PGA Tour odds: Our top long shots to bet at this week’s RBC Canadian Open

The week before a major championship always presents interesting opportunities for bettors. For one, the field is usually lacking in quality as plenty of the game’s elite talents will skip the event in order to be fresh for what’s to come, in this case the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club.

There are other variables at play, too. It’s fair to wonder how motivated the few elite players making the trip to Oakdale Golf & Country Club will be knowing that they’ve got a severe test waiting for them in a week. Additionally, we have no idea how this course will play during a PGA Tour event. All signs point to a birdie-fest, which is a change of pace at this junction of the calendar, but we won’t know until Thursday.

Here’s a look at RBC Canadian Open odds ahead of this week’s event.

It’s not surprising to see defending champ Rory McIlroy sitting as the clear favorite in this field. McIlroy is +470 to win the Canadian Open, putting him well ahead of Tyrrell Hatton (+1000), Matthew Fitzpatrick (+1500), Cameron Young (+1500), Sam Burns (+1600), Shane Lowry (+1800), Corey Conners (+1800) and Justin Rose (+1800).

With the top of the board looking very beatable, this is a great week to circle some long shots and hope to catch the favorites looking ahead to the U.S. Open.

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This is a play on form more than anything else. Lipsky was terrific at the Memorial and had a legitimate chance to win the tournament going into Sunday before he faltered. But a T12 finish at that course against that competition is still quite impressive and it came off a T16 at the Charles Schwab Challenge where another rough Sunday performance had him tumble out of contention.

It’s always a good idea to bet on upside in a tournament like this and Akshay Bhatia has that in spades. The 21-year-old is coming off a tough week at the Memorial, but everyone had a tough go of it at Muirfield Village and this will be a very different kind of test. In all likelihood, this tournament will setup more like what Bhatia faced at the Puerto Rico Open and Mexico Open — two birdie-fests with weaker fields — and he finished second and fourth, respectively, at those stops.

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There will be some hype for hometown hero Aaron Cockerill this week among the in-the-weeds betting community. He’s not a known commodity on the main circuit yet, but he’s having himself quite the run on the DP World Tour with five straight finishes of T21 or better coming into this week. Cockerill finished runner-up in Japan in April and was T10 in his last tournament, so there’s plenty of signs pointing to a big week from the Manitoban.

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