Course Preview and Fits: RBC Canadian Open

We make the move north to Canada with heavy hearts this week after the unthinkable tragedy of Grayson Murray’s death by suicide in the middle of the tournament last week. There have been a number of poignant tributes and reflections by players and people close to the game in the past number of days, so I won’t reinvent the wheel here except to say that life can be really, really hard, even for people who seem to be doing really well. Check in on your friends, because you just never know. It puts the golf in perspective, but I think we at ETR already have a healthy sense of perspective and know that we’re playing a game. It’s a game we want to do well at, but it’s a game. Alright, on to the golf.

It’s a bit hard to believe that Scottie didn’t show up on Sunday and steal Davis Riley’s bag, as I thought that was kind of inevitable, but instead our old forgotten friend Davis got the job done, returning from the wilderness to claim his first individual tour win. Very impressive golf in tough conditions on Sunday. Good for him.

We have a bit of a shake-up in the schedule this year, as the Memorial is now bumped from its usual MDW spot, and the Canadian Open, usually the last event before the U.S. Open, falls a week earlier. I’m not sure of the reasoning here, but we’re headed north to America’s Hat a bit early, and back to Hamilton Golf and Country Club, where the last PGA Tour action saw Rory absolutely clobbering the field with a Sunday 61 to win in convincing fashion in 2019. Hamilton isn’t a new course for the Canadian Open, as this is the seventh time it will host the event, but a good number of this week’s players won’t have a ton of experience here given the most recent events before 2019 were in 2012 and 2006. We have limited rounds here to work with, plus a course design after 2019, but it should be a straightforward affair, so let’s take a closer look.