FOR RELEASE: May 31, 2023
CONTACT: Jay Fawler, PGA TOUR Canada, jayfawler@pgatourintl.ca, 519-817-7336
Tim Garbutt, Executive Director, Fortinet Cup Championship, tim@fortinetcupchampionship.com

Excitement builds as Fortinet Cup Championship announces  official charity partner for PGA TOUR Canada’s flagship event

Tournament will support Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids

CALGARY, Alberta—PGA TOUR Canada’s Fortinet Cup Championship officially announced Wednesday that it has named its 2023 charity partner for the season-ending event at Country Hills Golf Club. Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids will benefit from proceeds generated by the tournament scheduled for September 4-10, 2023.

As the previous site of the ATB Classic, from 2016-19, Country Hills is no stranger to PGA TOUR Canada golf. The respected Thomas McBroom-designed Talons Course will venture into new territory in 2023 as the host of the limited-field, season-ending tournament. That week the Fortinet Cup Championship will ultimately decide which five players receive 2024 Korn Ferry Tour membership and who wins the Fortinet Cup and Player of the Year honours. Along with the new site is the core of the Fortinet Cup Championship, which is charitable giving and supporting the community. Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids is a local organization that provides nutritious food for school-age kids. Every day, volunteers come together and prepare healthy lunches that are delivered to schools in every quadrant of the city.

“The PGA TOUR as a whole and PGA TOUR Canada has a long history of charitable giving. We are extremely proud of all the good work PGA TOUR Canada and its tournaments have been able to accomplish with giving back a primary goal. Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids joins a long list of worthwhile organizations that will recognize and understand what it means for a community to host a PGA TOUR Canada tournament—in this case the Fortinet Cup Championship,” said Scott Pritchard, PGA TOUR Canada Executive Director. “We are genuinely looking forward to completing our season in Calgary.”

“As the number of kids in our city who go to school without enough food continues to grow daily, we are working diligently to ensure that every student who needs food receives it,” said Bethany Ross, Executive Director, Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids. “The impact that hunger and a lack of proper nutrition have on kids’ energy levels, problem-solving skills, creativity and concentration is life-altering. We want kids to focus on their learning and not on a hungry stomach. As a community-funded organization, we rely on the generosity of our community and partners like PGA TOUR Canada and Fortinet to ensure every kid has access to the food they need to thrive.”

“As the top cybersecurity vendor in Canada, Fortinet invests in community efforts and organizations that align with our corporate social responsibilities. As part of this work, Fortinet is designating the proceeds from the Fortinet Cup Championship to benefit Brown Bagging for Kids, a local non-profit organization focusing on helping underprivileged children,” said Gordon Phillips, Vice President of Western Canada at Fortinet. “We’re continuing to drive innovation through our partnership with PGA TOUR Canada initiatives, which will ultimately benefit our customers, the local community and non-profit organizations across Canada.”

Tournament Director Tim Garbutt is excited as all facets of the Fortinet Cup Championship coming together, with the season culminating at the tournament he oversees.

“The fact Country Hills is a proven PGA TOUR Canada venue only serves to make our jobs easier as we prepare for the culminating tournament of the season,” Garbutt said. “We know the Country Hills staff will have the course in first-rate condition, and PGA TOUR Canada officials will set up a fair and challenging test of golf. Meanwhile, our staff will make sure all the amenities are in place for a memorable week at one of Alberta’s pre-eminent golf facilities.”

The closing event of the PGA TOUR Canada season has traditionally been held in Ontario, but following an extensive site selection process, Country Hills became the clear location choice due the quality of the course and associated facilities, its history with the Tour and the anticipated late-summer mild weather typically found in Canada’s third-largest city.

Prior to the Fortinet Cup Championship, Tour players will compete in nine tournaments that make up the 2023 Fortinet Cup season. After those nine tournaments, the top-60 points-earners will gather at Country Hills to close the year in a no-cut event. A year ago, in Kitchener, in the Fortinet Cup’s first season, Canadian Wil Bateman not only won the Fortinet Cup Championship but the overall Fortinet Cup, as well, claiming Player of the Year honours and earning a full 2023 Korn Ferry Tour exemption. Early in his first Korn Ferry Tour season, Bateman tied for fourth at both The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic and The Panama Championship, in January and early February, respectively. Bateman is currently 28th on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List.

“Wil is a great example of what winning the Fortinet Cup can do for a player heading to the Korn Ferry Tour. With guaranteed starts in every open Korn Ferry Tour event by virtue of his Player of the Year honour, he is taking full advantage of this opportunity,” Pritchard added. “Undoubtedly, our PGA TOUR Canada players this season will look at the example Wil has set and try to replicate what he achieved in such a successful 2022 campaign.”

For information about the Fortinet Cup Championship, including a schedule of events, volunteering, sponsorship and more, visit fortinetcupchampionship.com

About PGA TOUR Canada

PGA TOUR Canada is a series of tournaments played primarily in Canada each summer, where tomorrow’s stars begin the path to the PGA TOUR. The leading points-earners at the end of each season earn status on the Korn Ferry Tour for the following season. PGA TOUR Canada’s mission is to deliver a PGA TOUR experience for our members, fans, volunteers and its partners in order to develop the future stars of professional golf and enrich the communities the Tour visits.

About Fortinet

Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) makes possible a digital world that we can always trust through its mission to protect people, devices, and data everywhere. This is why the world’s largest enterprises, service providers, and government organizations choose Fortinet to securely accelerate their digital journey. The Fortinet Security Fabric platform delivers broad, integrated, and automated protections across the entire digital attack surface, securing critical devices, data, applications, and connections from the data center to the cloud to the home office. Ranking #1 in the most security appliances shipped worldwide, more than 615,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. And the Fortinet NSE Training Institute, an initiative of Fortinet’s Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), provides one of the largest and broadest training programs in the industry to make cyber training and new career opportunities available to everyone. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.

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