The PGA Tour heads north to Canada for the RBC Canadian Open, which was first played in 1904, and has been the longest running tournament outside of the Open Championship and U.S. Open. The Canadian Open is a tournament with a ton of history, and it has been won by the likes of Walter Hagen, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, Greg Norman, Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, and Rory McIlroy, amongst others. The event has moved around on the schedule a fair amount before settling in early June, prior to the U.S. Open.
It has moved around to a number of different golf courses as well, and has been hosted at Royal Montreal, Toronto Golf Club, Glen Abbey, Hamilton Golf Club, and most recently, St. George’s Golf and Country Club. We will however be presented with a never-before-seen venue for the 2023 event, Oakdale Golf Club. Despite the tough schedule spot, many of the PGA Tour’s top names, including Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Cameron Young, Shane Lowry, Tyrrell Hatton, Sam Burns, and Matt Fitzpatrick, will all be making the trek to just outside of Toronto. McIlroy will be looking to collect his third consecutive Canadian Open title, and fireworks are sure to ensure at one of the liveliest tournaments of the year.
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RBC Canadian: Course Preview
Oakdale Golf Club
Oakdale Golf Club was founded in 1926 when a group of Toronto businessmen purchased a farm north of Toronto. Oakdale hired famed Canadian designer Stanley Thompson to craft the initial nine holes, and he added another nine a few years later. Canadian designer Robbie Robinson added the final nine in 1957. In recent years, the property has been restored by Ian Andrew. While we have not seen any professional competition at Oakdale, we can certainly draw from last year’s Canadian Open at St. George’s, which was also designed by Stanley Thompson, with work done by Robbie Robinson and Ian Andrew as well. St. George’s is objectively a more challenging golf course than Oakdale, and Rory McIlroy was still able to get to 19 under par last year.
Depending on weather conditions throughout the tournament, we should certainly prepare for our champion to be crowned at 20-under par or better. Oakdale is a par 72, measuring a touch over 7,300 yards on the scorecard, but it uniquely features just three par fives and three par threes. Oakdale features a large plurality of both very short and very long par fours, which has me honing in on both wedge and long iron play, while I will be more forgiving on middle irons. I will ultimately be looking for players that thrive in easy scoring conditions, are elite inside 100 yards, and can get extremely hot on the greens, particularly those with a preference for Bent-grass.
RBC Canadian Open Key Stats
- Proximity Inside 100 yards
- Birdies or Better Gained
- Bent-grass Putting
Memorial Tournament: Outright Winner
Shane Lowry (+2000) (Bet $100 to collect $2,100) BetMGM has the best Shane Lowry odds
I’ve been riding the Shane Lowry train often this year, and I’m unwilling to give up now as he continues to ball-strike at an elite level, and his putter is beginning to finally show signs of life as well. Lowry is coming off a 16th-place finish at the Memorial, where he gained two strokes off the tee and 3.3 strokes on approach. Lowry has now gained strokes off the tee in six straight starts and on approach in eight straight starts. Yet truly most important is that the flat-stick is improving as well. Lowry has now gained strokes putting in back-to-back starts for the first time since last summer.
The putter will need to get going this week on a course where we should expect a 20-under par or lower champion, which would be my one concern with the former Open Champion. Yet Lowry ranks second in this field in opportunities gained, 14th in proximity inside 100 yards, and 11th in proximity 175-200 yards. The only player in this field that can consistently generate more birdie looks per round than Lowry is his Northern Irish countryman, Rory McIlroy, and it is also worth noting that Lowry finished 10th last year at the Stanley Thompson-designed St. George’s. There’s little doubt in my mind that Lowry will be there come Sunday afternoon in Toronto.
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Adrian Meronk (+5000) (Bet $100 to collect $5,100) Get the best Adrian Meronk odds at BetMGM
While I always have some doubts about how play on the DP World Tour will translate to PGA Tour success, it’s absolutely clear to me that Adrian Meronk is ready to win at this level. The three-time DP World Tour winner is coming off a fifth at the KLM Open, and before that, he finished 40th at the PGA Championship, where he gained 4.7 strokes off the tee and 2.4 strokes on approach. Meronk has gained over 4.5 strokes off the tee in three straight starts, and he has gained over seven strokes ball-striking in three straight starts as well.
I have little concerns about his ability to keep up in a low-scoring affair, as Meronk recently won the Irish Open at 20-under par. I believe that his elite driving ability will provide him with a number of flip wedges on the short par fours and allow him to take full advantage of Oakdale Golf Club. His value in the betting markets is still more than fair, given his lack of sample size on this side of the pond, and this is the perfect breakthrough spot for the big-hitting Pole.
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