BlogRBC Heritage Preview and Picks

The Buzz:

So another Masters is in the books and I have just a couple of thoughts.  Again the Masters does what other events fail to due, in most cases have the greatest week of golf. What happened Sunday may not of pleased many who are Jordan Spieth’s fans, but was a great week of golf.  In Masters folklore Arnold Palmer is the tops at Augusta.  Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts may of created Augusta National, but Arnold Palmer led the Masters and Augusta to the top of sports along with the Super Bowl, World Series, Wimbledon and even the Olympics.  For those that consider the U.S. Open or the British Open the greatest tournament in golf I have to say no it’s the Masters.  Who knows what would of happened if the combination of the Masters, Arnold and television didn’t meet up in 1958 and drastically grow over the years.  It was a bit hard to see Arnold on Thursday morning, a proud man until a year ago when he had a fall was able to play golf every day and enjoy life.  Unfortunately for everyone Arnold has lot’s of problems that most people have at 85 years-old but at least he is able to attend the Masters, go to the Champions dinner, talk with players and friends and make it to the first tee and still participate as one of the honorary starters.  It’s only fitting that someone as exciting as Palmer would come to the top this week.  Between 1958 and 1964 Palmer won four of the seven Masters he played in and the other three he was in the running.  Many know the story in 1961 when Palmer was walking up the 18th fairway with a one shot lead and shook hands with a close friend and instead of winning the tournament first didn’t do the job, making double bogey on the hole and losing the tournament by a shot.  But what many didn’t know was the story on how Arnold had a meltdown and blew a five shot lead, with just seven holes left.  What happen was Art Wall playing two groups behind Palmer made bogey on 10 and Palmer had a five shot lead.  Folklore doesn’t really know if Palmer knew the lead was that big, but Palmer hit a six-iron into Rae’s Creek and made a triple-bogey six on the hole. After that Arnold made birdie at 13 and 15, but bogey 17 missing from three feet.  Arnold also missed a four foot birdie putt on 18 and shot a back nine 38.

Meanwhile Wall made par at 11 and 12, then went birdie, birdie, birdie, par, birdie, birdie to beat Cary Middlecoff by one and Palmer by two.  Wall shot a back nine 32 (remember he bogey 10) and it’s really funny how Masters folklore has lost this passage.  We all remember the six shot lead that Norman blew to Faldo in 1996 or that Ed Sneed blew a five shot final round lead, finishing bogey-bogey-bogey, then losing a playoff.  And we all know that Ken Venturi shot a final round 80 to lose the 1956 Masters by a shot.

I tell you this because Jordan Spieth in some ways has become as symptomatic as Palmer was 55 years ago.  Spieth has played in only three Masters and had at least a share of the lead going into all three.  In the 12 Masters rounds he has played, he has led in 8 of them.  These are the same numbers that Palmer was putting up in his great Masters stretch and it’s way to early to call Spieth the “King of Golf” at 22 but in this era of instant hero’s, Spieth has certainly risen to the top.  But after blowing a five shot back nine lead on Sunday, one very important trait that Spieth showed us that shows what a great man he is, just like Palmer is that Jordan was just as gracious in defeat as he was last year in winning.  In defeat Spieth may of gained a bigger following than in victory and rolled back the clocks to that time in 1959 when Palmer also blew a five shot back nine lead.  We can only hope that Jordan will follow the Palmer script and win next year and in 2019 and then in 2021.

I have run off 800 words and still have talked about the winner Danny Willett.  In the course of Masters history a lot of champions just happen to be in the right place at the right time when someone else folded, that is the case with Willett.  But we have to remember that Willett shot 67 on Sunday, the second lowest round of the week and the lowest final round.  I personally don’t think that this won’t be a fluke win, I can see Willett winning other majors in the future, he is that good of a player.  Amazing when you see other players from the United Kingdom, guys like Colin Montgomerie, Paul Casey and Lee Westwood have been great players and never won a major and Willett has.

On a personal note it will be weird losing the same seat that I have held for the last 25 years at the Masters.  I work for Augusta and have the perfect seat, in the first row of the giant amphitheater that rises three stories tall and holds about 1,000 journalists.  It was built in 1990 to replace the old metal Quonset hut that had housed the media for 37 years before that.  I saw some photo’s of the new press building, it looks a bit like the plantation house in Gone with the Wind, Tara.  Very stately and big, it will be great because it will have every convenience for the media, big roomy desk with state of the art communications.  In 1990 I worked putting together the Masters film and one of the things I did was produce the segment on the new press building.  Back then it was very big and roomy but it was built before the internet era so despite press officials working hard to equip the building to make it state of the art, it never achieved it.  But the new one will and despite having the best seat of the house since 1993, I hopefully will have another great seat in the new building.  Very weird that it will be the fourth press “building”.  I told you about the Quonset hut, but before that was put up in 1953 the “press building” was a big tent by the first hole, so things have really changed.  For your “Twilight Zone” moment, when the press building opened in 1990 Nick Faldo, who was the first British champion of the Masters won.  In the last year of the press building 26 years later the second British winner of the Masters, Danny Willett won.

