Runner-up run...

Our runner-up trend continues at Read The Line. Charley Hull marks our 9th second-place outright prediction in 33 events this season! Nineteen PGA TOUR and 14 LPGA events previewed in 2026, 18 podium results, and three wins. In 55% of tournaments covered this year, we have finished in third place or better. Second place doesn't pay the bills, and finishing third, forget it. Three of our four outrights at Riviera finished T8 or better. Three out of four! I'm done with getting close. Back on the road for the US Open and Travelers, we will continue to provide our readers with the best betting previews possible.

The LPGA is playing their team event this week. Just like the Zurich Classic on the PGA TOUR, we will skip covering the Dow Championship. Our full women's coverage returns next week with the Meijer LPGA Classic! ​
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If you thought the stretch between The Masters and the PGA Championship was wild, consider this four-week run of The Memorial, Canadian Open, US Open, and the final Signature Series event of the season: The Travelers. What seemed like an opportunity between Augusta and Aronimink gives way to a serious sense of urgency if you plan to finish the year inside the top 50 in the FedEx Cup Rankings, or on either Presidents Cup roster. For the second year in a row, the RBC Canadian Open heads to the outskirts of Toronto to TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley's North Course. Ryan Fox won in a four-hole sudden-death playoff over RTL's Sam Burns. (Sigh) A field of 145 players, thank you Brooks for two extra entries, are on the property. The top 65 and ties will play the weekend for $9.8 million. Twenty players from Canada will tee it up going for a Nick Taylor-type run. Not just to win the national championship and $1,764 million, but to etch their name alongside a short list of others over the last 60 years who have won their home tournament.

The RBC Canadian Open starts in...

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Toronto players club

TPC Toronto remains the 38th different club to host the Canadian Open. Ryan Fox's winning score of 18 under par is a good starting point. Vegas has set the winning score over/under at 18.5 under par (261.5). With wet weather in the forecast, the field will have soft surfaces to attack. The par 70 scorecard measures 7,389 yards. Bookend par 5s (1 and 18) frame an excellent collection of four par 3s and 12 par 4s. In 2025, the scoring average for the week was 68.5. Be careful, very few regular PGA TOUR venues in 2025 possessed the same frequency for double bogeys or worse. The field of 156 last year accumulated 103 double bogeys and 16 others! There were some wild shot-tracker moments. The cut was three under par in 2025. With six par 4s over 480 yards, one would think the test was tougher, but the truth is the most common approach bucket was 125 to 150 yards. Forty-five percent of the iron shots took place from 150 yards or closer. More on that in a moment, let's take a look at the forecast.

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. Conversely, the turn from holes 9 to 11 is one of the more difficult stretches. The 225-yard par 3 eleventh had 25 double bogeys! One of the unique elements of this golf course is its orientation. Seventeen of the 18 holes sit along a northwest-to-southeast pole. Nine holes head northwest, and eight run toward the southeast. That wind will almost entirely be coming out of the west/Southwest. That pattern will create a bunch of cross-wind holes. With the amount of wind coming in the PM hours, make time to watch the carnage. It was docile last year; I believe the course will play increasingly harder with these westerly gusts. Last year the wind rotated; this edition should be more straightforward day after day.
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The greens on the North Course are covered in a Bentgrass/Poa mix and average 6,500 sq/ft in size. Protected by 48 bunkers, the course also features seven holes with water. Over thirty acres of fairway grass is a healthy amount to hit, 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 stretch. 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.
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The back nine played approximately a half of a stroke harder than the front nine. Fans attending the Canadian Open hated the commute, but it's tough to argue with the theater. Sixty-eight players made the cut, and all but one finished under par. It took 14 under par to crack the top 10. I don't mind a little scoring wedged in between The Memorial and the US Open. Shinnecock is going to be a bear, so enjoy the sub-par scores north of the border. An average driving distance by the field of 299.6 yards, and a 72% successful GIR rate lead us to believe the putter will play a significant role. Nine of the top 12 finishers in 2025 were inside the top 25 for strokes gained on the greens. Is TPC Toronto a good preview for Shinnecock? Two of the top 10 (Burns, Young) finished in the top 10 at Oakmont. Many in this field won't even be heading to the Hamptons. Will there be clues? Yes. Truth be told, I'm only concerned with this course. Fifteen of the top 50 in the world are teeing it up. That's a wide-open opportunity for the field in Alton, Ontario, Canada.

