Moving Day in the Canadian Open certainly had the desired effect for everyone connected with the tournament as the local hero David Hearn took control of the tournament building up a two shot lead but there are a pack of top notch players in behind him ready to pounce if he can’t get it done.
Hearn should have won the Greenbrier Classic a few weeks ago but he has another chance for a major PGA Tour title here and he is also looking to become the first home winner of this tournament since 1954 so there will be plenty of pressure on the Canadian. His supporters can get 7/2 on him winning from here.
Leading the chase are Jason Day and Bubba Watson. They are 13 under after three rounds and two back from Hearn. Day is a 3/1 shot with Bubba just under 4/1. Bubba hasn’t really set the course alight yet apart from the par 5s but you’d think he will need to on Sunday if he is going to win. Day’s conversion rate isn’t the best but he’s a worthy favourite I would suggest.
Behind that trio the quality keeps on coming. Brooks Koepka leads a pair on 12 under par while there is a group on 11 under par containing Jim Furyk and this blog’s pre-tournament pick Emiliano Grillo. Another selection for the blog before the tournament began was Charley Hoffman and he’s hanging around at 10 under par and could get dangerous on Sunday.
Koepka is now no bigger than 8/1 to win while Furyk is double the price to go one better than he did in this tournament last year. Grillo is a 33/1 shot but if he can find a round like Thursday which gave him the first round lead he won’t be far away while Hoffman could still be competitive at 40/1.
In the final round the field go back out in pairs throughout Sunday afternoon and into the early evening UK time. The leaders head off at 18.35 BST and all the groups have been priced up for the final round. There are a couple I like. One is out early and the other a bit later in the day.
The first one which catches my eye is the talented Mexican, Carlos Ortiz. He goes out with Steve Stricker at 13.42 BST in a match I expect him to win. Stricker hasn’t played a lot of competitive golf and hasn’t really got the length to take care of the par 5s like Ortiz has. Ortiz has struggled with the short stick at times this week but by and large he has hit the ball well and his power, coupled with Stricker’s rust and lack of length, should give the Mexican enough of an advantage to outscore his more experienced playing partner.
In my other bet I’m going to side with the local man Adam Hadwin. He takes on Hudson Swafford in a match which looks quite even on paper but Swafford has struggled to find the fairways this week. In fact he’s only hit 20 of the 42 he’s played and had his putter not been so good on Saturday he could well find himself much further down the field.
Nothing went right for Hadwin in the opening round. He found very few fairways and holed very few putts and had a couple of damaging double bogeys as a result but since then he’s made 13 birdies and shot 10 under par and taken care of the par 5s which is essential around here. He’ll have plenty of crowd support as he is going around and off the back of back to back rounds of 67 I think he’s value to see off his American opponent.
Back C.Ortiz to beat S.Stricker for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with Paddy Power
Back A.Hadwin to beat H.Swafford for a 3/10 stake at 2.15 with Coral
