Next week I’ll be spending a lot of time shuttling between Toronto and Ancaster for the RBC Canadian Open. The tournament announced its final field on Friday, which is quietly quite strong while still including some big names.
The stars:
No Phil or Tiger or Rory, but they weren’t expected. Instead you get the RBC gang, the group of golfers sponsored by the bank that also has the title to the tournament.
- Jim Furyk
- Ernie Els
- Matt Kuchar
- Hunter Mahan
Furyk, who won last time at Hamilton, is certainly a key golfer to watch this week, while Els played well in the first few days of the British Open. Kuchar would also seem to be a good pick for a golfer who could excel at Hamilton’s rolling fairways and tricky greens, as could be Mahan, one of the better drivers of the ball on tour. Interesting to note there’s no Fred Couples, who is also sponsored by the bank and has come to Canada in past years. Australian Jason Day was used in early marketing and was expected to be in the field despite the fact his wife recently had a baby — but his name wasn’t in the final group.
Others in Top 100
- Webb Simpson
- Sang-Moon Bae
- Jonathan Byrd
- Ben Curtis
- Robert Garrigus
- Retief Goosen
- Ryo Ishikawa
- Spencer Levin
- Sean O’Hair
- Jeff Overton
- Ryan Palmer
- DA Points
- Rory Sabbitini
- Charl Schwartzel
- Vijay Singh
- Kyle Stanley
- Michael Thompson
- Bo Van Pelt
- Brandt Snedeker
- Robert Appleby
A strong group of golfers in the Top 100, including rising stars like Stanley and Levin, and Snedeker who is leading the British Open as I write this. If he wins that’ll make for a great story for the tournament, which would then include the US Open winner (Simpson) and the British Open winner. Overall a strong list, even if they aren’t all immediately recognizable by the average golf fan.
Notable Names:
- John Daly
- David Duval
- Stuart Appleby
- Ricky Barnes
- Chad Campbell
- Bud Cauley
- Tim Clark
- Trevor Immelman
- Jhonattan Vegas
- Graham DeLaet
- David Hearn
- Stephen Ames
- Mike Weir
- Eugene Wong
- Adam Hadwin
- Brad Fritsch
- Michael Gligic
- Matt Hill
- Brian McCann
- Matt McQuillan
Forgot Canadian amateur Mackenzie Hughes
With the Royal Bank being the second largest sponsor of the PGA hopefully the can use that influence to get a date that would be better for attracting more of the top names both from the U.S. and Europe.
What would that better date be? Given that we are talking Canada you wouldn’t want to have the tournament until June. That means that pretty much every date is either the week before or the week after a major championship. The one big improvement would be to get one of the early FedEx Cup playoff dates. In the past that seemed unlikely but given the improved economic performance of Canada (vs the US) and, more importantly, the strong performance of RBC vs its global peers then this might happen.
Golfer1: Just picking some names — didn’t pick them all.
And the question is: will big Ernie be on the plane tonight? I hope he is, he has always been one to honour his commitments.
@THB – He is not on the plane tonight, but hopefully he comes tomorrow or early Tuesday.
B Grade field unfortunately. If Ernie doesn’t show it slips to a C grade IMO. Pity because the course is Canada’s best.
Looks like unfortunately you need to change this headin to Simpson out, Day out.