Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
When people look back on the 2020 Charles Schwab Challenge they might remember it for a number of reasons. It was the first proper event back since the gates were abruptly closed at Sawgrass and round one of the 2020 Players suddenly got a big asterisk alongside it. It was an event where the only fans allowed on the course were the large, metal ones positioned at the backs of some of the greens to keep the temperamental bentgrass from incinerating like a vampire taking in a sunrise. It was an event where Xander Schauffele forever brought all-new meaning to the term “Horrible Horseshoe” at Colonial thanks to one of the cruelest lip-outs you’ll ever see. And, bizarrely, it was an event where, within an hour of that very same lip-out, Collin Morikawa wound up losing the playoff the tournament had boiled down to with a cruel lip-out of his own on the exact same hole to hand the title to Daniel Berger.
Whether it’s any of the above, however, or one of the other numerous storylines that unfolded within the surrounds of Ben Hogan’s old stomping ground over the week, I think the one thing we’ll all remember about the 2020 Charles Schwab Challenge is that it’s the tournament which reminded us that, fans or no fans, it’s bloody brilliant to watch some of the best golfers on the planet duke it out over 72 holes and probably reminded the pros themselves just how sweet it is to actually play golf for a living.
With nothing left to do but carve Daniel Berger’s name into ‘The Wall of Champions’, though, it’s time for the PGA Tour to pack up the circus, leave Colonial in the rearview mirror and ask Tiger for a spin on his superyacht because the RBC Heritage and Harbour Town is calling.
*FOG HORN SOUND EFFECT*
Field Report
I’ve decided to take a new approach to the ‘Field Report’ section of the preview this week by creating a simple table with the world’s top 30 players (as of this week) listed in it. If they have an ✅ alongside their name, they’re in the field this week. If they have an 🆇 alongside their name, it means they’re one of the X-Men. Sorry, no – that’s for a different list. If they have an 🆇 alongside their name, it means they’re not in the field this week.
| Rory McIlroy | ✅ | Tony Finau | ✅ |
| Jon Rahm | ✅ | Gary Woodland | ✅ |
| Justin Thomas | ✅ | Matt Kuchar | ✅ |
| Brooks Koepka | ✅ | Louis Oosthuizen | ✅ |
| Dustin Johnson | ✅ | Tyrrell Hatton | ✅ |
| Patrick Reed | ✅ | Sungjae Im | ✅ |
| Patrick Cantlay | 🆇 | Shane Lowry | ✅ |
| Adam Scott | 🆇 | Hideki Matsuyama | ✅ |
| Webb Simpson | ✅ | Paul Casey | 🆇 |
| Xander Schauffele | ✅ | Matthew Fitzpatrick | ✅ |
| Tommy Fleetwood | 🆇 | Bernd Wiesberger | 🆇 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | ✅ | Collin Morikawa | ✅ |
| Tiger Woods | 🆇 | Francesco Molinari | 🆇 |
| Justin Rose | ✅ | Rickie Fowler | ✅ |
| Marc Leishman | 🆇 | Abraham Ancer | ✅ |
Notable additions to the field for the trip to Harbour Town who weren’t at Colonial include:
Kevin Chapell. Luke Donald. Ernie Els. Russell Henley. Davis Love III. Charl Schwartzel. Vijay Singh. Kyle Stanley.
The Yardage Book
(i) Below you will find the scorecard for Harbour Town Golf Links. For each hole I’ve listed its par & what shape best suits it off the tee (for right-handers):
| Front 9 | Harbour Town Golf Links | Back 9 |
| #1: Par 4 – Either | Hilton Head, South Carolina | #10: Par 4 – Draw |
| #2: Par 5 – Fade | 7,099 yards | #11: Par 4 – Draw |
| #3: Par 4 – Draw | #12: Par 4 – Fade | |
| #4: Par 3 – Either | #13: Par 4 – Draw | |
| #5: Par 5 – Draw | #14: Par 3 – Either | |
| #6: Par 4 – Fade | #15: Par 5 – Either | |
| #7: Par 3 – Either | #16: Par 4 – Draw | |
| #8: Par 4 – Draw | #17: Par 3 – Either | |
| #9: Par 4 – Either | #18: Par 4 – Either | |
| Out: 36 | Par 71 | In: 35 |
(ii) The test provided by the Pete Dye & Jack Nicklaus designed Harbour Town Golf Links is well known at this stage as it’s currently just one of only five courses to have seen an annual PGA Tour event for the last 50 years (the others being Colonial, Pebble Beach, Waialae & Torrey Pines – nice quiz question that). It isn’t overly long by modern standards, the fairways are quite narrow, there are more doglegs than you’d see in an animal shelter, and the greens are small – in other words, it’s the quintessential “classic” golf course.
