BlogCanadian Open Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

I don’t know with all of the delays and the inconsistent weather if we call last week’ British Open great.  It did have a lot of drama in the final round and they got a great champion in Zach Johnson.  What a gutsy final round, he played like a true champ making the right shots and putts at the right time.

Hats off to Jordan Spieth, boy he made a great run, only getting derailed with that four putt on 8 and his missed par putt at 17.  As we sit back and realize all of the accomplishments that Spieth has done, we wonder if he is that good, or some teenage superstar that really doesn’t know that much.  He turns 22 this week and has shown us a game we haven’t seen since Tiger Woods.  But it took Woods 12 years before he showed being human in the majors, when Y.E. Yang got the best of him at Hazeltine during the 1999 PGA.

We don’t know what the deal with Rory McIlroy really is, fellow countryman Darren Clarke let it slip out last week during the British Golf Writers dinner that Rory will not be back until the start of the year, so we really don’t know what to expect.  I for one don’t think we will see him for Bridgestone and the PGA Championship, guess we will have to wait on news from McIlroy.

As I travel down from Belfast to Dublin for a week of golf, I wonder is Jordan better than Rory?  Yes McIlroy is inconsistent, with big streaks of great play, but he can also play like a stinker at times.  But the question in the next year is if Jordan could be better?  His game looks great now, but when he gets older and wiser and realizes some of the things he is doing, maybe he won’t be that good.  This happened to Hal Sutton, who played great when he was young and naïve and the older he got with more experience the harder it was for him.  Who knows, could happen to Jordan.

We are entering the end of the season and I think that Spieth has wrapped up player of the year honors.  I also think he will be number one in the next month.  Schedule gets crazy, in the next nine weeks we will have a major in the PGA Championship, a WGC event in Bridgestone, then the four FedExcup playoff events.  Oh if that’s not enough, two weeks after the Tour Championship is the Presidents Cup, have to think not many players from America is looking forward to that trip and week of golf in South Korea.

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the RBC Canadian Open:

Key stat for the winner:

Those that have played the course before will have a slight edge but the key to the course will be for those to manage the par 4s.  With the 16th playing as a par 4 in 2004 instead of a par 5, it was the 11th toughest hole on the PGA Tour in 2004.  In 2009 as a par 5 it was the 896th rank hole that year on the PGA Tour (out of 918) showing how much easier it is as a par 5.  The 14th hole was the 10th hardest hole on the PGA Tour in 2004 and the 48th hardest in 2009 as it played to a 4.276 average. Both holes will be important for the winner to master.

Here are some more key stats to look to for this week:

• Over the years Glen Abbey got a reputation as a long hitters kind of course, but if you look at all of the champions since 1990 all but Greg Norman, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh were short hitters.  Another thing, most of the winners at Glen Abbey fade the ball, that makes sense since five of the six holes that bend go to the right, a Jack Nicklaus design trait.
• Greens are contoured and well bunkered which means that those that scramble will do very well.</li>
• Putting seems to be the key to success at Glen Abbey.  Those that have putted well tend to get the nod over players that hit lots of greens.  So a good putter and scrambler will prevail this week.
• With the last hole being a par 5, it has produced some wild finishes over the years. Final hole birdies were made by Greg Norman in 1992 to get into a playoff, and by David Frost (’93) and Nick Price (’94) to win by one.  ’98 was the most bizarre finish with Andrade winning the playoff with a par, while in  ’99 Hal Sutton birdied the hole three times and made par it in the final round.  2000 will always be tops on the highlight reel for Tiger Woods hitting the prettiest shot from a fairway bunker over the lake to made birdie and nip Grath Waite by a shot while in 2004 Vijay Singh made a birdie, Mike Weir didn’t which forced a playoff which Singh won.  In 2008 Chez Reavie played the hole in three under, including a birdie in the final round, an accomplishment that most of the winners achieve in the final round.
• The last time that the Canadian Open was held at Glen Abbey in 2013 Brandt Sneaker won.  Unfortunately he withdrew this week.  Before that, Nathan Green was a first time winner in 2009 when the Canadian Open was held at Glen Abbey.  Chez Reavie was also a first time PGA Tour winner in 2008, the last time a first-time winner prevailed at the Canadian Open was in 2002 and previous to that was in 1996 when Dudley Hart won and before that it was in 1981 when Peter Oosterhuis won.  So the RBC Canadian Open at Glen Abbey has favored non-winners, a trend that could continue this year.
• Now we tend to forget that this is the national open of Canada but it’s been a while since a Canadian has one it, you have to go back to 1954 when Pat Fletcher won it.  Mike Weir came close to winning in 2004, only to give up a lead on the final holes and then lose a playoff to Vijay Singh.  Other than that it’s been a bit bare as Dave Barr finished T4th in 1988, while David Morland IV finished T5th in 2001.   Now Weir has always been the sentimental choice of this event, but for the first time since 1991 Weir won’t be in the field as he still has the injury with his elbow. There will be 16 Canadians in the field some of the other Canadians in the field are: Graham DeLaet, Adam Hadwin, Nick Taylor, Brad Fritsch and David Hearn. Again the big question will be if a Canadian can come to the fro-front this year, 2004 did bring a lot of excitment with Weir almost winning.
• One last thing, after a couple of weeks of indifferent weather, the Canadian Open will have great weather with clear skies and good temperatures.  Only thing, the winds could be blowing in the afternoon all four days.