During the 2023 golf season, Stadium sports betting analyst Nate Jacobson will share his betting targets each week. Here are his thoughts on this week’s RBC Canadian Open.
Note: Nate will tweet out his official bets when they are placed before the event. He also discusses his bets in all sports on the Sharp Lessons podcast. Subscribe on Spotify and Apple for episodes and follow Stadium Bets on Twitter for more sports betting content.
About the Tournament
The PGA TOUR heads to Canada this week for the RBC Canadian Open. The event made its return in 2022 after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19. Oakdale Golf and Country Club will host a Canadian Open for the first time ever, and it’s a par 72 course that measures 7,264 yards and is just outside of Toronto.
Top of the Board
Rory McIlroy (+450) enters this tournament as the man to beat. He has the highest profile in the field and has loved his recent time in Canada. He’s the two-time defending champion of the RBC Canadian Open with wins in 2019 and 2022 at different courses in Ontario. McIlroy entered Sunday’s final round at the Memorial this past week in the final pairing, but shot a disappointing 75 to finish tied for seventh.
There is a lot of Irish and English influence at the top of the board with six of the top nine players coming from that part of Europe. Sam Burns, Cameron Young and Canadian Corey Conners are the top players from North America this weekend.
The one player I bet on Monday morning — and the only one I’ll take in this range before the tournament begins — is England’s Justin Rose (18/1). Rose skipped last week’s Memorial to play this event and use it as preparation for next week’s U.S. Open.
Rose caught my attention at the Charles Schwab Challenge when I bet on him after the first round. He had outstanding ball-striking numbers that Thursday in Fort Worth but ranked as the worst putter in the field, which was uncharacteristic for the usually steady putter. He putted better than field average on Friday while continuing his solid long game and looked like he would contend going into the weekend. However, his putter faltered again on Saturday and he ended up finishing tied for 12th.
Course history doesn’t mean anything this week, but if event history does, Rose finished tied for fourth at the Canadian Open last year. I like the spot Rose is in now after a week off, and if he starts off this tournament well I might look to make a bet on him to win the U.S. Open as early as Thursday night.
Longshots
I wanted to bet on five longshots to win and finish in the top five. However, two of those players (Sam Stevens and Luke List) withdrew from this event after qualifying for the U.S. Open via the sectional qualifiers on Monday.
That leaves me with Lee Hodges (80/1), Aaron Rai (80/1) and Akshay Bhatia (125/1) as the remaining players I want to bet on this week.
Out of those three, Hodges is the player that I believe in the most. He is coming into this event after finishing 29th and 12th in his last two starts. He ranked fifth in strokes gained approach at the Charles Schwab Challenge two weeks ago, and his top-12 finish at the Memorial last week was good enough to qualify him for The Open Championship.
Rai has had a lot of inconsistent play recently, but did pop at Charles Schwab when he finished tied for 12th and ranked second in the field behind Rose in strokes gained approach. Rai finished tied for 13th in his Canadian Open debut last year.
Bhatia is an intriguing young talent at 21 years old who has shown the ability to contend on the PGA TOUR in his rookie year. He finished runner-up at the Puerto Rico Open this past March, and in late April he finished fourth at the Mexico Open in an event where Tony Finau and Jon Rahm were first and second, respectively. At a number this big, I’ll bet on Bhatia this week.
