The PGA Tour is back at St George’s Golf and Country Club for the RBC Canadian Open.
The event makes a welcome return following an enforced two-year break due to the pandemic and a star-studded field will be teeing it up in Etobicoke, west Toronto.
This is the tournament’s sixth time at St George’s, and first since 2010, with the action taking place from June 9-12. We have picked out four players to follow in our Canadian Open betting tips.
Smith was flagged up in these pages last week as a contender for the Memorial Tournament and it looked good for a while after he burst out of the traps.
Smith was in pole position after starting 67-69 but found himself in a tie for 13th when winner Billy Horschel’s final putt fell on Sunday night.
Taking 42 blows to cover the front nine of his final round scuppered any chance Smith had but we can put that down to a rare blip.
Apart from a missed cut at The Heritage, he has been solid since winning The Players’ Championship and ranks high on strokes gained approach and putting, which will serve him well at St George’s.
The 30-year-old from Listowel, Ontario, pegs it up at St George’s as the highest-ranked Canadian in the field, occupying 31st place in the official world standings.
Conners beat Dustin Johnson to claim third place at the WGC Match Play back in March and shared sixth place at The Masters, his third straight top-10 there, for his best two finishes of the year.
Since Augusta National he was T12 at the RBC Heritage and T21 at Wells Fargo, then didn’t make the weekend at the US PGA but bounced back for a share of 13th at the Memorial Tournament.
He should be able to handle the expectation as a home hope to be thereabouts on Sunday night.
We are still kicking ourselves for leaving Finau off the shortlist for the Charles Schwab Challenge a couple of weeks ago and then watching him claim a share of fourth place.
It was a second top-five finish in four events for Finau after his joint runner-up at the Mexico Open at the start of May, when he finished just a shot behind Jon Rahm.
Over the past few weeks, Finau’s stats for scrambling and putting are trending in the right direction and those numbers matter round St George’s.
Time flies when you’re not having fun and it is now more than three years since Rose won a tournament – but at big odds and each-way returns on eight places with Coral, we’re taking a punt in our Canadian Open betting tips.
The former world number one spoke before the US PGA last month about working hard to get out of his slump and went on to finish in a tie for 13th at Southern Hills, having shared 14th place at the Zurich Classic in his previous outing.
Two top-20s don’t seem like much for the man who won a US Open and Olympic gold medal but they represented a bit of form before a missed cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge.
But, with Brookline just a week away, Rose is worth considering. He has finished inside the top 20 in the tournament he’s played directly before the US Open in five of his last seven attempts.
