The NBA Finals might be relocating to California this week, but the PGA Tour travels north. If you’re looking for PGA golf betting tips, I’ve got a breakdown of the course and the PGA odds for The 2019 RBC Canadian Open.
The Course
Hamilton Golf and Country Club in Ancaster, Ontario plays host to the RBC Canadian Open for the first time since 2012. Only 32 of the 156 golfers in this week’s field competed in 2012. Glenn Abbey Golf Course hosted the tournament 2015-18.
The Par 70 course is just short of 7,000 yards. While Hamilton is tree-lined, renovations since 2012 include the removal of more than 1,000 trees. That doesn’t mean it won’t require precision off the tee. Hitting fairways will pay a premium, as the thick rough makes it especially tough to hit the course’s small greens. Expect golfers to put the ball in play by utilizing more fairway woods and long irons than usual.
Overall, the course sets up well for ball-strikers, and shorter hitters will have a chance to contend come Sunday.
The Favorites
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With just one week until the U.S. Open, golfers will try to polish up their form as they prepare for the third major of the year. Not only did the tournament make a change in venues, but it also moved up in the schedule. In previous years, the tournament had been held the first weekend after the Open Championship. As a result, many golfers would opt to take the week off.
That’s not the case this week, however. Favorites include three of the top four golfers in the world according to the Offical World Golf Rankings. Dustin Johnson +550 is the favorite to win the tournament, followed closely by 2019 PGA Champion Brooks Koepka +750, and Rory McIlroy +950.
Like a handful of guys in the field, Johnson is sponsored by RBC. He has won his sponsor’s tournament before, but this course minimizes Johnson’s most significant advantage: his driver. That doesn’t mean he’s not a threat to win. He is the favorite, after all. Given the odds, I prefer the new No. 1 golfer in the world over Johnson. Keopka has taken two weeks off since claiming the PGA Championship. Koepka has top-5 finishes each of the last two times he’s played the week before a major championship.
McIlroy and Justin Thomas +1500 hope to bounce back from missed cuts at the Memorial Tournament. Thomas struggled in his first tournament back from a wrist injury that kept him from playing in the PGA Championship. He showed promise in Round 1, shooting a respectable 1-under, but Round 2 got very ugly. Thomas had two double-bogeys and a triple-bogey to shoot 44 on the back nine of Friday’s round. The poor performance led to Thomas adding the Canadian Open to his schedule last minute. I expect Thomas to play well this week, but he’ll probably be more focused on getting his swing in order than anyone.
While Thomas had a valid excuse for missing the cut, McIlroy did not. With Johnson and Koepka both absent last week, the Irishman was the odds-on favorite to win the Memorial. My concern isn’t McIlroy’s form, though. He had played exceptional leading up to the Memorial, finishing inside the top 10 in 12 starts this season, and he’s No. 1 in strokes gained tee-to-green. The question is whether McIlroy is playing to win or if he too will be tinkering with his game one week before Pebble.
Matt Kuchar +1900 and Webb Simpson +2100 are my favorite values at the top. Kuchar was part of the chalk missing the cut last week. In fact, it was his first missed cut of the year. There’s little to be concerned about considering four top-15 finishes in his last five events. Simpson is 20th in strokes gained tee-to-green this year, but only 96th in strokes gained off-the-tee. Not the longest drivers on tour, this layout should suit both of their eyes.
The Mid Tier
There’s a lot of buzz surrounding Scott Piercy +3600 and rightfully so. Piercy won here in 2012 with the help of an 18-hole course record 62 in Round 1. Not only has Piercy won at this venue before, but he also enters the week in great form. It started back in April when Piercy finished third at The Heritage. One week later, Piercy accomplished a remarkable feat, going bogey-free for an entire 72 holes at the Byron Nelson. Since then, the 40-year-old made the cut at the PGA Championship and placed 19th at the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Henrik Stenson +4100 isn’t far behind Piercy in terms of odds. While Stenson doesn’t have any exceptional performances this season, he’s made the cut in his last six tournaments. Stenson has won and contended on some of the biggest stages in the world, but he hasn’t held a trophy in over three years. He’ll be more than comfortable hitting his three-wood off the tee — that’s what he does most weeks, regardless of the course. Only Sergio Garcia has gained more strokes than the Swedish golfer this season. Don’t be shocked if Stenson’s ball-striking ability finally puts him towards the top of the leaderboard this Sunday.
Jim Furyk +5000, Jason Dufner +5500 and Ryan Palmer +7000 round out the mid tier. Few golfers have found as much success in Canada as Furyk has. He went back-to-back in 2006-07, and one of those wins was at Hamilton. With that said, he missed the cut here in 2012. The 49-year-old proved he can still compete, especially on courses that don’t demand too much distance off the tee. In 12 events this year, he has seven top-25s. Most notably, Furyk is the most accurate driver on
At one point this season, Dufner missed seven consecutive cuts. The 55-1 price tag probably isn’t good enough to back Dufner, but with two top-10s in his last four events, it looks like he might have figured out something. He almost hit 90 percent of fairways at Muirfield Village and is consistently hitting greens.
Palmer is my favorite pick in this range. Hamilton sets up similarly to the Colonial, where Palmer just finished in sixth place thanks to four sub-70 rounds. Albeit, Colonial is the Texan’s home course; the same cannot be said of Hamilton. Still, Palmer showed he could play well here in 2012 when he finished T19.
The Longshots
Longshots I have my eye on are Zach Johnson +12000 and two Canadian golfers, Corey Conners +9000 and Mackenzie Hughes +16000. Conners grabbed his first PGA Tour victory at the Texas Open two months ago. He’s 16th in strokes gained tee-to-green and doesn’t miss many greens.
Hughes was a 21-year-old in his first PGA Tour start the last time the Canadian Open was held at Hamilton. Hughes missed the cut that week, but don’t expect the same outcome this time around. The additional years of experience should give the now 27-year-old confidence to compete in a tournament that means more to him than most. If Conners or Hughes do win, they’ll be the first Canadians to win the country’s national Open since 1954.
Once again, if you’re looking for general golf betting tips, please refer to our PGA golf betting guide.