When it came time to rejig the PGA Tour schedule—the primary motivation being to finish the FedEx Cup before the U.S. pro and college football seasons began to suck TV viewers and spectators away—not everybody was going to be happy with their new dates. Fortunately for Golf Canada and the Canadian Open, title sponsor RBC carries a little more weight than most. Lord knows where the Canadian Open would be without RBC, much less whether the Heritage on Hilton Head Island, S.C., would even exist had RBC not swooped in to rescue that sponsorless post-Major event (it follows the Masters) in 2012.

So it was expected that when the Tour released its new schedule in July, the Canadian Open was going to get a respectful pat on the back and escape its dreadful date immediately following the Open Championship. Thankfully, it did. Its new spot on the calendar isn’t perfect—the week immediately before the U.S. Open—but it’s a hell of a lot better than trying to lure players directly back from the U.K., and it should guarantee an easier job of star player recruitment for new tournament director Bryan Crawford.

Of course, RBC always promises a handful of fan-drawing names thanks to its Team RBC ambassadors, which include Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Jim Furyk and Brandt Snedeker, among others, not to mention the company’s LPGA star roster. It also helped RBC’s cause with the announcement that they were upping the purse beginning with next year’s Canadian Open at Hamilton G&CC—from $6.2 million US to $7.6 million US.

The preferred date will also kick in next year, and, to come back to the original point, that’s something that would not be the case had RBC played a lesser role on Tour. While “every title sponsor we have is hugely important,” according to Andy Pazder, Chief Tournaments and Competitions Officer with the PGA Tour, some sponsors are different. How special is RBC? The Tour actually announced the RBC Canadian Open’s new date at a July 3 press conference at Glen Abbey GC—a few days before they officially released their 2018-19 schedule.

“RBC is only one of three companies that sponsor multiple PGA Tour events (along with AT&T and Zurich/Farmers). So that is a factor,” suggests Pazder. “But it’s not just a question of dollars and cents; it’s about sponsors who are thoroughly engaged, and I can’t think of another sponsor who is as engaged in their support of our golf tournaments as RBC. “So as we went through the process of our (tournament sponsor) extension discussions two or three years ago, it was clear to us that we could provide this tournament an opportunity to continue to grow,” adds Pazder. “It sounds cliché-ish—great tournaments and great dates—but we’ve watched what RBC has done to help grow the event, and we’ve watched Golf Canada evolve and embrace the modern-day PGA Tour tournament, and how they’re trying to attract new fans and to still appease their core fans. That can be a huge challenge in our sport. Our average demographic is aging. As with any company—whether it’s a sports league, a sports team, a global brand like RBC—you’re trying to figure out how to connect to your next generation, the millennials. And to watch how RBC and Golf Canada have approached that—not just in the Great Toronto Area but in South Carolina—they’ve made it very clear to us that they have earned the opportunity to have this new date.”