With due respect to Chez Reavie, Nathan Green, Carl Pettersson and Scott Piercy, recent years have been kinder to the when it comes to the winner’s circle. Reavie, Green, Pettersson and Piercy won the event in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012, respectively. Sean O’Hair claimed the title in 2011 and while he had some name recognition as a multi-time tour winner and a 2009 participant, he was by no means a star.
Those were the first five years of and at the time it seemed the bank couldn’t catch a break. Consider that Reavie upset hotshot Anthony Kim in that Sunday final pairing; Green beat two-time U.S.
Open winner Retief Goosen in a playoff; Pettersson finished two ahead of Luke Donald, an RBC guy and a top-10 player in the world; and O’Hair won to little fanfare because Adam Hadwin, then a 23-year-old Canadian Tour player who grew up in nearby Abbotsford, B.C., was the bigger story with his tie for fourth after holding the final-round lead.
Fortunes turned when Brandt Snedeker was victorious in 2013. Snedeker had joined Team RBC that January and was the reigning FedEx Cup champion. South African Tim Clark was a fine winner in 2014 (except that he beat two-time Canadian Open champion Jim Furyk) but not as good as tournament favourite Jason Day in 2015.
Back-to-back victories by Jhonattan Vegas followed. Like Clark, Vegas was an affable champion but not as sexy of a name as those he beat — Dustin Johnson and new pro Jon Rahm in 2016; Ian Poulter in 2017. Since 2018, however.
