In this betting preview:
Right now, we are in the center of the maelstrom. Signature, major, signature, national open, national open, and signature event all inside seven weeks on the PGA TOUR schedule. At the same time, Scottie Scheffler has decided to go nuclear and play the best golf of his career. The numbers prove it, and it will be interesting to see how long he can keep this heater up.
Oakmont is going to test these guys even more than Muirfield Village, and it’s obvious to me (and Jack) that the “nice players” are going to have a difficult time keeping pace. Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau are in action this week (at separate venues). Can either spark some fear into their respective fields like Scheffler did last week in Ohio? Or, will they just prepare for Pittsburgh?
Taylor Pendrith is under a ton of pressure this week at the RBC Canadian Open. Following a T12 finish at The Memorial, Pendrith heads to his home region of Canada for the national open. Pendrith is acquiring more attention than Hughes, Hadwin, and Taylor due to his length and course history. It’s tough to be the people’s favorite at a big event. Taylor grew up about 40 miles east of Osprey Valley, and I’m sure he has played the North Course more than any other card-carrying TOUR player in the field, hence the interest.
These player narratives usually go one of two ways. Thinking back to the Presidents Cup in Montreal, the Canadians went 5-9-0 in those matches. Although, Mackenzie Hughes faced a similar situation last year in the Canadian Open and finished seventh at Hamilton! Can Taylor take home the title? Keep reading and see if he has what it takes to win outside of Toronto.
This preview is just that, a preview. For a complete list of my betting predictions covering the RBC Canadian Open, placements, and H2H matchups, please go to Read The Line and subscribe.
RBC Canadian Open 2025 best bets
Best bet to win: Sam Burns (+3000 on DraftKings)
Something in Canada inspires Sam Burns. He has played the last three Canadian Opens, finishing fourth and 10th in two of them. Riding a streak of five straight top 30s on TOUR, Burns is a birdie machine who can let it loose off the tee. One month ago, he finished fifth at the CJ Cup. TPC Craig Ranch is a decent comp for TPC Toronto. Following a tough test at Memorial (T12), Sam seems ready for a long scoring test. He’s won at Sanderson Farms and Colonial, another par 70 venue on TOUR. Sam is burning up the greens. In his last five starts, he’s gained an average of +5.4 strokes on the field with his flatstick!
Best bet to place in the Top 10: Luke Clanton (+450 on DraftKings)
Clanton earned his PGA TOUR card by playing in actual TOUR events! The number one amateur player in the world, Clanton has four top 10s on the PGA TOUR since last June. With college behind him, I wouldn’t be surprised if Clanton had his sights set on winning this week. I’ll happily take the odds and the 10 places on a guy who only has eight names in front of him on the outright betting board in his first professional tournament.
Best head-to-head bet: Harry Hall over Sungjae Im (+100 on DraftKings)
Sungjae Im is ranked 190th in this field on approach! He hasn’t gained with his irons since The Masters. At The Memorial, you can hang in there when the course is extremely hard and no one can score. This week, you need birdie opportunities, and how can you create 25+ of them without any consistent proximity to the hole? Conversely, Harry Hall’s ball striking has been much better. Complemented by a fantastic flatstick, he has the exact skill set I’m looking for in Osprey Valley.
RBC Canadian Open 2025 betting odds
Odds courtesy of DraftKings. Showing odds shorter than +9000.
| Golfer | Odds |
| Rory McIlroy | +450 |
| Ludvig Aberg | +1400 |
| Corey Conners | +2000 |
| Shane Lowry | +2200 |
| Taylor Pendrith | +2800 |
| Sam Burns | +2800 |
| Robert MacIntyre | +2800 |
| Sungjae Im | +3500 |
| Harry Hall | +4000 |
| Luke Clanton | +4000 |
| Keith Mitchell | +4000 |
| Nick Taylor | +4500 |
| Mackenzie Hughes | +4500 |
| Wyndham Clark | +5000 |
| Thorbjorn Olesen | +5000 |
| Alex Noren | +5000 |
| Kurt Kitayama | +5000 |
| Johnny Keefer | +6000 |
| Chris Gotterup | +6000 |
| Ryan Fox | +6000 |
| Cameron Young | +6000 |
| Alex Smalley | +6000 |
| Eric Cole | +6500 |
| Matt Wallace | +6500 |
| Justin Rose | +7000 |
| Gary Woodland | +7000 |
| Taylor Moore | +7000 |
| Rasmus Hojgaard | +7000 |
| Max Homa | +7000 |
| Kevin Yu | +7000 |
| Vince Whaley | +7500 |
| Thomas Detry | +7500 |
| Davis Riley | +7500 |
| Ryo Hisatsune | +7500 |
| Niklas Norgaard | +7500 |
| Matti Schmid | +7500 |
| Jake Knapp | +8000 |
| Tom Kim | +8000 |
| Doug Ghim | +8000 |
| Byeong Hun An | +8000 |
| Mark Hubbard | +8000 |
RBC Canadian Open 2025: Betting preview
TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley will be the thirty-eighth host for Canada’s national men’s golf championship. The second brand-new venue in three years, we have 156 “rookies” coming to Alton, Ontario. I’m sure some of these Canadian players (like Pendrith) have competed here before. How many would have played here after the massive 2023 course renovation? My friend Ian Andrew gave the North Course some championship character. Just for a quick comparison, in 2019 PGA TOUR Americas played here, and the winning score by Paul Barjon was 25 under par. Last year, Will Cannon won the Fortinet Cup Championship (Americas Tour Championship) at five under par. Only seven players finished under par that week!
