“Living the dream” is an adage used these days but often with a subtly sarcastic and ironic twinge associated with it if things aren’t all that.
At Uplands Golf Club this week there are 156 hopefuls also chasing the dream, which can sometimes seem a long way off in the PGA Tour Americas, when you are two steps away from living the dream in the big-time PGA Tour. It is so close yet so far.
At stake through the US$225,000 Digital Commerce Group Open, with two tournaments after this remaining in the 2026 PGA Tour Americas season, are the spots into the 2027 Korn Ferry Tour. It’s the level below the PGA Tour in the pro golf ladder, and spots will go to the top-10 finishers in the season points standings.
The first round at Uplands tees off Thursday with golfers representing bookends of the chase, some veterans mixed with relative newcomers to the pro trail.
Chris Crawford of Philadelphia, out of NCAA Div. 1 hometown Drexel University, has been at it awhile at 32, while Ben Warian, out of his home-state NCAA Big Ten University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, is in his second year of the pro hunt.
“I will run it to the end of the line,” said Crawford.
“I keep making jokes that I’m one of the older guys out here in my eighth year of pro golf. There are so many young guys now. The quality of play on this tour is really high, as a bunch of guys have proven.”
Case in point is last year’s PGA Tour Americas season points champion Michael Brennan, who was tied for fifth in the 2025 Victoria Open tournament. He graduated to win two events this year on the 2026 PGA Tour and play in all four majors.
“The guys on this tour can compete at the highest level and they have proven that,” said Crawford. He is 55th in this year’s PGA Tour Americas season standings, and has made 28 cuts in his 39 career appearances on the Tour.
“It’s getting tougher to win and these fields are really good, and getting better every year.”
Warian, 24, is a representative of the newer wave of aspirants and had an inkling he was good enough to pursue the pro dream when he placed in the top-25 of the 2024 NCAA championship during his senior year with the Golden Gophers.
“It’s exciting to be able to chase the pro game,” said Warian.
“Especially since I was a late bloomer and kind of snuck my way onto that Minnesota team [as a freshman] and had to put in a lot of hours and really only started to get good in my junior and senior years.”
Warian was named to the Big Ten conference second all-star team in his senior year and it was then that the idea struck him: “The belief really began at that point, that the work I had put in could lead me to something like being here in the pro game.”
Warian received a sponsor’s exemption in 2024 into his first PGA Tour event, the home-state 3M Open in Blaine, Minnesota, and followed up with a place in the 2025 PGA Tour Puerto Rico Open, and the ultimate goal is to get back to that level on a permanent basis. He knows it will be a grind, but with perks.
“The competition week in and week out is tough but fantastic and you get to travel to so many beautiful places like Victoria,” said Warian, who is 48th in the 2026 PGA Tour Americas season standings.
Leading this year’s PGA Tour Americas points parade heading into the Digital Commerce Group Open is Thomas Ponder out of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide.
The Victoria pro tournament began in 1981 and this year is the third-to-last stop in the 15-event 2026 PGA Tour Americas season, before it closes out with the ATB Classic in Edmonton from Sept. 17-20 and the PGA Oceans 4 Tour Championship in the Dominican Republic.
The PGA Tour Canada and PGA Tour Latinoamérica merged to form PGA Tour Americas in 2023. The former Canadian Tour became PGA Tour Canada in 2013, with 67 PGA Tour Canada alumni having advanced to play on the PGA Tour over the past decade with 29 PGA Tour victories between them. More than 300 PGA Tour Canada alumni have gone on to play on the Korn Ferry Tour since 2013 with more than 50 victories among them.
TEE-OFFS: Elbows up as several of the starters on the tee boxes were wearing Team Canada hockey jerseys during Wednesday’s pro-am at Uplands. … Among the amateurs teeing off in the pro-am were University of Victoria Vikes national basketball championship dynasty era star guard Craig Higgins and former world snooker champion Cliff Thorburn of Victoria. … First tee time Thursday in the opening round is 7 a.m. and the last at 2:27 p.m. The cut will be made following the second round Friday with the third round Saturday and final round Sunday.
