As balls plugged and records tumbled, the November Masters did in fact prove unique. That is to take nothing away from the extraordinary success of Dustin Johnson, nor the historic performance of Cameron Smith; simply to say that what happened last week was of its moment. Come April, perhaps we will see Augusta National at her most fearsome again.
There is though something very familiar about the week that follows, because the RSM Classic and the RBC Heritage share so much in common that I'm not alone in having lazily confused them in copy once or twice. The Heritage is the traditional post-Masters wind-down in April, and its cousin now dutifully steps in to perform the same role in the autumn. Let's just hope there are social distancing measures in place at one of Davis Love's famed barbeques.
The point of this is to say that the dynamics may remain much the same. At the Heritage, four of the last five champions had either played badly or not played at all at Augusta, and the same is true of four of the five before that if we borrow the winner of the 2011 Texas Open, which took the place of the Heritage that year. Typically and with just one exception over the last decade, there is a sort of inverse correlation between play at Augusta and Harbour Town, and it may well be that this remains true now we're at Sea Island.
Perhaps the contrast between venues isn't as significant, as Sea Island's fairways - both at the Seaside Course which hosts 54 holes and the Plantation which everyone plays once - are much wider than Harbour Town's. Still, the roll-of-honour here tells you that accuracy off the tee is important, that power isn't, and that a quality short-game has often been decisive. Contrary to popular opinion, not always has that been true at Augusta National.
All of this means that it shouldn't surprise anyone were Sungjae Im to fail to reproduce his debut heroics, or Shane Lowry fail to build on an improved display spent in the company of Tiger Woods. Even tournament favourite Webb Simpson might find it difficult to summon another big performance. Note that when the former US Open winner did lose a play-off for the Heritage in 2013, it followed a missed cut at Augusta. Graeme McDowell beat him, and he too had checked out early the week before.
I really wouldn't underestimate how draining a run it has been for the game's best players. They've had three majors and a FedEx Cup Playoffs in little more than three months, and before all this started most of them barely took a week off once golf returned from its spring break. There will be players here running on empty, and I don't doubt that many of the British contingent are sticking around because they might as well spend two weeks in Georgia rather than just one.
All of this makes it a good chance for two of the back-to-form stars of summer, who have all the motivation in the world to put an exclamation mark on the end of a brilliant few months. The men in question are Harris English and RUSSELL HENLEY and while tempted to put up both, it's the latter who gets the vote.
Ultimately, for all he has his excuses and has shown flashes, English - one of the many who plays out of Sea Island - is yet to really produce in this event. He did finish second in the 'Back2Golf' tournament which featured many a PGA Tour star back in May but he's yet to threaten in this and he was playing beautifully ahead of a missed cut last year, for all it came soon after a disappointing Monday finish in Mexico.
I am a huge fan, a huge admirer of what he's done this year, and have huge respect for Datagolf's world rankings which have him in 12th. Those factors notwithstanding, I would rather hope for a decent run with a view to the Mayakoba Classic should he return to a course where he has no questions to answer.
It's Henley then who gets the vote and he does have an excellent record here thanks to a string of top-10 finishes from 2014 to 2016, the last two coming after they'd changed the format and split the field across two courses early on.
Those came when he was playing well, whereas a missed cut in 2018 was his fifth in six events, and last year his form to begin the season read 57-54-37-61-MC before he again failed to make the weekend. In other words, when Henley has teed up at Sea Island at the very top of his game, or close to it, he has contended. When he's been out of sorts, he has not found sufficient comfort here to change that.
Gladly, he's bang in-form. Four top-10 finishes and nothing worse than 29th from his seven starts post-PGA Championship tell us that, and there are few on the PGA Tour who can compete with his ball-striking numbers. Two starts back at the Zozo Championship he was the best from tee-to-green in an elite field which included all of the world's best players bar Dustin Johnson, and all told he's been inside the top 25 in approach play in 10 of his last 11 measured starts.
That would likely be 11 of 11 had he not missed the cut due to some awful putting in the 3M Open, and it's the putter which has generally held him back having once been his biggest weapon. Just how well he putts here will likely determine whether or not he's in the top six or seven as all other aspects of his game are in as good a shape as anyone in the field and, Georgia born and raised, this is a home game for him.
Henley's fondness for Sea Island stretches back to winning the SEC Championship here a decade ago and since graduating to the PGA Tour, he's shown a fondness for similar courses. In fact almost all of his best stuff has come on that system of events and layouts we so often bring together, including his wins in the Honda and Sony Open. Like those two, his other victory, in Houston, came on bermuda greens which we have this week.
Again, when he's putted well here he's finished inside the top 10, and there have been at least some encouraging signs lately, not least his display with the flat stick at the CJ Cup where he ranked second. More relevant may be the fact he was 21st on bermuda greens in the Wyndham and last time out wasn't too bad, as he gained strokes in two of the four rounds in Houston and suffered just one really difficult day.
I'd rather focus on how well he's hitting it, and how motivated he'll be. Henley has a fabulous record in his home state including in the Masters, and he'll have watched last week's major determined no doubt to make sure he's back there in the spring. At 58th in the world, that goal is now within touching distance and, at a course he used to visit with his family as a kid, this is a golden opportunity to take care of business with a win.
Henley went off 25/1 in Houston, where Johnson was in the field and where we had to guess as to how well suited he would be to the course. Finishing 29th there has helped hold up his price and while this field may look deeper, it contains a favourite who doesn't win as often as 9/1 odds say he ought to, and a bunch of players who have just gone through a mentally draining, delay-hit Masters.
Kevin Kisner is another South Carolina resident who went to college in Georgia and makes some appeal. His best finishes this year have all come exactly where you'd expect, and while last week's missed cut at the Masters was his first, a rain-soaked course wouldn't have helped.
He's respected and I would certainly encourage anyone to focus on players from the SEC states where possible. Kisner joins Chris Kirk, Austin Cook, Heath Slocum, Tommy Gainey and Charles Howell as former champions from either this state or those in the south and south-east, and the likes of Briny Baird (Georgia), David Toms (Louisiana) and Simpson (North Carolina) all perhaps should have won here, too.
It's with that and the event's penchant for delivering us a first-time winner firmly in mind that MATTHEW NESMITH stands out as the next best at three-figure prices.
Hailing from South Carolina, NeSmith is another who knows Sea Island really well and one of the standout performances of an excellent amateur career came at the Seaside Course. That was in 2015, when he made one bogey in 54 holes and shot 14-under to beat a decent field by a long way.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, NeSmith returned for his debut in the RSM Classic last year and played really well, making just three bogeys all week and breaking 70 every day. Clearly, he likes it here and while that SEC form is easy enough to question, note that Brendon Todd is among the former winners, and he was in front through 54 holes before running out of gas in pursuit of a hat-trick.
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