Open Championship Canadians and the favourites to win

Mark Zecchino is the host of TSN’s Golf Talk Canada and the play-by-play voice of PGA Tour Radio on Sirius/XM. We will be previewing the major storylines surrounding the Open Championship with Zecchino on Tip of the Tower.

The 146th Open Championship takes places this week at Royal Birkdale in Southport, England just north of Liverpool.

This years field is so wide open with no clear-cut favourite to win. Oddsmakers have put 16/1 odds that three players could win, which includes Dustin Johnson, who is still the worlds No. 1 player, as well as Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler.

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There are two Canadians who qualified for the Open.

Adam Hadwin has been the top Canadian this year on the PGA tour and qualified because of his official world golf ranking. Hadwin currently ranks No. 54 and picked up his first career win earlier in 2017 at the Valspar Championship.

Austin Connelly is the second Canadian who qualified. Connelly holds dual citizenship. He was born in Texas but his father is from Toronto and he has embraced his Canadian roots.

In an interview with Mark Zecchino, who is the host of TSN’s Golf Talk Canada and the play-by-play voice of PGA Tour Radio on Sirius/XM, we discussed some key storylines surrounding the Open Championship, including the two Canadians Adam Hadwin and Austin Connelly and their chances this weekend at the Open at Birkdale.

Here is Zecchino’s take on the Canadian’s playing this weekend in the Open:

On Hadwin: He does not have a lot of experience playing links golf so this is going to be very different for him. When you consider that weather can play tricks on everybody and the best players in the world right now are not playing that well, this Open Championship is wide open.

Do I expect Hadwin to contend to win; probably not. That’s a lot to put on a guy who is playing in the Open Championship for the first time. Hadwin has played well all year and is a really good putter which will help him hang around longer than most.

I would not be surprised if he played all four rounds and I expect him to make the cut. If he gets four rounds of experience under his belt, that would be considered a big win right now.

On Connelly: He plays full-time right now on the Challenge Tour which is the European Tour’s version of the web.com Tour. It’s the road to the European Tour. We’ve seen a few players take this road as a way to get the PGA tour with the most notable example being Brooks Koepka.

Connelly qualified for the Open by going through sectional qualifying. Playing on the Challenge Tour, he has seen some different type of golf in the last year over in Europe.

He managed to somehow catch lightening in a bottle and now finds himself in the field.

Here is Zecchino’s take on the favourites to win and why:

Jon Rahm is playing incredibly well and in the top 10 in the world. He won two weeks ago at the Irish Open and loves links golf.

Justin Rose has been trying to peak for this tournament all season. His debut was here in 1998 as an amateur and almost won the event. He wants this one really bad.

Sergio Garcia has an incredible record at the Open Championship but is without a victory. He controls his ball flight and trajectory better than any player on the planet. With the Masters title under his belt he has zero pressure and is playing with house money.

He has got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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