Best bets
2pts each-way Matt Fitzpatrick @ 18/1
1.5pts each-way Patrick Cantlay @ 16/1
1.5pts each-way Tommy Fleetwood @ 18/1
1pt each-way Will Zalatoris @ 25/1
0.5pt each-way Cam Davis @ 60/1
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Nobody has done the Masters-Heritage double since the great Bernhard Langer in 1985 but brilliant Augusta winner Scottie Scheffler is only 15/4 with Fitzdares to do just that on the Harbour Town Links at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina this weekend.
The undisputed world No.1 is now on a 1-1-2-1 roll that’s starting to resemble what Tiger Woods used to do to his hapless rivals two decades ago.
When push came to shove, Scottie was different class as he wrapped up his second Green Jacket with the minimum of fuss, with only Swedish debutant Ludvig Aberg getting within seven shots of Scheffler’s 11-under-par winning score.
He’s already being talked up for a same-year Slam (never happened, never will but Fitdares go 50/1 he wins the next three Majors too) and is as short as 9/2 for next month’s PGA Championship at Valhalla, the Kentucky course where Rory McIlroy – only T22 at the Masters, yet another bitter disappointment – won his last Major ten years ago.
Yet, at the risk of being carted off to a home for the mentally deranged, I’m taking him on this week at quirky Hilton Head, where he finished T11 on his Heritage debut 12 months ago – and betting on a Brit is going to lower his colours in this limited-field $20m Signature event.
Europe is strongly represented with McIlroy, course debutant Aberg, Masters third Tommy Fleetwood and defending champion Matt Fitzpatrick leading the way, with underrated Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, evergreen Justin Rose, Sepp Straka, Houston Open winner Stephan Jaeger and Thomas Detry as back-up.
‘When push came to shove, Scottie was different class.’
This is a real horses for courses track where first-timers rarely figure – Davis Love III won there five times, Hale Irwin three, Stewart Cink three, the last time unforgettably for me at 225/1 – and with its overhanging trees encroaching on to narrow fairways, precision rather than power is the watchword.
Harbour Town is not about just hitting fairways, on some holes it’s the right part of the fairway that needs to be found, otherwise as likely as not you’re blocked by a tree.
It’s more a mental challenge than a physical one and quite unlike the usual run of PGA Tour courses.
Designed by Pete Dye with input from Jack Nicklaus and home to the Heritage since 1969, it’s a relatively short par 71 at 7213 yards with a big kick at the finish with the Calibogue Sound lighthouse as a backdrop.
Having been an eyecatching T4 in 2021, Fitzpatrick conquered it last year after a playoff with Jordan Spieth and showed enough, for the first three rounds anyway, at the Masters to encourage putting up the Yorkshireman for an encore. Fifth at the Players and tenth in Texas, Matt isn’t far away from his best and the 2022 US Open hero is not as much in awe of Scheffler as Scottie’s American rivals.
As for his Ryder Cup pal Fleetwood, nobody’s game bar Scheffler’s looked in better shape than the Southport man’s last week and although it’s asking for trouble putting up a golfer who has never won on the PGA Tour, this could well be his breakthrough week. Tommy finished tenth and 15th in the last two Heritages and his T3 at Augusta on Sunday was by far his best Masters finish.
A big threat to the British duo is course specialist Patrick Cantlay. Harbour Town owes him a W after so many near misses. He went down to Spieth in the 2022 playoff when his ball plugged in a greenside bunker, then fell just one short of joining in last year’s extra time shootout. Heartbreaking, but the bad luck doesn’t end there as he was a close third as well in 2017 and 2019.
Admittedly Cantlay hasn’t been pulling up any trees this year, fourth at Riviera his only top-ten, but he’s so much better than that. On Sunday he shared 22nd place with Rory and Fitzpatrick but that was on a course he has never looked like mastering (T9 in 2019 his only top-ten). This week it’s a very different situation on a layout that suits him down to the ground.
Spieth, first and second the last two years, has obvious claims but he missed the cut in his favourite Major last week and generally has promised more than he’s delivered. I’d sooner be on Riviera runner-up Will Zalatoris whose ninth at Augusta was a fourth eyecatching performance of this comeback year.
