With the Canadian Open happening in my backyard (well… a 30-minute drive plus a shuttle full of disgraced Leafs fans), I’ve decided to spin up a mini live blog for the second round.

My plan is to follow Brooks Koepka for the entirety of his round, with some time sprinkled in with Thorbjornsen (group ahead of Brooks) and Clark/Burns (group behind). I’m hoping the all-Canadian pairing of Hughes/Hadwin/Weir will pull some fans away from the groups behind.

I have a couple reasons for wanting to get a look at Brooks.

First off, he’s heading to Shinnecock next week where he won his second-consecutive U.S. Open in 2018. That week he led the field on approach and was 3rd in putting. So far in 2026 he has shown signs of his former self with the irons (14th on Tour), but he’s on track for the worst putting year of his career. His distance is also a bit below his prime, which is expected at age 36. I want to get a look at his putting—he was 5th in the field on Thursday, gaining 3.5 strokes—and just generally see if his game looks up for what will be a brutal test next week (see our newsletter for more details on how Shinnecock played in 2018). He also sprayed it in round 1, hitting only 6 fairways—Shinnecock’s penalty for missing fairways won’t be as accommodating as TPC Toronto (trust me, I’ve played a couple rounds here with Matt).

Brooks is also on a new journey in his career trying to earn back his status (and respect) on the PGA Tour. Even though I’ll always be disappointed that he (and other top players) left for LIV, I do have a lot of respect for the way he’s carried himself since coming back. To this point, he’s played solid but has gotten almost nothing out of his season. His +1.04 adjusted strokes-gained ranks 42nd in the world this year, but he’s only 102nd in DG Points—nobody has a better SG number than him that is below him on the Points list. This has put him in a dicey position in the FedExCup; our model has him with a 45% chance of making the Playoffs (Top 70 after Wyndham). He’s ranked 69th right now, but 48 spots are already locked with another 4 players >90% to make it. This leaves just 18 spots left for the rest of the Tour to fight for. Right now Koepka has 404 FEC points and our expected cutoff for the Top 70 is ~592—a solo-3rd this week would get him to 604.

I’m not sure how frequently I’ll be posting, or what cell service will be, but hopefully I can provide some kind of value today.