The Open 2023: Can either Canadian player lift the Claret Jug?

The Open

The 2023 Open comes from Hoylake. It is nine years since The Open was played at Royal Liverpool with Rory McIlroy lifting the famous trophy. 2023 sees McIlroy as the favourite to repeat his success after his win at the Genesis Scottish Open last week. 

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Back to the golf, let’s look at the road to Hoylake and who we expect to be in contention to lift one of the most famous trophies in sports on Sunday afternoon.

The season so far

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The Open is the final major this season with the Ryder Cup coming up in September. Three different winners of the majors so far but there have been some players to get into the top 10 on more than one occasion. As always, The Open is going to be a very different test but before we look at that, let’s take a look back at what has happened to this point in 2023.

The Masters

Jon Rahm put himself in the green jacket back in early April. It was a case of the usual suspects behind with Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed both well in the mix again as they have been multiple times in the past. 

PGA Championship

In Rochester, New York, Brooks Koepka landed this year’s PGA Championship in mid-May. Scottie Scheffler was runner-up with Viktor Hovland producing another smart effort to back up his run into the top 10 at The Masters. 

The US Open

June saw Wyndham Clark land by far and away the biggest prize of his career at the US Open. Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler chased him home to take second and third places. With Cameron Smith, Tommy Fleetwood and Jon Rahm all in the top 10, it was very much the right players coming to the fore despite the shock winner.

Hoylake

From the opening hole, Hoylake is a serious test. A new bunker at driving distance will swallow nervous drives with the second shot into a narrow green. It is a typical links track which plays very differently depending on how the wind is blowing. Although McIlroy won here in 2014, it is generally not a track that can be overpowered. The use of a driver needs to be rationed and used with caution. 

The 5th, 6th, 15th and 18th are the four holes on the course which are most likely to provide birdie opportunities depending on what the weather is doing. The 6th is a par 3 and the others are the par 5’s on the course.

The Canadians

Just two Canadian players line up at Hoylake for The Open in 2023. Despite the lack of numbers, they are both in the top 50 in the world so they have the class to get themselves involved if they take to the test of these links.

Corey Conners +8000

Ranked 34th in the world, Conners is playing in his 4th Open. He missed the cut at the first attempt but has finished tied 15th and tied 28th in 2021 and 2022 respectively. In April he won his second PGA title, The Valero Texas Open, a tournament he also won in 2017. 

A top-ten finish three years in a row from 2020-2022 at The Masters shows that Conners has the ability to more than hold his own at this level. Consistency was lacking at the Scottish Open last week. Rounds of -5 on Friday and -4 on Sunday were excellent but with a +2 opening round and a +1 Saturday, those good days were squandered.

Nick Taylor +30000

It took four playoff holes for the world number 46 to see off Tommy Fleetwood and win his home competition, the RBC Canadian Open earlier this year. His record in the Majors is not a good one, yet to play at The Open. One positive Taylor does have is that he has a Pebble Beach win to his credit. That at least suggests that a windy course right on the coast is not going to be an issue for him.   

His Scottish Open took on a very similar look to Conners’ week, just on opposite days. -2 on Thursday and -5 on Saturday were let down by a level par round on Friday and +1 on Sunday. Both finished -6 in a tie for 19th.

The Contenders

There are a fair number of players who hold a strong chance of winning The Open. It is fair to say that with a classy field, it should be an exceptional four days of golf this week. Let’s look at some of those with the strongest chance of claiming the win in the season’s final major.

Rory McIlroy +700

Can prove a touch inconsistent but there is no doubting his class. Since winning this in 2014, he has finished 2nd, 3rd, tied 4th and tied 5th in the six times that he has played in this tournament. He won the Dubai Desert Classic earlier this year and the Scottish Open last week, making it five wins in just over 13 months. 

Having spent some time in the wilderness, winning a single tournament in 2017 and 2018 combined, he has rediscovered his stroke in more recent times. Growing up in Northern Ireland, he was raised on links courses so it is no shock that he is the favourite to lift the Claret Jug. 

