Ben Coley previews the RBC Heritage, where Sungjae Im and Russell Henley are fancied to build on strong performances in the Masters.
Golf betting tips: RBC Heritage
2pts e.w. Sungjae Im at 33/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Russell Henley at 66/1 (bet365, Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Christiaan Bezuidenhout at 140/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Ben Martin at 175/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Joel Dahmen at 200/1 (William Hill 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
0.5pt e.w. Tyler Duncan at 300/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
0.5pt e.w. Michael Thompson at 350/1 (William Hill 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Keeping sponsors happy is just one of the many responsibilities of a PGA Tour executive and that's presumably why RBC, a Canadian banking company who've sponsored both this event and the Canadian Open for some time now, have been honoured with a designated event for 2023.
Quite why it was decided that it should be the RBC Heritage and not the RBC Canadian Open, I don't know. Maybe it's because the Canadian Open comes a week before a major championship rather than a week after. Perhaps Jay Monahan just wants to watch the best players in the world compete at Harbour Town again, just as they felt compelled to in the summer of 2020.
Whatever the reason, it seems a bit daft to me. We'd already had six of these tournaments before the Masters so this will now be the eighth time that the best players have gathered in 2023. You can have too much of a good thing and the bottom line is this: what's the value of having them here if, deep down, they don't really want to be?
Few would admit to that and there are some to whom it doesn't apply – the Heritage is a fun, family-friendly event held on a quirky course which many people adore. There's just no way that Rory McIlroy wanted to take out his frustration on a course that creates it by suffocating golfers who like to thrash 330-yard drives and no wonder he's withdrawn. Jon Rahm should be anywhere but here, Scottie Scheffler likewise.
It's not a coincidence that many world-class players have been to Harbour Town only once, when golf came out of the pandemic and any opportunity had to be taken, when it wasn't a week after the Masters, when they'd hardly played in months.
There is a potential upside and that's a market which has to pay huge respect to these elite golfers despite the fact that the thing that makes so many of them elite, or at least provides the backbone of their success, is almost completely nullified by a short, twisting course where accuracy is vitally important. Sometimes, that means hitting a specific section of a fairway and there are occasions when being in the rough to the left is better than being blocked out in the fairway the other side.
Those who work their ball, who shape it and flight it and don't look to crush it, are at a distinct advantage. Elite wedge players, those who chip and putt well, ditto. Matt Kuchar's record here is phenomenal as is that of Luke Donald, Brandt Snedeker is a former champion, so too Carl Pettersson. Four of the last 10 have won the US Open, but it's not that which marks them out as ideal candidates. It's the fact that the likes of Kuchar, Jim Furyk, Webb Simpson and Jordan Spieth all play the game in a way that not many of their peers play it.
None of this is to say that Scheffler can't rock up here and win on his first try. Of course he can. But this is a rare opportunity to bet in a tournament the top golfers are not particularly motivated for, at a course they're for the most part not suited to, at a time when their focus could well slip or else mental fatigue simply kick in. Perhaps we ought to be thanking Monahan and co after all.
Spieth has confessed to feeling exhausted so he's off the list given that he'll have further duties as defending champion, and last year's runner-up Patrick Cantlay is arguably the one to beat. Either him or Collin Morikawa, who is both suited to and a fan of Harbour Town. He's also motivated, having spoken last year of his frustration at having gone six months without a win. That run now spans a year and a half and, having again suggested he's not far away with a top-10 finish at Augusta, he will appeal to many.
So will Matt Fitzpatrick, who took great heart not just from the way he played last week, but the way he felt. A childhood visitor to this course and one who has made no secret of his fondness for it, he'd be another US Open champion to add to the list should he win for the first time since. Along with a weary but course-proven Shane Lowry, plus Morikawa and Cantlay, these would be the four players I fear most in an event where you just have to take some chances.
I'll also say that Justin Thomas is seldom 28/1 and that alone made him interesting. Spieth, his friend, won this tournament after a chastening missed cut at Augusta, his first. Well, Thomas just missed the cut at Augusta. Lightning might strike twice but the truth of the matter is Thomas is far less suited to Harbour Town and if he does as Spieth did, so be it.
First to my one selection from the top of the market, SUNGJAE IM, who looks the best value among the best players.
Im has barely missed a beat this year having already amassed eight top-25 finishes, including at the Masters last week where he gained strokes through the bag. His form in the seven top-class events reads 13-6-56-21-6-17-16 and unlike many of his rivals, Harbour Town should help rather than hinder him.
Having missed his first two cuts at the course that might not seem an obvious thing to say, but subsequent finishes of 13th and 21st speak to his suitability. So does the fact that he ranked fourth in strokes-gained tee-to-green last year and was the best driver in the field, only to suffer an abject week with the putter.
