BlogRBC Canadian Open Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

Another great British Open, on a scale of 1 to 100 it had to be a 99.  When Jordan Spieth went on his tear in 2015, many said he could be the next Tiger Woods.  Frankly I don’t think my generation will ever see another Tiger, but Jordan is showing that he could be the best and maybe the most consistent active major player.  We have seen that injuries have played havoc on both Rory McIlory and Jason Day, while Dustin Johnson is very good but he has his moments like at Erin Hills missing the cut.  But since 2014, Jordan has played in 15 majors only missing one cut but finishing in the top-five, 7 times.  What makes him so good is his putting, when he gets the flat-stick rolling like he did on the back nine Sunday, you have no chance against him as Matt Kuchar found out on Sunday at Birkdale.

Last year Henrik Stenson’s final round 63 could of been one of the best final rounds in the majors.  On Sunday after making bogey at 13, one of the greatest bogeys you will ever see, Jordan went on a tear playing his last five holes in five under par.  In most recent major history (say the last 50 years or so) I can only remember one other memorable finish and that was when Charl Schwartzel birdied the last 4 holes in the 2011 Masters to win by 2 shots.  What Jordan did after making bogey at 13, which turned out to be a tremendous psychological lift for him to propel him to such a great finish.  The finish also showed that  Jordan could be the closet to having the same final nine flair that Arnold Palmer had.  In the same respect after losing the 2016 Masters with a quad at 12, it reminds us of how Jordan could be as spectacular as Palmer was in losing majors too.  Tiger Woods may of won 14 majors, but only a couple of them were truly exciting, most of Tiger’s wins was because of his steady play over 72 holes and having that casual, trouble free final round to hold onto victory.

As good as Jordan was, there always has to be someone that suffers the defeat and that was Matt Kuchar who has now played 34 straight majors with 9 top-ten finishes.  This had to be the closets and when leaving the press room on Sunday night with his two sons and wife, I could see a tear in his eyes as they walked off together after his press conference.  It was a cruel way for him to lose, after he made par at 13, he had a one shot lead over Jordan.  He played his next four holes in 2 under par and went to the 18th tee 1 down, losing 3 shots in that stretch.  He may of bogey the last hole, but when Jordan hit a good drive at 18, Kuchar knew it was all over.  The media has given Rickie Fowler the title best active player to not win the major, but I would say that Matt Kuchar is neck to neck with Rickie.  Both have just not gotten the right break at the right time to win.  Hey we saw that for 15 years with Sergio, he never got that right break until he won the Masters this year.

So does that mean that either Kuchar or Fowler could break their streaks of losing majors at the PGA Championship?  For Kuchar it probably won’t happen at Quail Hollow, he has played in 6 Wells Fargo Championships and his best finish is T-51st in 2003.  It seems the course doesn’t set up for him missing three cuts in his six starts and frankly he has given up, not playing at Quail Hollow since 2010.  Of course we saw the same thing from Tiger on some courses like Muirfield Village, thought he would never win there and look what happened, he won five times there.  So anything could happen and maybe Matt falls in love with the course when he returns.  As for Rickie, he has a great record at Quail Hollow in his six starts, he won in 2012, was T-4th in 2016 and 6th in 2010.  So anything can happen.

Oh before we finish with the majors we have to access Jordan Spieth’s chances at the PGA Championship.  Just like with Kuchar the course has not been friendly to Jordan who has only played at Quail Hollow once finishing T-32nd in 2013.  Still you know he will be primed and ready to go in two weeks as he tries to complete the major slam and at 24 would become the youngest to win all four majors.

One thing that I am certain on, with Jordan’s British win he will probably be the Player of the Year.  Along with his wins at Pebble and the Travelers it would probably take a win by Garcia or Brooks Koepka at the PGA Championship or possibly winning the FedExCup for Spieth not to win Player of the Year.  Of course anything is possible since there is still seven weeks of golf left with a major, a WGC event and four FedExCup tournaments left on the calendar.

Before we move on have to talk about this week’s Canadian Open.  First played in 1904 only the British Open, U.S. Open and BMW (old Western Open) are older.  To think that 107 have been played and for the treatment it gets on the PGA Tour is cruel.  It has always been saddled with a tough date and this week has to be the worst.  With the British Open last week, the WGC-Bridgestone next week and then the following week the PGA Championship it means a four week commitment for the top players to attend this week.  This is why of the marquee players in golf we only see Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Charley Hoffman and Bubba Watson playing this week.  Making things harder for Golf Canada, the tournament’s governing body, is the future.  They made a commitment to take the tournament all around Canada to other clubs in other parts of the country, but at the end of the day Glen Abbey is the course best suited to hold the tournament.  So for the 3rd year in a row and for the 4th time in five years it returns to Glen Abbey the favorite venue of the modern day Canadian Open.

But things look grey in the future.  Glen Abbey will probably hold the tournament again next year but after that nobody can tell.  The company that owns it, ClubLink has filed papers to close the course and replace the 230 acres with 3,000 homes.  Now this may not happen for several years as there is many that don’t want to see Glen Abbey plowed up and turned into a development.  And if that’s not enough of a problem, there is rumors that it’s on a short list by the PGA Tour to end, so that they can reduce the schedule for a Labor Day finish.  So even if the tournament holds on, the fact is that it may have to endure terrible dates like it does now and we may never see a Canadian Open that has most of the top players attending.  It’s a shame but the facts of life, there are so many really good tournaments and very little time to allow them to have their moment of glory on the PGA Tour.