One last item, Jason Bohn returns to play.  Remember he suffered a heart problem and almost died at the Honda, glad to see he is ready to play again.

Things you need to know about the RBC Heritage:

• This will be the 48th edition of the Heritage, which is now well established thanks to the sponsorship deal with RBC five years ago.  It was a long haul with a lot of apprehensive monents and rumors of it’s demise, but the tournament is now healthy again.
• Harbour Town has been the site of the tournament every year.   In 1989 the Tour Championship was held at Hilton Head.
• The first Heritage Classic was played to great fanfare in 1969 even though it was a “turkey” of an event.  Originally it was just going to be an regular tournament on Hilton Head Island, giving away $45,000.  But Charles Price, founding editor of Golf Magazine, talked to a few people including Charles Fraser who owned the new course Harbour Town and suggested that instead of a small tournament he should apply for PGA Tour sanction.  They scrambled around and raised the purse to $100,000, then got a date for the tournament which was Thanksgiving weekend.  Jack Nicklaus, who helped Pete Dye design the course played and brought some friends including Arnold Palmer who went out and won the first Heritage Classic.  They say that thanks to Palmer winning, it put the tournament on the map and help create a nice tradition for a tournament in its first year.
• The Heritage Classic was played over Thanksgiving weekend in its first four years.  It was moved in 1974 to September and then the next year to March.  Between 1983 and today it’s been played the week after the Masters, except for in 2012 when it was two weeks after the Masters.

Course information:

Harbour Town Golf Links

Sea Pines Resort, Hilton Head Island, S.C.

7,101 yards     Par 36-35–71

• Harbour Town Golf Links features a course rating of 75.6 and a slope rating from the back tees of 147. The tees, fairway, and rough are TifSport bermudaGrass as the greens are bermudagrass overseeded with Poa. The course is a resort course and can be played by the public.  Last year Harbour Town was the 26th hardest course on the PGA Tour width 70.49 scoring average, about a half shot under par.  In 2014 Harbour Town was the 9th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 72.038 average (full shot over par). In 2013 Harbour Town was the 11th hardest course on the PGA Tour playing to a 72.038 average which is 1.038 strokes over par so in a way the course is getting easier.
• Course was designed and built by Pete Dye in 1969.  Jack Nicklaus got his start in golf course architecture as he assisted Dye on the design and building of Harbour Town.   The average green size at Harbour Town is 4,500 square feet, which means it has some of the smallest greens on the PGA Tour.  Course has 145 bunkers and water comes into play on nine of the 18 holes
• Over the years the course has changed very little change, seven new teeing grounds were put in with an added yardage of 127 yards, taking the course over the 7,000 mark to 7,101.  The holes that yardage was added to was the 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 16 & 18.  In most cases players didn’t use driver but holes like 16 with an additional 36 yards will now force players to hit a driver.  The same with 18, 20 yards has been added to a hole that will now play to 472 yards.
• There was also some changes in some of the bunkers so that they are more in play and the area around the second green got some work.  Also some trees that played havoc to those who hit it in the fairway but had to contend with them were removed which will help improve the sight lines.
• One last thing, over the summer every blade of grass on the layout had been replaced – tees, greens, rough, practice facility. The irrigation system also was replaced with the latest technology, so it may be a bit for the players to get the feel of the course and get to know all of the rolls and breaks on the greens.

Let’s take a look at key stats that are important for those playing at the Harbour Town:

This is based on the most important stats for Harbour Town, based on data from last years RBC Heritage, and using data from all the players in the field with stats from 2016. What we do is take their rank for each stat and then add up the four catagories.
The scoring average of the field at Harbour Town in 2015 was 70.49, so with par being 71 that means the average score was a half a shot under par, making Harbour Town the 26th hardest course to score on in 2015. It’s also important to see how the weather played a factor, last year’s weather was near perfect but the winds did blow all four days between 10 and 15 mph. So with good weather, even with the wind the course played a full shot and a half easier than in 2014 when the scoring average was 72.04 and it ranked the 9th hardest course in 2014. In looking at the weather for Hilton Head Island Thursday is suppose to be rainy with morning showers and breezy conditions (20 mph). The rest of the week the weather will be perfect and winds will be up there so expect scores to be higher this year due to the winds..

Harbour Town is one of the best courses in America, it’s a totally different experience in which ball placement is upmost over power. Hitting it hard and far doesn’t work at this venue so look for a precision player to win. Looking at all drives in 2015 the course averaged 264.3 yards, meaning it was the shortest of all the courses on tour. So our first important stat is driving accuracy, you have to drive it well at Harbour Town. Last year the course ranked 36th in this stat compared to the others on tour. In looking at past champions six of the last seven were in the top-ten in accuracy for the week.

