The 2016 RBC Canadian Open
This week’s RBC Canadian Open is among the events affected by adjustments made to the 2016 PGA Tour schedule in order to accommodate the upcoming Olympics. As a result, it’s now sandwiched between two majors: The Open and PGA Championships. The event will be held at Glen Abbey GC — a par-72 course that stretches over 7,200 yards. Accuracy both off of the tee and on approach shots will be important, but distance shouldn’t be ignored, as this course can be overpowered if the long-ball players can keep their drivers in play.
Events preceding major championships are almost as unique as the majors themselves. In preparation, some players elect to play the tournament, but there is also an added risk that they will withdraw if they aren’t playing well. Also, this event is different than most tournaments in that it rotates courses. Glen Abbey is one of the more common destinations but has been the home to this event only twice in the past five years.
Course History
Here are the top-25 finishes from 2015 and 2013 — the last two years the event was held at Glen Abbey.
Excluding those who are not in the current field, here are the players who finished in the top 25 in both years.
Golfers like Jim Furyk and Matt Kuchar could receive a slight bump for their limited but solid course history. However, holding poor course history against someone this week could be a mistake due to the small sample.
Let’s dive into the field of players.
Player Breakdown
$9,000 – $12,500
This field is highlighted by Dustin Johnson ($12,500) and Jason Day ($12,300), who both lead the field with a 15.4 percent Vegas-implied odds to win at the time of this writing. Dustin’s current form is unmatched, but if any player were to come close to his five consecutive top-10 finishes it would be Day, who has three top-10 finishes in that same span of time. The knock against Day is that he has hit only 45.8 percent of his fairways and 59.7 percent of his Greens in Regulation (GIR) through his last three events. Dustin, on the other hand, has seen his Driving Accuracy (DA) increase 4.9 percentage points through his last four events.
Their action on the greens is a bit of a different story. Dustin is recently averaging 1.0 putts per round (PPR) more than his long-term average, while Jason’s 28.1 PPR is on par with his long-term (LT) average of 28.3. Putting is one of the more volatile aspects of a player’s game, so I am inclined to lean toward the player who has seen a decline in putting but still manages to lead the field with a Recent Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score) of 66.4. Dustin, don’t let me down.
The weaker field this week has brought Matt Kuchar ($10,600) back into the top-tier salary range. Kuch made the cut at last week’s Open Championship, which shouldn’t be surprising, as he is tied with Dustin Johnson for the lowest LT Missed Cut Percentage (5.0 percent) in the field. You may be wondering if $10,600 is too much to pay for a cut-maker, but not only is he properly priced for an event like this, but he is also more than just a cut-maker. Excluding majors, he has finished among the top 10 in six of his last seven events, and his average salary through those seven events is just over $10,000. He has struggled on the greens lately, resulting in his averaging 2.0 PPR more than his LT average through his last three events, but he, like DJ, has still managed to improve his Adj Rd Score despite his recent putting woes.
$7,000 – $8,900
Emiliano Grillo ($8,500) continued his solid recent play by finishing 12th at the Open Championship last week. His 29.9 LT PPR average is tied for the worst but his 14.6 LT average course and field-adjusted birdies per tournament is the third-highest in this range of salaries. As a poor putter who can make a ton of birdies — or (as I like to call such a golfer) a ‘tournament option’ — he gets the job done with deadly ball striking. His LT GIR (70.4 percent) and DA (69.1 percent) help make up for poor performance on the greens, and although a bad putter isn’t what I typically look for in cash games Grillo’s 72 percent Consistency on the year throws him into the cash-game conversation.
Harold Varner lll‘s ($7,800) 306.7-yard average LT Driving Distance (DD) is second-highest among players in this pricing tier. Although not known as an accurate player, his ball striking looks to have come into form through his last three tournaments. During that time, he has hit 60.7 percent of his fairways and 68.5 percent GIR. The fact that he has averaged 30.2 PPR during that time removes him from my cash-game radar, but he offers upside at Glen Abbey, where the Par-5 holes present scoring opportunities. Varner’s -5.0 adjusted LT Par-5 scoring is tied for the best among players in this salary range.
Daniel Summerhays‘ ($7,000) Recent Adj Rd Score of 68.3 is tied for the sixth-best in the field and is the highest of any player priced below $8,000. His strength lies in his 28.6 LT PPR, but that number has jumped to 30.1 through his last three events. Two of those three events were major championships, and he managed to rank in the top half of the field in strokes gained putting in the only non-major tournament during that span. Although he did fail to meet his salary-based expectations last week, he did make the cut and has historically met his salary-based expectations 76.5 percent of the time.
$5,500 – $6,900
If you look at the salaries from last week and compare them to this week, you will notice that almost every player’s salary has increased. This makes sense, because of the weaker field and how correlated DraftKings salaries are with Vegas odds, but Matthew Fitzpatrick ($6,800) actually had his salary decrease $1,200 from last week’s Open Championship. There is no safety in considering a player who has missed the cut in each of his last three events, especially one whose long-term PPR (30.4) is as bad as Fitzpatrick’s. If he can return to his LT form, though, where he hit 70.4 percent of his fairways and 72.2 percent GIR, then he should be able to navigate this course well.
Brian Harman ($6,800) is the only player priced below $7,000 with at least five Pro Trends, four of which are currently attributed to his recent form. His Rec Adj Rd of 68.9 owes many thanks to his flat iron, which has caught fire through his last two events. His 27.8 PPR during that time likely made up for the fact that he has hit only 66.7 percent GIR. He played in the two most recent RBC Canadian Opens that Glen Abbey hosted, finishing 34th in 2015 and missing the cut in 2013. He struck the ball much better in his second appearance, when he hit 71 percent of GIR. This is definitely a case of chasing the hot putter, which is never recommended in cash games, but if he can manage the course the way he did last year then he should be around through the weekend.
Come Back, Tiger
You have probably seen this clip before, but I know that you want to see it again. Some people consider this one of the best shots that they have ever seen. Tiger says “I hit it over the green, so it wasn’t really that good.”
Good luck!