That club has been stable of late, Im having gained strokes throughout each of his last four starts, and his top-25 putting display here in 2021 offers sufficient encouragement. I'd be hopeful he can maintain the level of performance he's shown since the beginning of last month and if he does that, Im should have a platform.
Like Morikawa, he's accurate off the tee, his approach play can be his biggest asset when he's firing, and he's rock-solid around the green. Im is a proper all-rounder whose record at the Wyndham Championship, where he was mugged by compatriot Tom Kim last year, plus at East Lake, also points towards this tree-lined test suiting him down to the ground.
Fatigue won't be a factor and his form is probably a shade stronger than it was 12 months ago. Should Im strike his ball as well as he did then, he'll go very close to landing a third PGA Tour title and the pick of them so far given the company we're in this week.
We could spend a long time trying to weigh the pros and cons of having played well at Augusta. For some players, such as Kuchar when he won this title, contending in the Masters was no barrier to success. For others, like Spieth (MC at Augusta) and Cantlay (T39), this tournament provided an opportunity to put a bruising experience behind them.
Satoshi Kodaira was a shock winner who'd shown that he was in decent nick by finishing mid-pack in the Masters, exceeding expectations, as had last year's third Sepp Straka. Others, including Kuchar this time plus JT Poston, had not played in the first major of the year. Lowry ended up feeling he could've won both, and truth be told he certainly should've won this.
In other words there's no sure way to tell, but my view in general would be that those who entered the Masters with low expectations and exceeded them can be fancied to bounce into this week. Someone like Scheffler, who was immensely frustrated at what was still a good title defence, may struggle to go again. It's the worry I have with Lowry even if it didn't stop him 12 months ago.
This is a roundabout way of getting to RUSSELL HENLEY, who was thrilled to find himself in with some sort of chance in his home state of Georgia, with friends and family cheering him to a career-best major performance.
Henley has long had a good record at Augusta but was a three-figure price for a reason and, as one of the less confident members of the world's top 50 (he's up to 29th now), won't have arrived there expecting to contend. That he was in third place around the turn and kept plugging away to finish fourth will surely send him out to Hilton Head on a high.
The Heritage is a tournament he's contended for in the past and two years ago he finished ninth despite one of those abysmal putting displays which have become all too common in recent times. First in strokes-gained approach and third in strokes-gained tee-to-green, he played well enough to win and win well.
There's no denying that kind of performance is always a lingering threat, but his was the best short-game in the field at the Masters and where he's concerned that's what I'd want to see. We know he's accurate off the tee (first in fairways this season and last week) and that his iron play is capable of reaching world-class levels on any given week. It's the short-game which has become difficult to predict.
Leading the field in scrambling at Augusta and putting so well might just be something he can run with for another week and his form at similar courses to this one, including Sedgefield where he looked like winning last year, is encouraging. So too is his overall record at Pete Dye courses, having played well at Sawgrass, River Highlands and Whistling Straits as well as here.
Henley's wins in the Honda Classic and at El Camaleon offer strong correlations through the likes of Graeme McDowell, Brian Gay, Straka, Lowry and plenty more besides, and if the putter fires then I could see him producing a performance similar to that which saw him dominate under low-scoring conditions in Mexico back in November.
This is close to a home game for Henley, his wife hailing from South Carolina where they've lived in the past, and he looks a strong each-way candidate.
JT Poston has three top-10 finishes in four starts here and hails from across the border in North Carolina, where he captured the Wyndham Championship. Accurate off the tee, deadly at times with the putter and favoured by low-scoring conditions, his mid-pack Masters finish could of course set him up for another strong go at winning this.
He's just a hair shorter than I'd like so next on the list is JOEL DAHMEN at about twice the price.
Dahmen has gone 16-48-12 across his three starts in this event, his work around the green the only thing stopping him. Both top-20s came courtesy of quality putting which isn't usually his strength and, as you'd expect, his ball-striking has been really strong.
He's a player who often pops up by the coast at courses he likes. That was the case when he won the Corales Puntacana and when he placed for us at a nice price in Mexico, and it's why I can see the return to Harbour Town sparking improvement after what's been a really quiet start to the year.
Seven appearances so far show a best of 41st but Dahmen has made five cuts and, crucially, there's been an upturn in his long-game of late. Throughout his last five starts he's kept moving forward in terms of greens hit, and eighth for strokes-gained approach at the Valspar two starts back is a key sign that he's getting dialled in at last.
At 10th in driving accuracy for the season he's another with fundamentally the right game for this and while that putter will always be a worry, let's not forget that Spieth won this while losing strokes on the green. In 2020, Abraham Ancer almost did the same, as did Luke List in 2018, and while these are isolated examples there are plenty of others who've won this without exactly lighting up the dancefloors.
