It's the final PGA Tour event of the year and to celebrate, the first 156-man field of the current season will be split across two courses at Sea Island before those who survive the cut play the final two rounds at the more familiar Seaside layout.

That's been the case here since Kevin Kisner's 2015 victory and having shaken off the competitive rust with 36 holes of acceptable golf in Mexico last week, the 34-year-old should be right in contention once more.

Kisner represents the blueprint for success around Sea Island. Hitting the ball a long way off the tee just isn't much of a weapon here and in 2017, when Kisner finished fourth behind Austin Cook, there was just one bona fide bomber in the entire top 30.

Instead, the task is to hit fairways and greens, setting up birdie chances regardless of how strong the wind blows. That's very much Kisner's MO and even in a largely low-key 2018 campaign, he ranked 30th for fairways and 13th in strokes-gained putting.

The issue was his iron play, atypically weak, but Kisner still found comfort when the right set of circumstances presented themselves. Second place in an Open Championship won by the similar Francesco Molinari, a contending seventh at Harbour Town where he'd previously been runner-up and a strong start in the Sony Open all further underline when and where we should expect him to shine.

More recently, 12th place in the PGA Championship and 24th in the Dell Technologies demonstrate that while not at his absolute best, he's not all that far from it and he's shown numerous times that he doesn't need to build confidence to click. His win at Colonial last year came after a very quiet fortnight, second place at Carnoustie in July was his best performance since March and third place in last year's TOUR Championship made it a fine finish to a low-key Playoffs.

Go further back and he was fourth in the Sony to start 2017, having ended 2016 in dire form, so while his runaway win here in 2015 came after a runner-up finish in the WGC-HSBC Champions, predicting when Kisner will play well is more about identifying the course than recognising the strength of his recent form.

Sea Island, where his form figures since he emerged as a rock-solid PGA Tour player read 4-1-MC-4, is a perfect venue for a player who is southern all the way, reserves his best for bermuda greens and, as has been demonstrated, doesn't tend to shirk the issue on Sundays.

With respect to JJ Spaun, who placed for us last week, Kisner is a far more qualified player and he ought to be right up there behind worthy favourite Webb Simpson at the head of the betting.

While Kisner gets the headline vote, the first name on my list this week was Kramer Hickok and he too looks a knocking bet.

Here we have a very promising young player who is built from the same stuff as Cook: he hits fairways and greens and, hailing from Texas where he became great friends with Jordan Spieth, this isn't far off being a home game.