Golf
RBC Heritage preview: Cameron Young to finally secure first Tour win?
We’re only a week on from the Masters, but the PGA Tour continues this week with the RBC Heritage from Harbour Town Links, South Carolina.
It may follow close on the heels of the first Major of the season, but there’s still a strong field set to line up here, including newly crowned Masters champion and new world number one Jon Rahm, along with four other top 10 ranked players.
Young as consistent as they come
If there’s a player that deserves to win an event on the PGA Tour, it’s Cameron Young. The 25-year-old has been a model of consistency since regularly beginning to compete last season, finishing runner-up a remarkable six times.
That’s not a stat he’s likely to want to be revisited too often, but it shows that he already has the game to challenge at these events, and surely a first win is just around the corner.
At last year’s RBC Heritage, he finished T3 on 12 under par and would surely have won if it weren’t for shooting a 73 on his second round. He comes here in better form than 12 months ago too, having finished second in the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and then T7 in the Masters, an event he failed to make the cut in last year.
Young is one of the best around off the tee, as shown by his stats this season; ranking 12th in Strokes Gained: Off The Tee, but so often it’s his putting that lets him down. However, accuracy and the ability to find fairways and hit greens will be crucial this week, so he looks well suited to the tests of this course. Expect him to go well at 20/1.
Tom Kim a rising star
20-year-old Tom Kim has only played 29 events on the PGA Tour in his short career to date, but from those starts has already recorded two victories, at the Wyndham Championship and Shriners Children’s Open last year. There’s no doubting his potential and it surely won’t be long until he adds to his collection of Tour wins.
He finished T5 and T6 in two Tour events earlier in the year, but then his form went off the boil a bit as he missed the cut at the Sony Open in Hawaii and finished outside the top 50 in the PLAYERS Championship, however his strong showing at Augusta last week hinted that a return to form was close.
Opening and closing rounds of 70 at the Masters sandwiched slightly lesser efforts of 72 and 74, meaning Kim ultimately finished T16. Considering that was his first time at the Masters, it must go down as a brilliant performance, and he was only a few birdies away from recording a top 10 finish.
With its narrow fairways, Harbour Town Links is a course where accuracy from the pin counts for a lot, and that’s where Kim has been seen to excel this season, ranking third on Tour for driving accuracy. The South Korean isn’t known for being a big hitter – ranked 118th for driving distance – but with this Pete Dye configuration being one of the shorter courses on Tour, he won’t be at a disadvantage here. At 35/1 he looks to offer some value against those above him in the market.