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How to win?

The balance of skills needed to contend on the North Course is fairly well-rounded. Any leaderboard that features Cameron Young and Andrew Putnam in the top 6 requires a diversified skill set. One of the longest (Cam) and shortest (Andrew) on TOUR, TPC Toronto surprised us in a couple of ways last year. Instead of running back the same course preview, let's update a few things starting with off-the-tee play. There was a stronger correlation to success if you were accurate. Looking at the card, and featuring four par 4s over 500 yards, most jumped on the distance bandwagon. Turned out much like Muirfield Village, hitting fairways was far better than bombing it. I'm favoring accuracy over length when it comes to the driver. Keep in mind, with a field average of 299 yards OTT, and 45% of your approaches coming in from under 150 yards, the North Course plays to precision and putting.
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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. The golf course played soft a year ago, and 50% of the approaches were a nine iron or less. Take a moment and process that. If a player on PGA TOUR Americas can shoot 25 under here, expect the PGA TOUR to make a bunch of sub-par scores again. Proximity in the 125-150 range, and opportunities gained on approach under 150 yards are key. Golf course architect Ian Andrew performed the renovation on this course. I spoke with him last year heading into the event. Ian did some work on the last course I worked at. His tendencies match many of the modern architects we all love; Hanse, Green, Coore, and Crenshaw. Andrew loves to use the ground in his design work. Players who can hit the correct landing spots will have the ability to get it close.
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With several 500+ yard par 5s, two par 3s over 225 yards, and two reachable par 5s, scrambling becomes important. How well can you score from close range? Another strongly correlated skill is making sense. Who can score from 50 yards and in with the combination of their putter and wedge? Bogey Avoidance is another analytic you can rely on. It sounds strange to favor saving par on a course that will have a high-teens winner, but many rounds will be bolstered by keeping bogeys (and doubles) off of your card. Rory McIlroy missed the cut last year at +9! The world's number two player carded a quadruple bogey eight in round two in route to shooting a 78. Rory and Ludvig Åberg came into the event with a ton of attention, and David Skinns, Victor Perez, and Putnam beat them. Most of the around-the-green areas are a combination of short and long grass situations. Another balanced part of this exam is your ability to chip and pitch out of rough and short grass.
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TPC Toronto is a great "bonus putting" venue. BP is the ability to consistently make every putt under five feet and putts over 20'. Making short putts under 10' was a significant stat last year leading to success. Who from RTL could forget Sam's miss on the first playoff hole from six feet! The make percentage on the North Course is even with the PGA TOUR average. Remember, PGA TOUR venues do not include Augusta National and Aronimink. Players score on TOUR, and this is another venue where good putters can separate with a hot week. Over the last few months, Sam Burns leads the way along with Alex Noren and Robert MacIntyre. Now Bobby Mac's iron play is off, so the full complement is not there, but Burns is worth a look based on his eight-week form.
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I love the combination of players coming from Colonial and Muirfield Village. Two tough accuracy tests back-to-back give us a really good idea of who to focus on. A few of the nuance notes I have from last year include filtering for par 4s over 500 yards. Turns out there are not many of them on the PGA TOUR, and TPC Toronto has four. Par 4 success overall is important with the absence of four par 5s. The top 10 from a year ago gained triple the amount of strokes on the 4s than the 3s or 5s (on average). Factor in a little long iron par for the two long par 3s and second shots on the par 5s. In the comp conversation, Memorial Park, Colonial, Innisbrook, TPC Deere Run, Torrey South, and TPC Twin Cities catch my attention. Courses that favor accuracy like TPC Toronto at this length are in the minority. A careful combination of detailed design features and the 2025 leaderboard are shaping up the card. Let's lock in and grab a win. After all, we already earned a second-place finish at this venue.

Outright Winners - RBC Canadian Open

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