TORONTO, Canada—PGA TOUR Canada announced Thursday that Fortinet, a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions based in Sunnyvale, California, will sponsor the Tour’s season-long points competition, the Fortinet Cup, an agreement that begins this season and runs through 2026.
The Fortinet Cup will mirror the competitive structure of the points-based competitions on the PGA TOUR, PGA TOUR Champions and PGA TOUR Latinoamérica. Through the sponsorship, the Fortinet Cup will offer a new $100,000 player bonus pool—with $25,000 to the winner—to the top Fortinet Cup points-winners who earn membership on the 2023 Korn Ferry Tour, with the No. 1-ranked player at the end of the season eligible to play in every open Korn Ferry Tour tournament the following season. The Fortinet Cup winner will also be exempt into the PGA TOUR’s 2023 RBC Canadian Open. The players finishing in the second-through-fifth positions earn Korn Ferry Tour membership, while Korn Ferry Tour benefits are available to those finishing sixth through 10th.
Fortinet will also be the title sponsor of the Tour’s season-ending and flagship event, starting this season, the Fortinet Cup Championship, taking place September 15-18 at Deer Ridge Golf Club in Kitchener, Ontario.
“We are extremely excited to partner with Fortinet as PGA TOUR Canada returns to a full schedule,” said Scott Pritchard, the Tour’s Executive Director. “The Fortinet Cup will give players a week-to-week gauge of how they’re doing, with significant benefits available to them thanks to Fortinet. It will certainly be fitting that the points chase culminates at the Fortinet Cup Championship in Ontario. We have an exciting season ahead of us and are extremely happy to make this announcement and begin this partnership.”
“Fortinet is excited to partner with the PGA TOUR Canada as both our organizations are committed to trust and creating exceptional experiences—ensuring players and customers are set up for success to overcome even the most trying conditions and challenges,” said John Maddison, Executive Vice President of Products and Chief Marketing Officer at Fortinet. “This partnership will benefit our community, customers and local nonprofit organizations. We look forward to hosting the Fortinet Cup Championship in Ontario.”
Charitable giving will also be part of the partnership, proceeds from official PGA TOUR Canada Fortinet Cup tournaments will benefit nonprofit organizations in the areas of science, technology, energy, mathematics (STEM), women, military veterans and minorities in the 11 host cities of the competition.
“As the premier sponsor of PGA TOUR Canada, we look forward to further educating and supporting companies, government and educational institutions on the importance of cybersecurity. As the largest cybersecurity vendor in Canada, Fortinet can use its deep expertise in cybersecurity, innovation and training to address the increasing number of challenges and threats they face,” added Marc Asturias, Vice President of Marketing and Government Vertical at Fortinet Latin America and Canada. “These initiatives further Fortinet’s vision to make possible a digital world that organizations can always trust by securing people, devices and data everywhere.”
Fortinet’s mission is to make possible a digital world that organizations can always trust. Fortinet delivers the most innovative, highest-performing network security fabric to secure and simplify organizations’ IT infrastructures. Fortinet is a leading global provider of network security and SD-WAN, switching and wireless access, network access control, authentication, public and private cloud security, endpoint security, and AI-driven advanced threat protection solutions for carriers, data centers, enterprises, and distributed offices.
From its inception, in 2013, PGA TOUR Canada used a money-list ranking to determine its top players. It planned on switching to a Points List in 2020 until the global pandemic forced the Tour to cancel its last two seasons. Previous money-list winners include current PGA TOUR players Paul Barjon (2019), Tyler McCumber (2018), Kramer Hickok (2017), J.J. Spaun (2015), Joel Dahmen (2014) and Mackenzie Hughes (2013).
Next week, PGA TOUR Canada will announce its 2022 schedule, which will begin in early June and conclude with the Fortinet Cup Championship in mid-September.