BlogRBC Canadian Open Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

A bit weird, but on the anniversary of LIV Golf’s first event last year in London, the golfing world got some shocking news that the LIV Tour would merge with the PGA and DP World Tour. It was a big surprise to all, crediting both sides for keeping this a secret for so long.

The deal’s ramifications are still sketchy and may be that way for a few days or weeks. Now the first thing that people should be aware of is that this deal was not between the Tours and LIV Golf, but the tour dealt with the Public Investment fund of the Saudi government. These are the people who put up the money to keep LIV Golf running. In reading the tea leaves of the deal, this isn’t like the NFL and the AFL merging in 1966 when the two leagues combined their teams for an even bigger league. What will happen in this merger is the end of LIV golf at some time in the future. The folks paying for LIV Golf will now reallocate the money to pay the PGA Tour, DP Tour, and others to improve their product.

We don’t know how this deal came about or why; basically, it was like the government debt ceiling deal last week in which the two sides got together and concluded that each had to compromise for the product’s good. Will all the tours be better off with this arrangement? Absolutely.  But with this significant investment by the Saudi government, will it be considered “Sportswashing?”

What about the players? There has been a spit among a lot of players over this. How does a player like Hideki Matsuyama feel about saying no to LIV Golf to the tune of between $150 to $300 million not to join LIV Golf and stay loyal to the PGA Tour? How does Rory McIlroy, who has been the face of the PGA Tour for these months, see all of his time and effort wasted? Come next year, when players like Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia, and Patrick Reed can rejoin the PGA Tour, how will some of the players who said no to LIV golf feel?

Is this best for golf? On the surface, a lot of money will now be available for the players, but will the money feel dirty coming from the Saudi government and its human rights record? In the days of the Roman Coliseum, they called it “Bread and Circuses,” leaders used the superficial appeal of entertainment to distract citizens from genuine problems. The PGA Tour isn’t the first Organization to take money from a source with poor human rights issues. Last December, the World Cup was played in Qatar, another country with a poor record in human rights. In the last decade, the Olympics were played in Russia and China; many felt that shouldn’t have happened.

Now for the PGA Tour, is it the right deal to make? It now became apparent that more money was going out than coming in, so finances had a part of this deal. But how will companies like AT&T, Charles Schwab, John Deere, or Travelers have problems with this deal? The PGA Tour has over a hundred different companies they do business with. Will they feel they can’t be a part of all this?

It’s good that all of this looks like it’s concluding. Personally, I would shake my head over the appeal of LIV golf. I found it more of an exhibition than a contest. Tournaments on the PGA Tour have a history behind them that never happened with LIV golf. Does anyone know who won LIV Golf London last year? Or even better, does anyone know who won LIV Golf DC just two weeks ago?

Will golf miss LIV Golf? Probably not; I know that I will not miss it.

RBC Canadian Open

First played in 1904, only the British Open, U.S. Open, and BMW (old Western Open) are older.  To think that 109 have been played, the good news is that with a great sponsor of RBC, along with a list of great courses that will hold the tournament, this will turn into a more important tournament in future years.

Course information:

• Oakdale G&CC
• Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• 7,264 yards     Par 36-36–72

Another hidden gem, Oakdale Golf, and Country Club, is one of Canada’s premier country club.  It is one of the most expensive Clubs to join in Canada. The club was founded in 1926 by members of Toronto’s Jewish community.  The renowned Canadian golf course architect Stanley Thompson designed the original 18 holes. His disciple, Robbie Robinson, added nine holes in 1957. Today, the course features three distinct nines: the Thompson, the Homenuik (the longest of the three nines named after the club’s longtime teaching professional Wilf Homenuik), and the Knudson, named in honor of eight-time PGA Tour winner George Knudson. Oakdale is the 37th course in the 117-year history of the Canadian Open to host the tournament, the third oldest continuously run event on the PGA Tour.  For the championship, it will be a composite of the three nines.  The first four holes are off the Thompson nine, while holes 5 through 9 are off the Homenuik nine.  For the back nine, the tournament will use the nine holes off the Knudson course.

In 2018 Ian Andrew oversaw renovation removing trees to open up views, restoring bunkers, and altering Robinson’s nine to make it more in line with Thompson’s vision of the property.  There are 57 bunkers on the course.  The average green size is small, about 6,000 square feet.  The Black Creek runs throughout the property crossing through seven of the tournament holes. For this week, the average fairway widths in landing areas are 25 yards wide.  This is the first year the course has hosted the Canadian Open, which will return in 2026.

