{"id":702415,"date":"2026-06-13T21:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T21:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/702415\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T21:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T21:44:13","slug":"rbc-canadian-open-tommy-fleetwood-in-hunt-as-pro-debutant-ben-james-leads-heading-into-weekend-golf-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/702415\/","title":{"rendered":"RBC Canadian Open: Tommy Fleetwood in hunt as pro debutant Ben James leads heading into weekend | Golf News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tommy Fleetwood remains in the hunt for his PGA Tour win in almost a year at the RBC Canadian Open at TPC Toronto at Osprey Valley.<\/p>\n<p>The Englishman sits two shots back from youngster Ben James, a former US collegiate start making his professional debut who is the clubhouse leader in a field with plenty of star power.<\/p>\n<p>The likes of Brooks Koepka, Shane Lowry and Robert MacIntyre all remain close heading into the weekend, with defending champion Ryan Fox also in the mix.<\/p>\n<p>Fleetwood will be aiming to banish the ghosts at the same tournament he lost in a play-off three years ago, when home favourite Nick Taylor sealed victory on the fourth extra hole with a stunning 72-foot eagle putt.<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/skysports-tommy-fleetwood-memorial_7267876.jpg\"   alt=\"Tommy Fleetwood the Memorial Tournament\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Tommy Fleetwood sits in a tie for seventh place, two shots behind the leader as he looks for a maiden PGA Tour win of 2026<\/p>\n<p>Koepka also sits a couple of shots back, behind a group of five players that includes Sam Burns, who played in the final group at the Memorial last week and tied for fourth.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel really close,&#8221; said Koepka, when asked if he&#8217;s getting back to his best after leaving LIV Golf back in December.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The ball striking probably hasn&#8217;t been what I would say it&#8217;s been all year. Driving it as well, maybe not as great this week. The putting has been great. So I&#8217;m happy with it, I&#8217;m excited, and hopefully it continues this week.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Fellow Americans Jackson Suber and Keith Mitchell, Sweden&#8217;s Jesper Svensson and China&#8217;s Haotong Li also all sit a shot off the lead.<\/p>\n<p>Ireland&#8217;s Lowry is still in the hunt for his first win of the PGA Tour season and sits in a tie for 19th, four shots behind the leader, alongside Scotland&#8217;s MacIntyre who went four under for the day to move to six-under par overall.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone will have to catch James though, who is making just his 10th PGA Tour start and his first as a professional golfer.<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/skysports-ben-james-walker-cup_7272176.jpg\"   alt=\"Ben James in action at the Walker Cup last year for the United States team (AP Photo\/Thien-An Truong)\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Ben James in action at the Walker Cup last year for the United States team (AP Photo\/Thien-An Truong)<\/p>\n<p>He set the tone with an eagle at the par-five first, draining a 22-foot putt before carding a bogey-free 63 at Osprey Valley. The impressive round left him heading into the weekend without a bogey in his last 33 holes.<\/p>\n<p>Asked how he would sleep and what his mindset would be heading into the final two rounds, James offered a disarmingly honest response.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got no clue because I&#8217;ve never been in this position, so I&#8217;m very excited to find out,&#8221; he said. &#8220;One thing I wanted to do I was, like, let&#8217;s try and get in that last group.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just want to feel what that feels and kind of just see what happens out there in that situation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being so young, I&#8217;m just excited. I have no expectations. I&#8217;m going to play the best I can like I did the last two days.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watch the third round of the RBC Canadian Open on Saturday live on Sky Sports Golf with early coverage starting from 12pm. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sky.com\/tv\/sports?dcmp=Ilc_skysports_nc_articlelink\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Get Sky Sports<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nowtv.com\/watch-sky-sports-online?DCMP=ilc_skysports_nc_articlelink\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">stream with no contract on NOW<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/golfnow-logo.png\" class=\"sdc-interactive-golfnow__branding-image\" alt=\"Golf Now logo.\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"sdc-interactive-golfnow__branding-text\" class=\"sdc-interactive-golfnow__branding-text\">Get the best prices and book a round at one of 1,700 courses across the UK &amp; Ireland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy Fleetwood remains in the hunt for his PGA Tour win in almost a year at the RBC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-702415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}