We head north of the border this week to Oakdale Golf & Country Club. Our golfers will be tasked with a custom blended track using multiple holes from the courses that Oakdale provides. The RBC Canadian moves courses, so course history won’t come into play.
The route is heavily tree lined, especially the front 9, which I expect to play much tougher than the back 9. The rough is reportedly 4-5” in length, so keeping it in the short or intermediate first cut is going to be critical. I do expect there to be quite a bit of scoring, so even making par if you’re finding yourself frequently out of place might leave you behind.
The length is anywhere from around 7,200-7,400 — depending on tee boxes — so it’s not an overly long course and bombers won’t have a massive advantage. I value accuracy, approach & ball striking pretty heavily this week.
While they didn’t make the player pool because I am lacking in data for them, I’d be remiss not to mention Ludvig Aberg and Michael Thorbjornsen. Aberg is making his professional debut and Thorbjornsen is still an amateur. Lack of data doesn’t mean lack of talent and they both have it in spades.
I am not shocked to see Hatton top this list. He’s been incredible this season.
Alex Smalley, after devastating my pocketbook last week, returns to the model. In a vastly weakened field comparative to the Memorial, I am not hesitating to go back to the well here if need be.
I have a lot of interest in Aaron Rai. He’s incredibly accurate and has good approach and ball striking numbers.
Bramlett shocked me last week, but I’m still very hesitant on him as he isn’t very accurate. In his corner, however, are terrific ball striking numbers.
I have a fair amount of interest in Doug Ghim. Another very accurate player off the tee, his past two months have been solid for where his price tag falls. Not overwhelming in any particular category, his game is still above average. He carded a 19th at Byron Nelson & a 27th at Wells Fargo his last two tournaments.
Carson Young is yet again a great value. Accurate off the tee, the ability to go low when needed and one of the best putters in the player pool (4th out of the listed names).
Lucas Glover is *tremendously* accurate. He can also go low. However, tremendously prone to boom or bust play and his putter is Luke List level bad (he resides only two spots above List on Tour with the flat stick.)
Sam Bennett - we’re operating off of Masters & Memorial numbers, but again - this is where talent is one of those overriding available data type story lines. Price is right.