It might be easy to get confused between this week and next. Both are national championships, both have 156 players in the field, both are a par 70, and they both measure approximately the same yardage. The North Course at TPC Toronto is 7,389 yards, while Oakmont will play 7,372 yards. Will the two tests be similar? The simple answer is yes, but the truth of the matter is that comparing any course to a venue like Oakmont is unfair. Every resource available at Oakmont is driven toward punishing the player. TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley is a public facility. One with three courses, and even though Ian Andrew renovated this into a true championship test, you still have to manage play. Fields of fescue stretch far back from the fairway landing areas, and the rough will be about half the length (maybe) of what we will see outside of Pittsburgh.
With bookend par 5s (holes one and 18), we have a unique scoring situation. Keep an eye on those birdie streaks for players going off hole 10 in rounds one and two. I have spoken to a couple of my Canadian counterparts from the media center, and they all believe the winning score will be completely weather-dependent. I mentioned the Barjon versus Cannon scoring earlier, and Vegas set the final score over/under at -17.5. According to the GCSAA report, the Toronto region has witnessed a weather pattern much like Muirfield Village. Temperatures have been cool, and the forecast has been wet. Precipitation has plagued the area, and it looks like we will see more rain during the tournament rounds. There’s rain forecasted for Thursday morning and throughout Friday. This afternoon, a storm is supposed to hit the North Course and dump .25″ of rain.
We’re saying the turf will be soft. One of the unique elements of this golf course is the layout. Seventeen of the 18 holes sit along a northwest-to-southeast pole. Our wind forecast for the week starts from the northwest and rotates through the northeast and into the south. Following that pattern, our players will play each hole under different wind conditions. Nine holes head northwest, and eight run toward the southeast. As the wind changes, we’ll get holes with crosswinds, against, with, etc. Featuring ball striking in a national championship is not a hot take, but one I would be aware of. Early morning tee times will require a good layering system to keep warm, as each early AM tee time starts in the mid-50s. The greens on the North Course are covered in a Bentgrass/Poa mix and average 6,500 sq/ft in size.
Over thirty acres of fairway grass is a healthy amount to hit, avoid the five holes with water in play, and 48 bunkers across the landscape. One quick change to the regular scorecard, the eighth and seventeenth holes have been flipped. The seventeenth is a medium par 4 that will now help close the front nine, and the eighth is a 530+ yard par 4(!) put in place to challenge the contenders during the closing holes. I love this change, and it will supply some sensational theater as the back nine now finishes with The Rink at 14, a medium par 4 at 15, two brutal par 4s at 16 and 17, and then a risk-reward final hole where the second shot over water approaches a green with a false front. Miss your 250+ approach a couple of feet short, and you could roll back into the pond. NOW we are talking.
Three of the top 15 and 16 of the top 50 in the OWGR are in the field competing for $9.8 million. A solid $1.764 million to first. Get inside the top 65 and ties if you want to get paid. Rory is the outright favorite around +450, and should fit this layout quite nicely. Will McIlroy be looking ahead, or will he be worried about Scottie’s recent alpha-run and want to stake his claim again for player of the year? Don’t forget, Rory had a signature win (AT&T), The PLAYERS, and a career grand slam victory at The Masters before Scottie went into superhero mode. Yes, Scheffler has won three of four, but let’s not permit our recency bias to bar us from the facts. A reasonable US Open preview, let’s see who can survive this upcoming weekend and challenge Mr. Scheffler for golf’s grandest storyline heading into Oakmont.