Scottie Scheffler +700

The world number 1 has made the top 10 in nine of the last 11 majors to be played. One of the two that the 2022 Masters champion missed out on was in this tournament last year. Tied 8th in 2021, they are the only two times that he has been seen at The Open.

He tied for 3rd at the Scottish Open last week, a level par final round seeing him finish five shots off the winner. Seven bogeys and one double bogey were on his card, four of them coming in that final round on Sunday. Others have slightly stronger links form but it would be no shock if he makes it third time lucky. 

Jon Rahm +1200

Tied for third in 2021 but has failed to break into the top 10 in his other five appearances.  Despite not having the best record on a links course, he is still the world number 2 and has been in excellent form in 2023. 

2023 is the first time that he has won four times on the PGA tour in a single year. 2019 saw Rahm pick up four wins but three of those were on the European Tour. It is fair to say that the 28yo is in the form of his life this year, so he needs plenty of respect.

Cameron Smith +1800

The defending champion, he had only made the top 20 in one of his prior four starts in The Open before coming from four shots back at the start of the final round last year. A 64 was the second lowest final round score by a champion at The Open with his back nine score of 30 the lowest ever by an Open champion.

That does make it a little bit of a question mark for 2023, however, as to whether he is capable of producing that level of play once more. If he is, then naturally he is one of the main contenders as one of the top players in the world but if he isn’t…

Tommy Fleetwood +2200

Runner-up in 2019 and tied for 4th last year, Tommy Fleetwood is yet to break his duck in a major but the Englishman has been knocking on the door for a while now. 2023 has been a solid year for him so far. A heartbreaking runner-up in the Canadian Open, he was tied for 5th in the US Open last month. 

At the Scottish Open last week he used ‘moving day’ on the Saturday to put himself into contention. Unfortunately for Fleetwood, he followed up that stunning -7 round with a +2 on the Sunday and could only end up in a tie for 6th. More consistency is needed at Hoylake but he is very much the type to put up a strong challenge.

The Underdogs

Given the nature of a links course in terms of the difficulty to play, it is never a surprise when there is a big-priced outsider right in the mix when all is said and done. We have three picked out at varying prices that are worth a look at when it comes to bigger-priced players this week.

Robert MacIntyre +6000

Not for the first time, the Scot played his heart out in the Scottish Open, a strong weekend saw him finish 2nd. The 26yo has played in The Open just three times so far in his career, finishing tied 6th in 2019 and tied 8th in 2021. 

Only a birdie, birdie finish from Rory McIlroy was enough to deny him in the Scottish Open. Four rounds, all under par. It was some of the best golf that MacIntyre has played at any point of his career. There is no better time to come to form than this week.

Ryan Fox +9000

The New Zealander is yet to really show up at the business end of a major but at the same time, he has always shown a love of links tracks and promises to do better. Tied 16th in 2019 is the best he has done at The Open so far but he one more showed a liking for links last week.

He was tied for 12th in Scotland after a final day round of level par. It was the front nine that cost him. Five birdies and 10 bogeys across the four days made for poor reading but the back nine saw him with 14 birdies and two bogeys, a remarkable course of two halves. Wins at the Alfred Dunhill Links on the European Tour and the Northern Irish Open on the Challenger Tour show his love for this sort of test.

Jordan Smith +30000

A name that might not be all that familiar to most, Smith shot four rounds all below par in Scotland last week, dropping just six shots across the 72 holes. The 2022 Portugal Masters winner, playing on the coast is no problem for him.

2022 was his debut at The Open and it took him a while to get himself adjusted. He did on the Sunday though, a -5 spoilt by a double bogey on 17 was a case of what could’ve been. That experience should not be lost on him this time around.

Conclusion

Winning any Major tournament is a tough task and one that very few players will ever have the chance to do. Both Corey Conners and Nick Taylor played the links at the Scottish Open well enough last week to think that they are going to at least be able to stick around for the weekend.

Both would be a slightly surprising winner of the Claret Jug but it would be unwise to completely write the pair off. Conners has a smart record at Augusta which is a course that rewards neat and tidy play while Taylor has a win at Pebble Beach so a windy course by the sea is clearly no problem for him. Taylor lacks any prior experience at The Open but +30000 is overpriced on how he played in Scotland.

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