.

The week-long event is both a stop on the PGA Tour Canada's Mackenzie Tour, and a community-based charitable event that raises funds for three local charities.

"It's top-notch," Eric Staal of the Staal Family Foundation said of the event. "It's gotten better every single year. It's become imprinted, I think, in the community, and that's what we envisioned when we started, was being able to give back to some great organizations through our foundation, and we've been able to do that."

The tour raises funds for Camp Quality, The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation and Northwestern Ontario Families of Children with Cancer.

"It's been a great partnership so far," Staal said.

Road to the PGA

The Staal Foundation Open is the sixth stop on the PGA Tour Canada's Mackenzie Tour.

"We launched the Mackenzie Tour in 2013," said tour president Jeff Monday. "We had made a significant change on the pathway to get to the PGA Tour, with all access coming from how you performed on the Web.com Tour."

The top players on the Mackenzie Tour earn a spot on the Web.com Tour, Monday said.

"The depth of play that we have out here just continues to get better and better every year," he said. "We've already had two players that started with us that have gone on to win on the PGA Tour — Nick Taylor and Tony Finau — and they're, I think, just the tip of the iceberg."

The opening ceremonies got underway Monday, just before the rain started coming down.

Monday saw the celebrity pro-am, which included a number of celebrities from the sporting world, including Eric, Marc, Jordan and Jared Staal, Bobby Orr, Grant Fuhr, Carter Hutton, Al Hackner and TSN's Gino Reda.

The Staal Foundation Open tournament itself begins on Thursday, with finals slated for Sunday.