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RBC Canadian Open 2025: TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley course overview
Let’s just start with length off the tee — this course has six par 4s over 480 yards. We already know the conditions will be soft, and there could be more rain throughout the tournament. It doesn’t take long to decipher the landing areas off the tee are favorable and the fescue you see in these YouTube video previews has been cut back. With two short par 3s, and two par 5s under 600 yards, there’s a ton of yardage in these par 4s. The average par 4 length on the North Course is 459 yards. The average length at Augusta National is 456 yards, at Quail Hollow it was 459 yards. I’m on the record to say length will not slow these guys down, but it does eliminate players from contention. Strokes gained off the tee is a great measure at TPC Toronto because it rates players total driving with a length bias. A great skill to start with is a player’s ability to send it.
These conditions will allow the field to score. When the wind doesn’t blow, players make sub-par scores on the North. If a player on PGA TOUR Americas can shoot 25 under here, imagine what a PGA TOUR level player can do. The wind will be moving around, but it is not supposed to blow over 12 mph. That level of breeze won’t be enough to slow this pool of players down. In fact, with so many young players in the field against a bunch of veterans who have not played the course before, the skill to score will be a huge factor. I also want aggressive players. This course is wide open; take the driver out and hammer it. Then fire at every pin. A 500-yard hole for a long TOUR player is driver, seven or eight iron. Sorry, Jack, nice players hit it far these days.
There are two players on top of the betting board (Rory and Ludvig) and they are two of the longest (and accurate) players on the PGA TOUR. We drive for show and putt for dough. Following ball speed and scoring, my next standard for contending this week is putting. When everyone is learning the green complexes, good putters can separate from the field for two reasons. They excel at speed control. Not all 12s on the Stimpmeter are the same. This is the first time we have seen a Bent/Poa blend this season. The faster you can react and control your speed on these greens, the better. Second, good putters can read greens. It’s a specific requirement to making putts! For both reasons, I am weighing putting and picking those who rate highly, along with sub-par scoring and ball speed.
Par 70 scorecards usually pack in a couple extra par 4s. The North Course is built with 12 of them. Par 4 scoring is a filter I’m interested in for our card. We need guys who won’t regress over the weekend when scoring gets more difficult. Quick PSA, rounds one and two are generally set up very fair. Tournament officials must get 156 players through the cut by Friday night. Then on Saturday, the gloves are off. Saturday played +1.8 strokes over par at Muirfield Village. This is why Saturday is always “moving day.” Tournament staff set up the course to separate the field. I want weekend warriors who can score on the par 4s and handle the Saturday setups. Too many of our players (men and women) have been dropping on Saturdays. I’m targeting weekend scoring as a specific skill I want for our guys.
A brand-new venue cannot provide us with the par ranges we look at every week to help determine our leans. What we do know are the approach ranges these guys will play from. At 7,400 yards and a par 70 be prepared to see plenty of mid irons pulled from bags. The scoring range will be 175-225 yards. For these guys, our focus is on five or six through nine iron. Ian Andrew was hired to design a master plan for the last club I was the Head Professional at. I’m very familiar with his tendencies and he loves the ground game. You can see his classic style all over this place. Even with the soft conditions, players will be forced to find specific landing areas and use the ground to get it close. Much like the great putters can read greens, the best GIR guys know how to break down a green complex. They know exactly where to land the ball and where not to.
Long irons will come into play on the par 5s and two of the par 3s. Both of the 225+ par 3s have water in play. I believe MVGC will end up being a better preview than TPC Toronto for next week, but this course can trip you up if you’re not careful. I’m placing bogey avoidance and around the green play last of the four major strokes gained categories. If players do miss a green, most of these surrounds are not difficult to get up and down. Half of them have one bunker or fewer. Finesse with a wedge won’t hurt but I don’y think short game separates anyone as it did at Muirfield Village.
A nice draw off the tee wouldn’t hurt as more than half the holes favor a right to left ball flight. I know, I know, I’m supposed to be giving you options other than Rory McIlroy. Don’t worry, I have an angle to handle him. We just won +550 in prop bets with Scheffler at Memorial when his outright value was +250 pre-week.
The Canadian Open has leaned into young stars for some time, and that’s one reason why the field is so interesting the week before our national championship. Luke Clanton, David Ford, and the 2023 PGA TOUR U leader, Ludvig Åberg, are all playing. Twenty-six players competed in The Memorial, and we have 21 Canadians in the field. I like this spot on the schedule for Canada’s Open. It is much better than the days following The Open Championship! Our winner this week will have to beat a serious crop of contenders and who knows, might just use this effort as a launching pad for bigger and better results at Oakmont.
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