Form Vs. Course History: Canadian Open Review
Jim Furyk looked like he could cruise to an easy victory on Sunday, but then he ran out of gas. A 1-under-par Sunday wasn’t gonna get it done when everyone else near the top was firing in the 4-to-7-under range. You can’t win em’ all, or in Furyk’s case, you can’t win any… anymore.
Speaking of Furyk, his pre-tournament interview threw many off this week, including myself. He was quoted saying that Royal Montreal set up better for aggressive bombers and that the course didn’t fit his eye. I took the bait, and switched out a lot of my Furyk/Kuchar combo’s on DraftKings with DJ/Charley. Whether the course truly was set up differently during practice rounds or Furyk was flat out deflecting attention, his statement couldn’t have turned out further from the truth. Tim Clark won! The final top-10 leaderboard just screams out short and accurate. The Canuck, Graham DeLaet, was the only golfer in the final top 10 that entered the week inside the top 50 in driving distance. Meanwhile, bombers like Dustin Johnson and Charley Hoffman were slamming their trunks early. Let this be a lesson to take interviews with a grain of salt.
Moving onto the seventh week of our tournament history vs form study, season form is starting to run away with the competition. This week was no different, as season form bagged nearly five times as much cash as tournament history. Let’s see the full results from the RBC Canadian Open:
Course/Tournament History
RBC Average Finish: 32nd place
RBC Money Earned: $231,583
7-Week Average Finish: 32nd place
7-Week Avg Money Earned: $632,751
Season Form
RBC Average Finish: 36th place
RBC Money Earned: $1,005,100
7-Week Average Finish: 38th place
7-Week Avg Money Earned: $993,323
Recent Form (Last 6 Weeks)
RBC Average Finish: 39th place
RBC Money Earned: $464,423
7-Week Average Finish: 40th place
7-Week Avg Money Earned: $464,423
Conclusion
Surprise, surprise, season form wins another week. That is now four of seven week’s since we’ve started this experiment where season form resulted in the most cash earned. Sample size is king, so it’s not surprise that veering away from true skill and overreacting to one or two results leads to a mixed bag.
Recent form saw a bounce-back after it’s worst week yet. While two of the top five missed the cut, they also brought in two top 5s this week and also a top 25.
It’s hard to complain with the average finish results tournament history produced, given this was a new course. Still, many golfers proved that they just like golfing in the Canadian environment. Many golfers who only played in two Canadian Open’s since 2008, didn’t fit the 3-tourney sample minimum, but also did well this week (Tim Clark, Andres Romero, Vijay Singh).
