Canadian Corey Conners Now Among Favorites to Win RBC Canadian Open

Corey Conners, the 31-year-old from Listowel, Ont., ranked 29th in World Golf Rankings, was tied for the lead after shooting a 5-under-67 yesterday in the first round of the RBC Canadian Open at Oakdale Golf and Country Club in Toronto.

Conners tees off 1:10 p.m. today. 

That round shot Connors to the top of the list as far as golf betting favourites to win the tournament. He is 7.5 to win, along with Matthew Fitzpatrick of the United States.

Yesterday’s Round 1 had a real Canadian flavour to it, overall. Mackenzie Hughes from Hamilton finished the day tied for 15th on the leaderboard at four under, with Richmond, Ont.’s Taylor Pendrith tied for 16th at three under.

“Looking at the leaderboard it didn’t seem like anyone was taking it that low,” Hughes said after his round. “And then the conditions [yesterday] afternoon kind of turned for the worst. It was cool, little windy, wet. So [the course] definitely showed its teeth there today. I kind of got through that front nine okay. And I kind of figured if I can get through that front around 1-under, even, 1-over, that the back nine was still kind of gettable. So, yeah, had a nice finish out on the back and some good momentum for (Friday).”

Hughes, who teed off this morning, had four birdies on the back nine yesterday.

“I mean, they were obviously, score-wise, a tale of two nines,” he added. “But this course is really a tale of two nines. Because I think if I played the front nine even par for the week I would be really happy. And I’m planning to kind of go low on the back. That’s really kind of how I see this golf course. 3, 4, 5 and 6 consecutively are bears. So 1-over wasn’t really terrible. I felt like I was in an okay position. But I think that you’ll see a lot of that this week where guys go out and shoot even, 1-over on the front and 4-, 5-under on the back and kind of put their rounds together like that.”

Defending champion Rory McIlroy sits tied at 38 after shooting a one-under-par 71.

“Course is good,” he said. “It’s penal. If you miss fairways the rough is very, very thick. Yeah, and I didn’t, I mean, I hit a few, but -- I certainly hit a few loose shots and got myself out of position and the golf course does start to get quite tricky from there. So need to do a better job of just putting my ball in play off the tee. Then from there the golf course is still quite scorable.”

McIlroy tees off today at 12:48 p.m.