Fantasy Golf Sleeper Report – RBC Heritage

2018 RBC Heritage Fantasy Sleeper Report

If you’re suffering from post-Masters blues, we’re with you. The thrill of seeing the world’s finest duking it out – particularly on Sunday, when Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler attempted to chase down Patrick Reed at Augusta.

But in the end, Reed showed a cool hand under pressure – not something we’d necessarily attribute to a feisty sort without a win in nearly two years, and ended that drought in the most memorable way possible by slipping into the green jacket; handed over to him by Sergio Garcia, who must have been feeling a tad twitchy being within a square mile of the 15th hole.

And so we have that lull that follows a major this week at the RBC Heritage, a fun event played at the picturesque Harbour Town Links on Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Wesley Bryan celebrates with the trophy after winning the 2017 RBC…

Wesley Bryan celebrates with the trophy after winning the 2017 RBC Heritage after the final round at Harbour Town Golf Links on April 16, 2017 in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

This is your classic coastal course where wind is a real factor; just check Sunday’s forecast and you will see what we mean! It’s short at 7,100 yards, with just three Par 5s making up the Par of 71.

Accuracy is the key here: Jim Furyk, Graeme McDowell and Matt Kuchar are all recent winners at Harbour Town, and the small Bermuda greens place a huge premium on precision approach play.

There have been long-priced winners of this event in the past decade, so punters can every hope of another sleeper getting the job done in South Carolina. But who are the most likely candidates?

Charley Hoffman – Vegas Odds 50/1 – You never quite know what you’re going to get with Charley Hoffman, but an excellent week at Augusta should at least fill him with confidence.

His now traditional fast start was bookended with a hole-in-one on Sunday, and that T12 finish – plus past wins in the Texas Open and OHL Classic – confirm the fact that he enjoys playing in the wind.

The Hoff’s approach play has been typically excellent this season (he ranks 37th for SG: Approach), and as a four-time PGA TOUR winner we have no qualms about his grace under pressure.

If he fancies the job this week – there’s seemingly always an element of doubt about that – then Hoffman can go well.

Xander Schauffele – Vegas Odds 55/1 – It’s hard to believe we can get such lofty odds on a player who won twice last season; including the prestigious TOUR Championship.

We’re not going to read too much into a below-par effort at Augusta, as that doesn’t need to be a consideration this week.

Instead, focus on the positives. He’s finished in the top-20 of his last three strokeplay starts, and his tee-to-green game is excellent. A reliable scrambler too, Schauffele is surely a better prospect this week than those odds of 55/1 imply.

Ryan Moore – Vegas Odds 55/1 – It was a strange old four days for Ryan Moore at Augusta. He put a run of birdies together at times, and then really struggled to keep his ball in play at others. A finish of T28 is a decent effort, by all accounts.

Moore hasn’t played at Harbour Town in a decade, but the layout should suit him. Accurate off the tee, he should give himself an excellent chance of locating these small greens by playing out of the short stuff.

A brilliant chipper, the 35-year-old is a decent putter under pressure, and has five PGA TOUR titles to prove it.

Here’s a fun fact: Moore was twice the U.S. Amateur Public Links champion, and has a T12 finish to his name in the British Open too.

Russell Knox – Vegas Odds 60/1 – You can look at Russell Knox’s formline at any given point of the season and think that he is a truly inconsistent and frustrating performer, and you’d be right.

And that’s because he has a very particular skill set. The Scot has a neat and tidy game with high GIR numbers and a nice chipping action around the dancefloor, and on layouts where his lack of length isn’t penalized he has a habit of going well.

Traditionally his best form has come here (11-2-18-9) and at the Sony Open, another short and wind-affected test, with decent efforts at the OHL Classic and Pebble Beach; confirming the fact that Knox is a coastal, resort style golfer you can trust.

He’s another who had a watching brief for The Masters, and will be desperate to get his world ranking up in the coming months.

Patton Kizzire – Vegas Odds 100/1 – This week we’ve got a high-quality field to comb through but not one containing a huge number of ‘natural’ tournament winners; towards the head of the market we could hardly call the likes of Matt Kuchar, Paul Casey and Tyrrell Hatton prolific.

So, the fact that Patton Kizzire has won twice this term certainly makes him an intriguing proposition, especially at a lofty price such as this.

Both of those victories came at layouts we might consider correlating to Harbour Town – the OHL Classic and Sony Open – and a respectable T12 at the WGC Mexico shows he doesn’t mind wind combined with tree-lined fairways.

There’s enough form from him here (32-14) to suggest a date with the business end of the tournament is viable.