This week is the first of two weeks going to some of the highest-end courses in the world that have not seen any action on the PGA Tour since World War II.  This will be the first big-time event for Oakdale.  Next week the U.S. Open goes to Los Angeles Country Club, which is in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate in the world, Beverly Hills.  Los Angeles C.C. was the home of the inaugural Los Angeles Open in 1926 and held that event on it in 1934, ’35, ’36, and 1940.

For more information on Oakdale, look at vital stats that will be important for Oakdale this week.

For the 156 players in the field, Oakdale Golf and Country Club will be a new adventure as most of the players have never seen the course. So we are taking some guesses on what will make the course play hard and try to match vital stats from 2023 to see which players will be suited to play the best this week.
Oakdale is a unique course that will be perfect for the PGA Tour. Located smack nab near the center of the Greater Toronto Area and is just 11 miles from the Rogers Centre. Most of the time, when a club is located in a crowded area, it’s hard to find proper infrastructure, but that isn’t the case with Adele. With 27 holes and a lot of land around it, the course is big enough to not only hold a major golf championship but has enough room to place the driving range on two of the unused holes and then take the members driving range and turn it into a music venue for Friday and Saturday night concerts with Canadian icon Alanis Morissette and Black Eyed Peas perform.
The course is a composite that had a major renovation in 2017 when Ian Andrew gave the course a face-lift. It was a multimillion-dollar revitalization. The biggest project was a modernization and cleaning up of the bunkers on all 27 holes, which had strayed from Thompson’s original design over the years and required a lot of maintenance. Andrew also worked to match the feel of the Knudson Nine (designed by Robinson) with the aesthetic of Thompson’s original 18 holes by removing hundreds of artificial mounds. In developing the composite routing, Andrew worked with the PGA Tour to help determine the best mix of holes for the pros. Initially, COVID-19 prevented a site visit, so Andrew sent drone shots of all holes with his recommendations.
Oakdale features bentgrass fairways and greens with some Poa annua in the putting surfaces. Like many older, tree-lined courses, thick rough is one of the best defenses against unusually low scores, so the club was instructed to let the grass outside the fairway grow as soon as the course opened to get it nice and thick for the tournament. Gnarly rough between 4 and 6 inches puts a premium on players hitting fairways or paying the price.

In looking at our four categories, our first is Fairway Accuracy. What makes this course challenging is the combination of tree-lined fairways with thick rough. So this will be one of those rare places that hit it straight.
Next up is Greens in Regulation. Oakdale greens are just 6,000 square feet, but they are well protected by bunkers and have runoff areas that make it hard to get it up and down. So hitting the greens, especially from rough, is hard.
So with greens set up on a crown, if you miss them, it’s essential to save par. So for our third category, I feel that scrambling will be vital for those in contention.
Our last stat is putting inside ten feet. Again missing greens in greenside bunkers or the runoff areas will leave players with a lot of putts in the four to ten feet range, so making a lot of putts inside ten feet will be necessary.
I wish I could tell you the kind of player that wins at Oakdale. I feel that the course will play a lot like Oak Hill, which held the PGA Championship last month. The course will play a lot like Wilmington Country Club played last year for the BMW Championship and also like Olympia Fields North Course, which will hold this year’s BMW and was the site of the 2020 BMW Championship. So with that in mind, we think of Patrick Cantlay or Jon Rahm. Unfortunately, they aren’t playing this week. So, we have to look at those in the field who have played well on tight courses. Coming to mind is U.S. Open champions Matt Fitzpatrick and Justin Rose. I also like U.S. Amateur champion Matt Kuchar who does well on these courses. Also, look for players doing well in Strokes Gained Off-the-tee; in the top ten are Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Keith Mitchell, and Cameron Young, all in the field.
This tournament has a lot of history and is played on an excellent 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

*Scrambling: The percent of time a player misses the green in regulation but still makes par or better.

*Putting inside 10 feet: Very easy; counts every putt from ten feet in to see who makes the most.

Here are 115 of the 156 players from this year’s field with stats from 2023:

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

Here is a link back to all the stats for the Canadian Open

DraftKings tips

Most DraftKings points earned

We have put together a database beginning at the start of the 2022 Calendar year and going through the 2023 Memorial (We don’t include team events), a total of 71 events. The database consists of how many points a player won during the event and his cost. Out of the database, we can determine the total DraftKing points earned and the players’ average points earned per event and average points based on the number of rounds played.

