Wednesday 15 April 2015

RBC Heritage - Harbour Town

New Masters champion, Jordan Spieth is sleeping in his green jacket this week following his emphatic victory at Augusta last Sunday and is aiming to add to his wardrobe by donning the plaid jacket that comes with victory at The Heritage, now in a regular slot proceeding The Masters. We all know by now that there's an old head on young Jordan's shoulders but the toil of all the press conferences this week should ensure we have a carefree, tired champ teeing it up here and can easily be opposed. 

Unlike Augusta, accuracy from tee to green, with a better than prolific short game is the order of the day at Hilton Head. Previous winners in the mould of Stewart Cink, Zach Johnson, Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell back this trait up and I'm keen on 4 players to do well this week that stack up against these statistics. Gmac comes into the equation this week off the back of a decent enough effort last week on a course that doesn't really suit and he'll be keen to get sharp ahead of the U.S. Open in June by producing some encouraging results. The Irishman is on my radar for Chambers Bay so I'll be watching closely over the next 6-8 weeks and he can start the ball rolling by going in again here at a tournament that has often produced multiple winners. When on, he's of the Poulter mindset, confident to a point that he gets in the zone quickly and is tough to shake. At 45/1 he's a decent price  for me.

At 50/1 I have to back Kevin Streelman too. Par3 scoring is a strong trend for Harbour Town as is good GIR & scrambling. Streelman ranks highly on these and arrives on the back of a TOP 20 at Augusta where he also won the Par3 competition (the fool !). He's a streaky player who can hold a period of form and the price again is decent. 

Brendon Todd is a player I'm trying to get   onside as much as I can of late, and he really was the player I first pulled the trigger on for this one!  I still can't believe he's available @ 80/1 but perhaps that's because he missed the cut last week and is down the GIR rankings but the 29 year old does rank highly for driving accuracy and scrambling. He's produced two TOP10s from his eleven starts this season but he'll relish this course despite having played twice for a MC & T38th. He's in decent form with five TOP 30s in his last eight starts. 

I fully intended to back Webb Simpson @ a nice 33/1 but have decided at the last minute to side with Camillo Villegas @ 150.00 on betfair.Spider-Man aced twice at Augusta par 3 and has decent efforts under his belt on this course with returns of 21-9 the past two seasons. Before Houston and Augusta where he missed both cuts, the Colombian was 27 - 30 - 16 - 21 so his game is in good shape  and worth a nibble at the price. 

Staking Plan (8.5 pts)

1 pt e/w G. McDowell @ 45.00
1 pt WIN K. Streelman @ 50.00
0.50 WIN pts B. Todd @ 80.00
0.25 WIN pts C. Villegas @ 150.00

TOP10 


1.75 pts K. Streelman @ 6.00
1.5 pts B. Todd @ 8.00
1.5 pts C. Villegas @ 12.00

My only selection for the Shenshen International is as per my Twitter feed-

0.5 pts e/w P. Uihlein @ 67.00
2 pts TOP10 P. Uihlein @ 7.00 

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