On Friday, Rory McIlroy made two very important decisions: one, to simply go out and shoot 66 at Augusta, setting the stage for a weekend which will go down in history. Two, not to enter the RBC Heritage, the sport’s worst-scheduled tournament by some distance.
Once upon a time, the Heritage worked perfectly as a post-Masters sundowner; a place for also-rans to dial down the pressure and perhaps put Augusta behind them, or else a tournament they could skip without a moment’s thought. It had a full field, a cut, and threw up thrilling finishes at a familiar and unique venue, Harbour Town.
Then it became a Signature Event, complete with enhanced prize fund and if no longer a demand to play, then certainly encouragement to. That’s why Scottie Scheffler was here last year, days after winning the Masters, and having won he’s back to defend. It’s why Ludvig Aberg, dazed after finishing 5-7 in the Masters this time around, will somehow go again.
McIlroy and Hideki Matsuyama are the notable exceptions – between them they’ve won three of the Signature Events so far this year (if The PLAYERS counts, which I’m not entirely sure it does) – but otherwise everyone is here and everyone, should they wish, can play all four rounds, as there is no cut.
Aberg makes no appeal whatsoever this time and neither does Justin Thomas, and not for bitter reasons. Corey Conners simply looks a bad price to my eye and Viktor Hovland may need to keep working on his driving before he’s to follow up last month’s Valspar win, which I suspect did not mark his total return to form.
Otherwise, the front of the market looks dauntingly strong and while Harbour Town, with its kinks and quirks, its narrow corridors and tiny greens, is a better place than many to try to get the best of the PGA Tour beaten, since its ‘upgrade’ this tournament has gone to world-class players.
Among them, Collin Morikawa’s chance smacks you in the face but at close to twice the price I prefer PATRICK CANTLAY, who has done everything but win this tournament.
Third on debut, seventh a year later then third again in 2019, Cantlay built up an excellent course record in his early visits and has picked it up again lately following a solitary blip in the middle. Across the last three years he’s been second, third, and third once more.
The first of these latest three near-misses saw him lose a play-off to Jordan Spieth, the second saw him beaten a shot by Matt Fitzpatrick, and last year he was among those made to look pedestrian by Scheffler, but nonetheless stayed on well again for his fifth top-three in seven starts at the course.
Suffice to say Cantlay enjoys Harbour Town and while yet to properly fire at Sawgrass, he does have some strong form on other Pete Dye designs including TPC Louisiana, PGA West, and Crooked Stick.
Straka though is never one for whom one such performance should unduly worry us and his trademark high-class iron play was still on display at Augusta, only for the odd bad drive following a slow start to cost him.
He was though set to make the weekend with one last par at the final hole on Friday, only to slip when hitting his drive, pulling it left into thick trees and then chipping across the fairway into those on the right, eventually running up a messy triple-bogey.
Unfortunately, that meant coming from one down with two to play to win his two-ball and cost us about 25 points, but perhaps he can pay us back at Harbour Town, the sort of course his game is made for and one where he’s gone 13-21-7-12 over his last four visits.
Im has been the best driver once and the second-best on another occasion, evidence that to gain on the field off the tee here need not mean hitting it especially far, and his tee-to-green displays have all been solid during this time.
The worry would be his lowly season-long ranking in strokes-gained approach but Im’s irons joined the party in the final round of the Masters, and he seemed very chipper about the state of his game after his third top-five finish of the year.
Im’s best golf is certainly more than a match for the likes of Lowry and Henley and with his short-game razor-sharp last week, further steps forward with his approaches will make him dangerous given that his driver is ultra-reliable.
Whereas Im just got the nod over Maverick McNealy, who made a strong Masters debut and will enjoy returning here, DANIEL BERGER was the very first name onto my list.
Berger really is firing now with eight top-30s in 10 starts this year, including one of his better Masters displays. He earned that opportunity by cracking the world’s top 50 once more and ever since October he’s looked like a winner in waiting.
Perhaps it’ll come in slightly shallower waters but Harbour Town is a fantastic course for a shorter, accurate driver like him, as evidenced by finishes of 33-3-13-21 in four starts since he was down the field as a rookie a decade ago.
Always strong in the strokes-gained off-the-tee charts, further proof of what’s needed at Harbour Town, he’s ranked seventh and sixth in approach play on his last two visits, the most recent of them now three years ago having endured a miserable run with injuries since.
Horschel's iron play was really good at Augusta, where he has a pretty terrible record, so it's not hard to make allowances for a few too many three-putts and a bit of a mess on the scoring holes which together saw him depart on Friday.
Before that he'd been fourth at the Valspar and he was ninth at Pebble Beach earlier this year, so the Floridian, a bit like Rose, has shown enough signs of promise as he looks for his own late path to what does seem an unlikely Ryder Cup debut as things stand.
He'll know that he's come a long way in a year, because it's 12 months since he was playing in the correspnding Corales Puntacana having missed the Masters and failed as well to qualify for this. Unable therefore to defend that title, it would be oh so very Horschel to make waves at Harbour Town instead.
He's a past winner on a Dye course, too, and while two top-10s from 11 starts here is by no means extraordinary, he has contended on a couple more occasions. Maybe he can do so again at a nice price and certainly, if he hits his irons as he did in the Masters he should improve quite a bit around this far more suitable course.
Posted at 2000 BST on 14/04/25
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