He had been forced to miss four months with back problems in 2023 but, armed with a new putting technique that’s far from beautiful but somehow works, a victory is surely close at hand. His only Harbour Town visit was nothing special but that was in 2022 and he’s come a long way since.
At 60/1 Cam Davis is an interesting outsider. The lanky Aussie was an excellent 12th at Augusta and boasts good Heritage form, T7 last year and T3, just a stroke shy of making the Fitzpatrick-Spieth playoff.
This isn’t one of McIlroy’s usual stop-offs but he’s staying busy trying to work out where he’s going wrong. After the Heritage, he’ll be partnering Irish pal Shane Lowry in the Zurich pairs competition next week followed by Quail Hollow in the build-up to the second Major. Who could have imagined Rory’s last Major triumph came at Valhalla in 2014 and we are still awaiting No. 5!
As for Tiger, the Woods bandwagon limps on and after finishing last of the 60 weekend qualifiers at Augusta, 27 shots behind the winner, he confirmed his intention of taking part in the three remaining Majors. I wish he wasn’t as the GOAT’s struggles are a hard watch.
CORALES PUNTACANA CHAMPIONSHIP
Best bets
2pts each-way Nicolai Hojgaard @ 14/1
1pt each-way Kevin Yu @ 33/1
1pt each-way Thriston Lawrence @ 50/1
1pt each-way Billy Horschel @ 20/1
1pt each-way Alex Noren @ 14/1
Three Europeans who have yet to win on the PGA Tour have their big chance to break through in the Dominican Republic where the Corales Puntacana Championship provides gainful employment for those missing out on the elite-field Heritage.
Although far removed from the $20m up for grabs in South Carolina, the $4m purse with $72,000 to the winner is good money for the quality of golfer likely to figure in this non-televised get-together but more important than the first prize are the avenues that open up as a PGA Tour winner.
Alex Noren won nine times on the old European Tour but in 171 PGA Tour starts the consistent Swede, once a Ryder Cup player, has drawn a blank and at 41 time is running out. He has plenty of solid recent form and will be fresh after missing the Masters. Ninth at the Cognizant, 11th in Houston, 14th at San Antonio, he’s certain to give you a run for your money.
‘Given the positive course vibes from last year, he really should win this.’
At 23 ambitious Nicolai Hojgaard is a current Ryder Cup player who was right up with the leaders for two days at the Masters (finished 16th), and was runner-up to Englishman Matt Wallace at the Puntacana last year. Since then the young Dane has gone close again when runner-up to Matthieu Pavon at Torrey Pines in January.
Given the positive course vibes from last year, he really should win this. Much depends on how he comes out of a gruelling, in-contention week at Augusta but at his age there should be plenty left in the tank.
Arron Rai, the pride of Wolverhampton, campaigns almost exclusively on the PGA circuit these days after being twice a winner on the DP World Tour. He was seventh in Houston at the end of last month but needs to putt more confidently if he is to post that elusive W at PGA level.
Victor Perez, Matthias Schwab and Matt Fitzpatrick’s kid brother Alex are three more Europeans who might well contend while Daniel Berger would win this on old form but has yet to produce anything like it after a long injury break from the game.
Even so, Berger might still be the pick of the Americans but if you want more recent positive form, the names of Billy Horschel and Kevin Yu catch the eye. On early-year performance – third at the AmEx, sixth at Torrey Pines – Yu makes serious appeal but, apart from a ninth at the Cognizant, he has struggled to make further impact. Now, in this lesser grade, he is taken to get his mojo back.
With Horschel it’s the other way round. It wasn’t until last month that he began to show us signs of the game that made him a FedEx Cup winner, firing in good efforts at the Cognizant, Valspar and Houston.
It’s going to be hot and sticky with temperatures in the mid-80s, conditions with which South Africa’s Thriston Lawrence will be familiar. As a four-time DP World Tour winner who will make birdies galore on this long (7670 yards par 72) and open Tom Fazio layout, he is too good to go off at 50/1.
It was only last month that he finished second in the Jonsson Workwear tournament in his homeland after kicking off the year as a fast-finishing runner-up (tied with McIlroy) when Tommy Fleetwood won the Dubai Invitational.
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