Of the players in the field, here are the top 50 playing in at least nine events:

DraftKings tips

*Here are the guys that cost the most on DraftKings this week:

• Rory McIlroy – $11,500
• Sam Burns – $10,500
• Tyrrell Hatton – $10,200
• Matt Fizpatrick – $9,900
• Corey Conners – $9,800
• Justin Rose – $9,700
• Tommy Fleetwood – $9,600
• Shane Lowry – $9,400
• Cameron Young – $9,300
• Sahith Theegala – $9,200
• Matt Kuchar – $9,100

Sorry, but I will not touch Rory McIlroy at $11,500.  With this LIV Golf news and the fact that McIlroy is struggling with his game, I have to think that Rory won’t be able to get it going this week.  A smart bet could be to bet that McIlroy will miss the cut, yes, that is on the table for Rory this week.  Sam Burns at $10,500 is good, yes, it’s a lot of money, but Burns plays his best on courses like Oakdale.  Last year in this event, on a similar course, Burns finished T-4th, he was T-6th at Colonial and T-16th last week at Memorial.  Tyrrell Hatton at $10,200 is also worth a look, he has been in the top-20 in his last five starts and is prime to win real soon.  For Matt Fitzpatrick at $9,900 this is his last start before defending his U.S. Open crown.  Is he at his best right now?  No, but going into the U.S. Open last year, he missed the cut at Memorial and was T-10th in Canada.  This year he missed the cut at the PGA and was T-9th at Memorial.  I say he is a good pick.  For Corey Conners at $9,800 he would love to win his national title and frankly think his chances are good.  Sure, he missed the cut at the Memorial, but he has played ok this year, and last year was 6th at the Canadian Open on a course similar to Oakdale.  I think that Justin Rose at $9,700 is our best choice, he has played well of late, was T-4th last year at the Canadian Open, and the course is perfect for his game.  Tommy Fleetwood at $9,600 is also a no for me, boy you never know when he does play well, but it’s not on a course like this.  He missed the cut at Colonial, and I don’t think the course suits his game.  I see that Shane Lowry is $9,400, and I still wonder why you would take him.  Sure, he finished T-16th at Memorial and T-12th at the PGA Championship, but he missed the cut at Wells Fargo and only earned 23.5 points.  Sorry, I can’t pay such a high price for Lowry.  Cameron Young is $9,300, and I thought he was a perfect choice.  But look at his record, it’s good on wide-open, links-style golf but terrible on tight old fashion courses. He missed the cut at the PGA Championship and Memorial, just don’t like his chances this week, but I like him in the U.S. Open.  I feel the same way about Sahith Theegala at $9,200.  He struggles on old fashion, tight golf courses, and this week isn’t a good mix for him.  Has for Matt Kuchar at $9,100 he is worth the money and feels he could do well this week.

*Players in that $7,500 to $8,900 price range, which ones are worth the money?:

Having a tough time justifying some of the players in this price range.  The first one I like is Ludvig Aberg at $8,100, he is fresh off of an amateur career and making his first professional start.  Eric Cole at $7,900 is worth it, yes has had mixed results, but he was T-24th at the Memorial, T-15th at the PGA Championship, and T-5th at the Mexico Open.  Harry Hall is $7,600 and playing well, I think he can get you a top-ten this week.

*Some of the “bargains” this week at the RBC Canadian Open

Hard to find any bargains. The first one that I like is Vincent Norrman at $7,500.  He was T-8th at the Byron Nelson and T-48th at the Charles Schwab, I think he will do well.  David Lipsky at $7,400 played well until the end at Memorial he is always up and down, but he was T-4th at the Sony Open in Hawaii, another tight course like Oakdale.  Carson Young is at $7,100 and has made some good money on Draftkings, finished T-21st, and earned 65.5 points.  The event before that was T-14th at the Byron Nelson and earned 96.5 points, so good choice at a low price.

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

The 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.  There are 12 of them, and they range from 354 to 496.  The 1st, 2nd, 8th, 10th, and the 16th are under 400 yards.  So that brings up some holes to produce birdies on.  So if you can manage the par 4s, you will do well this week.

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

• The course does favor long hitters because there are not many doglegs.  So for the player that hit it long and straight, that is a big advantage.  So yes, look for bombers to do well.
• Greens are contoured and well-bunkered, which means that those that scramble will do very well.
• With a field that isn’t loaded with marquee names, I would say a first-time winner is very probable.  That tends to be the trend on the PGA Tour when a new course is used, a rookie tends to win.
• 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 this will be his 30th start in this event, but a win won’t happen.  Along with Weir, there are 18 other Canadians in the field, with PGA Tour players Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, Adam Hadwin, Nick Taylor, Adam Svensson, and Taylor Pendrith in the field.  Other Canadians competing on exemption include David Hearn, and Wil Bateman. Michael Gligic, Ben Silverman, Taylor Durham, Daniel Kim, Sebastian Szirmak, Aaron Cockerill, Stuart Macdonald, Myles Creighton, and Johnny Travale.
• The biggest tip I can give you with this tournament is going to a course that many haven’t seen.  Check the who’s hot list, if a player is doing well over the last six weeks, he will probably play well this week.