Bez can putt his way into the mix
One player who often does that is CHRISTIAAN BEZUIDENHOUT and he's certainly capable of emulating Branden Grace and winning his first PGA Tour title in this event.
Bezuidenhout is short but accurate off the tee, no handicap at all here, and when he's firing he does so with quality approaches and a red-hot putter.
Significantly, his approach play has turned a corner lately, ranking 18th in The PLAYERS and 10th in Texas. Between the two he struggled in the Match Play but that's always been the case, both the course and the format seemingly conspiring against him. Despite that, his approach play was again solid, so that's three starts running his irons have fired.
We know there's scope for a huge putting spike, even from two decent performances in Florida and Texas, and we also know he likes it here. Bezuidenhout's first seven rounds at Harbour Town were under-par and he was 10th heading into Sunday last year before that sequence came to an end at a bad time.
Taking aim at the smallest greens on the schedule shouldn't be a problem for a former winner at Valderrama and, at three-figure prices, he looks like he'll give us a real run for our money. Nobody should be surprised if he's in the mix again and perhaps this time he can see things through.
Wesley Bryan was one of several locals to have contended for this when succeeding Grace in 2017 and BEN MARTIN could follow suit.
Born and raised in South Carolina, this is a home game for an in-form, course-proven player who has done really well to get his career back on track, so he's one I expect a lot of people will be interested in.
"We don't get many home events, so to speak, on the Tour, because we're traveling throughout the country," he said a few years back. "Anytime you have that local Clemson support and South Carolina support is good.
As for what specifically about the course he enjoys, he added: "I like that you have to think your way around. You look at the scorecard and the length, and it doesn't look that hard, but it's a lot of picking your spots and knowing where to miss it.
"It just suits my game."
He's not wrong, either. Martin's driving accuracy rankings over his last three starts tell us that, having been no worse than fifth, and on each of his first three appearances in this tournament he was inside the top 10 after round one. On the second of them he was the halfway leader, eventually settling for third place, and his subsequent mediocre efforts correspond with an overall downturn in his game.
Now back on Tour following a brave effort at Korn Ferry Tour Finals in September, Martin has made his last six cuts and produced three top-10 finishes within this stretch. Two of the top-10s came exactly where you'd expect them to before he produced by some distance a personal best in the Texas Open last time out, where perhaps you wouldn't.
That came despite a poor putting week but he was fourth in that category in the Honda Classic and historically has been an above-average putter, so there's a decent chance everything comes together for him in an event which he'll have had circled in the calendar since he got his card back.
Two for the price of one
Aaron Rai, Lee Hodges and Ben Griffin are all interesting first-timers, Rai in particular. His victory at Fanling is probably a decent enough guide to this, his form of late is solid, and he's a pragmatic, accurate golfer who has been ticking over nicely again.
Experience though is a definite plus at a course as quirky as this one, so I'll split stakes on MICHAEL THOMPSON and TYLER DUNCAN at bigger prices.
Thompson, like Im and Henley another former winner of the Honda Classic, has been playing better lately. His driving, approach play and putting have all improved and he sat third at halfway in Texas last time out before fading.
This is a considerably stronger field so further improvement will be needed, but it's possible at Harbour Town. He has two top-10s in his last four visits including when eighth in 2020, the strongest renewal in the event's history and comparable to this one.
It's true that he's largely relied on his putter to get competitive here but he did rank 10th in strokes-gained approach that week and has generally driven it well. Moreover, it's simply the right kind of course for a short, accurate driver whose first pro win came at a very fiddly layout on the Korn Ferry Tour where he had to shoot 23-under.
That's a similar formula to the one expected this week and this two-time winner, who finished second in the 2012 US Open, saw off major champions in the Honda and impressed with his resolve when doubling his tally in the 3M Open, is capable of hanging tough in high-class company.
Duncan's sole win saw him get the better of Webb Simpson at the RSM Classic, a tournament which shares some things in common with this one, and he's rediscovered his game this year.
Third place in the Honda and again at the Corales Puntacana mean he's 78th in the FedEx Cup standings and they've come within his last five starts, while earlier in the year he'd contended to a point in the AmEx to hint at better times ahead.
Another of the most accurate drivers around and one who pounds greens when on-song, he's far better suited to this than his last outing in Texas, where nevertheless he was still strong in the ball-striking department.
That was the case when 12th here last year courtesy of a final-round 65 and he's also shot 63 at Harbour Town, just a couple of shots off the course record. It absolutely plays to his strengths and I could see him hitting the frame once more.
Posted at 1730 BST on 10/04/23
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