What this, in turn, means is that Harbour Town isn’t a course that you can necessarily bully into submission by pulling driver on every hole because wayward tee shots will be punished – hence why Jack Nicklaus said back in the ’60s that Harbour Town rewards “smart golf”. Patience will be key.
(iii) In 2015, every single bit of grass on the course at Harbour Town was plucked out and replaced with two strains of Bermuda, TifEagle on the greens and Celebration Bermuda on the fairways/rough. Now, as we all know, you hear ‘Bermuda’ when mentioned in relation to a golf course and your first thoughts are probably tricky lies in the rough; lots of grain; and firm, pure greens.
When it comes specifically to what we might see at Harbour Town this week, however, is there anything else it could possibly mean for the playing conditions we’re likely to see? Well, to get an idea, I think we just have to cast our eyes a little further south towards PGA National and Bay Hill, as the exact same grass strains make up the greens and fairways/rough on both courses.
I’m sure we all remember how tough the playing conditions were for the first two legs of this year’s ‘Florida Swing’, as the firm greens and penalising rough at both the Honda Classic & Arnold Palmer Invitational caught the respective fields severely on the hop, leading to weekends of over par rounds and ultimate winning scores of just -6 & -4. And when you look at the weather conditions the field can expect to see over on the east coast this week, I think we could quite possibly see Harbour Town playing every bit as difficult as Bay Hill – if it’s allowed to.
See, we’re used to seeing the RBC Heritage being played towards the beginning of April where average temperatures see lows of 12.2 ℃ and highs of 21.7℃ – so, nice Spring conditions. With the tournament rescheduled to June, however, that now means we’re in the realm of hotter, more humid conditions where average temperatures see lows of 20.6℃ and highs of a sweltering 30.6℃. And given the forecast for this week is looking like we’re going to be seeing temperatures sniffing up and around that 30 mark for all four days, then you throw in some nice offshore breezes with that (which, too, are forecast) and all of a sudden you’ve got the potential for Harbour Town to be playing extremely firm and fast – which, after the relatively soft conditions we saw at Colonial, would make for a nice change of pace. However, again, it depends on whether the tour will allow it to get to that stage or not.
(iv) Below you will find the top 10 and ties for the last four years at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links:
| 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
| C.T. Pan -12 | Satoshi Kodaira -12 | Wesley Bryan -13 | Branden Grace -9 |
| Matt Kuchar -11 | Si Woo Kim -12 | Luke Donald -12 | Luke Donald -7 |
| Patrick Cantlay -10 | B. DeChambeau -11 | Patrick Cantlay -11 | Russell Knox -7 |
| Shane Lowry -10 | Luke List -11 | William McGirt -11 | Bryson DeChambeau -5 |
| Scott Piercy -10 | Billy Horschel -10 | Ollie Schnieiderjans -11 | Kevin Na -5 |
| J.T. Poston -9 | Webb Simpson -10 | Graham DeLaet -10 | Whee Kim -4 |
| Seamus Power -9 | Kevin Streelman -9 | Brian Gay -10 | Jason Kokrak -4 |
| Kevin Streelman -9 | Byeong Hun An -9 | J.J. Spaun -10 | Bryce Molder -4 |
| Sam Burns -8 | Patrick Cantlay -9 | Bud Cauley -9 | Aaron Baddeley -3 |
| K.J. Choi -7 | Bill Haas -9 | Brian Harman -9 | Ricky Barnes -3 |
| Troy Merritt -7 | Chesson Hadley -9 | Kevin Chappell -3 | |
| Kevin Na -7 | Kevin Kisner -9 | Matt Kuchar -3 | |
| Ian Poulter -7 | Ian Poulter -9 | William McGirt -3 | |
| Rory Sabbatini -7 | |||
| Michael Thompson -7 |
The Oracles’ Fourball
After, what must be said, a more than decent first week back with Jordan Spieth bagging a top 10 at Colonial, I decided to try and ‘fine-tune’ this week’s broth by chasing it with four shots of seawater.
It made me violently sick.
Which will be completely worth it if these four guys do well this week.
Webb Simpson
From a very limited schedule, Webb Simpson was most definitely making the most of his time between the ropes before the pandemic. From a grand total of just six events since the beginning of the season, Webb’s worst finish was a T-61 at the WGC-Mexico, but given he’d racked up a T-7, 2nd, T-10, 3rd & a win at the Phoenix Open in the five events preceding that trip south of the border, I think the $2.7 million dollars in prize money and cosy 6th place in the FedEx rankings may just have softened the blow of the current world number nine’s less-than-stellar showing at the season’s first WGC.
