The RBC Canadian Open Should Not Feel Like a Very Good Tournament Waiting in the U.S. Open Lobby

Image: Birdie Report

The RBC Canadian Open is doing its part.

The schedule still is not.

Official PGA TOUR preview coverage checked on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 says this year’s tournament has one of the strongest fields in event history, with four top-10 players in the world headed to TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley, plus Brooks Koepka and Collin Morikawa making their first Canadian Open starts since 2019. The Tour’s official power-ranking coverage adds three more reasons the week matters: 500 FedExCup points, $1.764 million to the winner, and three Open Championship spots for the highest finishers who make the cut and are not already exempt.

And yet the whole thing still lives in the sport’s most annoying neighborhood:

the week before the U.S. Open.

This column is based on the PGA TOUR’s official June 8, 2026 First Look and Power Rankings coverage for the RBC Canadian Open, checked on June 9, 2026. No pretending I solved the schedule from a boardroom in Ponte Vedra.

The Field Is Too Good for This to Be Treated Like a Waiting Room

The Tour’s official First Look says the field includes:

• Matt Fitzpatrick
• Collin Morikawa
• Justin Rose
• Tommy Fleetwood

That is already real weight for a non-signature event sitting right before a major.

Then the same official preview notes that Morikawa is back for the first time since 2019, and Brooks Koepka is making his first Canadian Open appearance since 2019 too. Add defending-champion energy around Ryan Fox, the Nick Taylor memory still hanging over the event, and a decent Canadian cast trying to grab the Rivermead Cup, and this is not some dead-air tournament begging for relevance.

It has relevance.

The problem is that the calendar keeps framing it like a pre-flight gate.

The Week Has Real Stakes Beyond “Try Not to Look Rusty”

This is where the tournament gets extra unfairly labeled.

The PGA TOUR’s June 8 Power Rankings page says the top three finishers who make the cut and are not already exempt into The Open Championship get tickets to Royal Birkdale next month. The same official preview also notes the top 60 in the next OWGR receive a U.S. Open exemption after play concludes around the world.

That is not fake urgency.

That is a week with genuine consequences for:

• major access
• FedExCup positioning
• summer scheduling
• status for players who are good enough to matter but not quite insulated enough to relax

We liked this same kind of earned-pressure setup in our Memorial bubble column. The Canadian Open has its own version of it. The difference is the week still gets talked about like everybody is just stretching before Shinnecock.

That undersells the event and, frankly, insults the players who actually need this week.

TPC Toronto Is Not Even Set Up Like a Boring Placeholder

The official Power Rankings page says TPC Toronto’s North Course played as one of the easiest par 70s on the 2025 PGA TOUR schedule, with Ryan Fox and Sam Burns finishing regulation at 18-under before that weird four-hole playoff.

So what does the course offer this year?

Per the same official coverage:

• rough trimmed from reported 6 inches last year to 4 inches
• bentgrass greens expected around 12 on the Stimpmeter
• another setup that should create real scoring chances

In other words, this is not one of those “important because it is hard” weeks.

It is important because it should be lively.

A field with this many recognizable names on a gettable course the week before a major should feel like a featured attraction, not a scheduling inconvenience.

The PGA Tour Keeps Asking Some Events to Carry More Than Their Slot Allows

This is not really a complaint about the tournament itself.

It is a complaint about what the Tour keeps doing to it.

The Canadian Open is one of the oldest events on the calendar. It has national-open weight, a legit sponsor, recognizable recent moments, and now a stronger field than a lot of people expected. But the pre-U.S. Open slot still nudges the entire conversation toward one lazy question:

“Who looks ready for next week?”

That question is useful. It is also limiting as hell.

Because sometimes the better question is:

“What if this week matters on its own?”

The Tour can say yes to that in official copy all it wants. The placement keeps whispering no.

My Take

The RBC Canadian Open deserves a cleaner spot on the calendar than “good luck competing with U.S. Open anticipation.”

Not because the field is weak. The field is strong. Not because the event is broken. The event clearly is not. But because a tournament with this much history, this many current stakes, and this solid a 2026 setup should not have to keep fighting the “nice warmup” label every single year.

We already made a version of this argument in our no-cut Signature Event complaint: the Tour is often smarter about individual fields than it is about the overall shape of the season.

This is another example.

Bottom Line

Official PGA TOUR coverage checked on June 9, 2026 says the RBC Canadian Open has one of its strongest fields in years, major-qualification stakes, and a course setup that should produce a fun tournament.

Which is exactly why it should stop feeling like a very good event waiting in the U.S. Open lobby.