For our next categories in looking at the stats for Harbour Town, one thing is obvious, the course caters to those that hits lots of greens, last year it ranked 10th on the Tour In the last 19 years, eleven of the champions ranked in the top-ten with five of them leading the category, the last being Matt Kuchar in 2014.

Next important is around and on the greens. What makes Harbour Town tough is the greens, at 4,500 square feet they are some of the smallest greens on the PGA Tour to hit, so it makes sense that scramblers do well since the course ranked 49th best which in this case means that the average player got it up and down 64.68% of the time, only three courses saw averages higher so you have to scramble well to exist. Last we pick a stat rarely used, overall putting average. It ranked 50th at 1.543 being less putts are taken at Harbour Town, last year only two other course had less putts.

So how did last years winner Jim Furyk become victorious last year? He ranked T-7th in driving accuracy and T-10th in Greens in Regulation, hitting 69.44% of his greens. He was 1st in scrambling which is one of the biggest keys to he victory and T-11th in overall Putting Average. One other important item that won’t be on this list but you should have in the back of your mind, Sand Saves, last year Furyk was perfect 5 for 5 in this stat

*Driving Accuracy: Percentage of fairways hit, last year Innisbrook finished 36th in this stat and was 32nd in 2014.

*Greens in Regulation: Stat is great barometer on how good players manage their games around Harbour Town. Every year the players that hit lot’s of greens do well.

*Scrambling: So which course is tough to get it up and down on holes players miss the greens. Since all of the area’s around the greens are mowed short and are left with really hard shots to get it close, scrambling is important. You are not going to be perfect so you have to make sure you can make pars from some tough places

*Overall Putting Average: Number of putts made over the course of a round, since Harbour Town’s greens are so small you will see less putts as last year only two courses on the PGA Tour saw less putts.

Players from this year’s field with stats from 2016:

Click any column title in the table header to sort columns.

For the rest of the players, hit this link:

Here are some of the secrets of what it takes to play well at the RBC Heritage:

Key stat for the winner:

Harbour Town is one of the best courses in America, it’s a totally different experience in which ball placement is upmost over power.  Hitting it hard and far doesn’t work at this venue so look for a precision player to win.

So what will it take to win this week’s Heritage Classic?

• What makes the course tough is the greens, at 4,500 square feet they are some of the smallest greens on the PGA Tour.  Over the last 11 years they have been difficult to hit, of all the tournaments the U.S. Open is the only one that ranks harder to hit than the greens of Hilton Head.
• Over the years putting and hitting greens have been key to winning at Harbour Town.  It you look at the list of Heritage champions all of them are good putters, especially from the ten to twenty feet range.
• With greens as small as those Hilton Head scrambling is a very important element in being able to win.  Just look at the recent winners to see how important this stat is. Last year Jim Furyk led the stat getting it up and down 21 of the 22 greens he missed, the best any championship has done.  The year before Matt Kuchar was 12th in that stat on the PGA Tour in 2014. The 2013 winner Graeme McDowell led the scrambling list at Harbour Town getting it up and down 79.2% of the time.  In 2012 Carl Pettersson was 21st and Brandt Snedeker did a good job at 20th. But in the years before it was even better as in 2010 Jim Furyk was 4th in this category, getting it up and down 23 of 28 times.  In 2009 Brian Gay was first in this category, getting it up and down 22 of 24 tries.  In 2007 Boo Weekley only took 97 putts and won the category, Aaron Baddeley was 7th in his win in 2006, Davis Love III was 3rd in his 2003 win, Justin Leonard was 7th in his 2002 win, Jose Coceres was 5th in 2001 and Nick Price was 3rd in 1997.
• Heritage always seems to have dramatic finishes.  In the last 14 of the 17 Heritage’s, seven of them have had playoffs, four have had a one stroke margin of victory while the other was two and five.  Last year Jim Furyk beat Kevin Kisner in a playoff while in 2014 Matt Kuchar beat Luke Donald by a shot, thanks to a Kuchar birdie on the 72nd hole. In 2013 Graeme McDowell won in a playoff with Webb Simpson while in 2012 Carl Pettersson had a easy time winning by five.  In 2011 Snedeker went three extra holes before beating Luke Donald.   Can’t get any more excitement than in 2007 when Boo Weekley beat Ernie Els by a shot but he chipped in on 17 and 18 for the win.  In 2010 Jim Furyk beating Brian Davis in a playoff.
• After seven good days of weather at the Masters, we are going to have the opposite this week.  According to forecasts from Monday till Saturday every day will have partly cloudy skies with showers on Thursday through Saturday.  Weather will be good for Sunday, but all four days will be windy so look for the scores to go up.