So when I see Webb heading to Hilton Head this week, an event he has openly stated that he likes playing in (unless his official Twitter account is a house of lies, of course), then if he can recapture the kind of form that saw him posting some unreal numbers from a stats perspective (7th ‘Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green’; 6th in ‘Strokes Gained: Total’; 7th in ‘GIR%’; 1st in ‘Birdie Average’; & 2nd in ‘Scoring Average’) then he could well outdo the finishes of T-11, T-5 & T-16 he’s posted at Harbour Town since 2017 and end up adding a nice plaid blazer to the navy one he picked up in Phoenix.
Bryson DeChambeau
Pre-lockdown Bryson was exhibiting the kind of form that, at some point, you felt would have to have delivered a win for the 26-year old, as in his last three appearances before the Players he clocked up finishes of T-5, 2nd & 4th at the Genesis, WGC-Mexico & Arnold Palmer Invitational respectively – tournaments which all had incredibly deep fields.
What I was left wondering coming into last week, however, was how Bryson would emerge after lockdown? Would it take a few tournaments to warm up to his task of recapturing that red-hot form he was building before the tour suddenly shut up shop for the foreseeable back in March? Well, after his T-3 showing at the Charles Schwab over the weekend, the answer to that question seems to be a resounding ‘no’. With his 5.5° driver, Bryson put on a clinic of power and surprisingly good accuracy at Colonial (64.29% for the first three rounds), but then backed up that prowess with the big stick by hitting a lot of greens (nothing under 72% for the week). He led the field in scrambling; was second in ‘Proximity to the Hole’; and third in ‘Putts per GIR’. And if his birdie putt had dropped on the 72nd hole instead of just kissing the right edge, Bryson would have posted -15 and found himself heading down 17 with Daniel Berger and Collin Morikawa in the playoff.
Basically, Bryson seems to have picked up right where he left off before lockdown and for that reason, I have to think he’s in with a great chance heading to Harbour Town – a place where, since 2016, he’s missed the cut twice, but clocked up finishes of T-4 & T-3. Now, as I said earlier, you can’t bully your way around Harbour Town and, given his move towards a power game, you might think that’s exactly what DeChambeau is going to try and do come Thursday. And whilst he will, of course, utilise the increased horsepower his new physique affords him, because Bryson is still, above all else, a ‘clever golfer’, I think if he, for the most part, channels that power wisely into creasing mid to long irons around the tight confines of Harbour Town, and pull driver only when it’s “on” to use it, he could well be getting an extra-large plaid jacket draped over his ever-widening shoulders come Sunday afternoon.
Kevin Streelman
It’s been something of a ‘mixed bag’ for Streelman this season. In the 15 events he’s played (including last week’s Charles Schwab) across 2019 & 2020 he’s missed the cut in well over half of those by not making the weekend on an eye-watering nine occasions. And on the six occasions where he has had to crack out the clubs on Saturday and Sunday, he’s only managed to finish inside the top 20 three times. Yet when you look at where that trio of finishes left him on the leaderboard in those particular weeks, you’ll find a T-12 at the CJ Cup; a T-4 at the Sanderson Farms Championship; and, most impressively, a solo second at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
So when I pair those performances with the fact that, despite missing the cut by just two strokes after posting even par, he played quite solidly at Colonial (in the first round he racked up an average driving distance of 303.4 yards with 85.71% accuracy & hit 83.33% of the greens – I can’t get his round two numbers, unfortunately) and that he’s had really good showings at Harbour Town in the past (a T-3 in 2013; T-7 in 2018; & T-6 in 2019) then I think with the type of game he possesses, Kevin Streelman could well go one better than his second-place finish on the Monterey Peninsula back in February.
All I have to try and do now is just figure out how to sneak Larry Fitzgerald onto the course this week and all but guarantee that Streelman takes home the plaid jacket.
Maverick McNealy
The last time I picked Maverick to do well in a tournament was for the Arnold Palmer Invitational back in March. I made the argument that his impressive collegiate career & amateur career (a former world no.1), combined with the fact he’d made a solid 11 cuts of the 13 events he’d played in his rookie season up to that point (some of which included high finishes of T-15, 11th & 5th at tough courses in Torrey, PGA National & Pebble) made him one to watch at Bay Hill.
And then he missed the cut.
What’s important, though, is that he didn’t miss it by all that much and it really came down to just posting big numbers on one or two holes right near the ends of his opening two rounds after otherwise playing quite solidly. And ‘play solidly’ is what Maverick does best. He doesn’t necessarily catch fire in the middle of a round and start draining birdies left, right and centre, but what he does do is plot his way around a course and pick his opportunities – something which, at Harbour Town, is exactly what you need to do. So if he can carry the nice form he showed at Colonial (a T-32 finish, shot in the 60’s the first three days until his putter got hypothermia on Sunday) into Hilton Head, then the world no. 213 could definitely wind up in the mix.
Title Photo Credit: Rob Tipton/Boomkin Productions