I feel really sorry for all of this, even I can’t devote my full time in doing this tournament justice.  Since I traveled from Southport, England to Dublin, Ireland on Monday, I am up early on Tuesday doing this preview.  I am officially on vacation the moment I press send on this preview and will enjoy two days at my golf Club, the European Club before I am off to France for four days.  I fly home to Virginia from Paris on Monday and on Tuesday my wife and I move into a new home.  With the kids off to college it’s time to get rid of the big home for a smaller one and unfortunately the timing couldn’t be worst.  Since we sold it and the folks wanted to settle on August 1st, it meant getting another house on the 1st.  Since the Ireland and France trip was planned and paid for back in March, it was impossible to change.  So I will try my best to get all of the tournaments entered on Sunday and try to post some sort of preview for the WGC-Bridgestone. Sorry to say no DraftKings this week and may not be another one till the PGA Championship.  Promise to get regular on it again when my crazy schedule settles down. So if I am a bit late, apologies in advance for my crazy last six weeks and the craziness of the next three weeks.  Oh I do want to thank my wife Debi who will do most of the packing and I do feel bad that the timing worked out this way.

Let’s take a look at key stats that are important for those playing at Glen Abbey:

This is based on the most vital stats from Glen Abbey, based on data from last year’s RBC Canadian Open and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2017.

Even though this event tries to move around to different courses in Canada, Glen Abbey has been used 9 times since 1998 and it looks certain that the event will return to the Abbey in 2018. So players have a good idea how to play the course.

The course is Jack Nicklaus first effort by himself. It’s very well loved by PGA Tour players who find the course challenging off the tee, but easy to score. Last year the course played to a 71.54 average, half a shot under par. It ranked 14th hardest on tour. One thing that really sticks out is that players have to drive it straight and the course can’t be overpowered. It has a very unusual finish as three of the final 6 holes are par 5, so scoring tends to come late. Even though four of the last six holes are the easiest on the course, the par 4, 14th was the hardest hole on the course and the 10th hardest hole on tour at 4.422 while the par 4, 17th hole was the 2nd hardest and 40th hardest on tour with a 4.308 average. So the finish isn’t a complete lay up.

One thing that the players will have to worry about is the weather. In looking at the forecast for Glen Abbey it’s going to be perfect everyday except for Thursady which has a 80% chance of thunderstorms. Other than that every other day is perfect with temperatures in the mid-70s, low humidity and low winds. So the scores will probably be low.

The question is if every phase of the game will be examined at Glen Abbey? Not really, yes it’s tough off the tee but then pretty easy with greens that are true and not that tough. It’s a course that anybody that plays it will have a chance to win.

So in looking at our four categories, our first is Fairway Accuracy. It’s what makes this course tough and last year Glen Abbey ranked 3rd hardest on tour, so you have to be straight to play well. Next up is Greens in Regulation, Glen Abbey ranked 4th and you better be good with your irons to the greens. Our third stat is Strokes Gained Putting, we chose that because Glen Abbey was easy in all putting stats including putting average were it ranked T-31st. So look for good putter to do well. Last is birdie average, lot’s of birdies are made with the average being 3.47 per player which ranked 25th on tour in 2016.

So how did last year’s champion, Jhonattan Vegas do under our categories? In fairway accuracy, Vegas was wild compared to the others in the field, ranking T-55th. He did do much better in Greens hit, ranking T-3rd. In strokes gained putting he was 29th while in birdie average he was T-1st

So I know the field isn’t the best, but this tournament has a lot of history and is played on a really great course so we will have a great finish.

*Fairway Accuracy: The percentage of time a tee shot comes to rest in the fairway

*Greens in Regulation: The percent of time a player was able to hit the green in regulation

*Strokes Gained Putting: The number of putts a player takes from a specific distance is measured against a statistical baseline to determine the player’s strokes gained or lost on a hole.

*Birdie Average: Average number of birdies made during a round.

Here are the 128 of the 156 players from this year’s field with stats from 2017:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.

Here is the link to the full 128 players in this chart:

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  In 2015 it was the 920th hardest hole on tour (out of 936) playing to a 4.457 avearge.  Last year it was the 892nd hardest hole with a 4.370 average.  On the other hand, 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.  In 2015 it was the 47th hardest hole on Tour at 4.282 while last year it was the 10th hardest on tour with a 4.422 average. Both holes will be important for the winner to master.  Both of these holes will hold the key to a winners score.  In 2015 Jason Day played the 14th hole in 1 over and the 16th hole in 3 under.  The real key for Day winning, he played 16, 17 and 18 in 10 under par.  The same for last year’s winner Jhonattan Vegas.  He played the 14th hole in 2 over and the 16th in 3 under.  For the week Vegas played 15, 16, 17 and 18 in 4 under par.

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 Jason Day, Greg Norman, Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh were short hitters.  But you can add Jhonattan Vegas to the list of long drivers to win at Glen Abbey.  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.
• 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.  In 2015 Jason Day birdied the final hole to win by a shot over Bubba Watson.  The 18th hole proved to be kind to Day as he made three birdies and a eagle on the hole.  Now last year Jhonattan Vegas pulled off a miracle finish of making birdies on 16, 17 and 18 for a one shot win over Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Martin Laird.
• With a field that isn’t loaded with marquee names I would say a first time winner is very probable.  The last three winners Jhonattan Vegas, Jason Day and Brandt Sneaker weren’t first time winners but the past has been loaded with them. 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, and wasn’t in the field last year due to his elbow problems.  He is back this year but the odds on him just making the cut isn’t very high.  So who could be the Canadian with the best change of winning?  Of the 13 in the field, Adam Hadwin is the highest ranked, being 55th in the Official World Rankings.  Next best is Mackenzie Hughes at 112th followed by Nick Taylor at 194.  After that it’s David Hearn ranked 198th and then falls down to 537th with Brad Fritsch.  What do I think of a Canadian winner?  I don’t see it happening this year because none of the Canadians are playing well right now, but you never know.