Tag: RBC Heritage 2020

Webb Simpson wins again on Father’s Day in wild finish to beat the darkness

Golfweek’s JuliaKate Culpepper discusses the final round of the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links where Webb Simpson claimed his 7th PGA Tour title.

Golfweek’s JuliaKate Culpepper discusses the final round of the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links where Webb Simpson claimed his 7th PGA Tour title.

Ian Poulter, Mark Hubbard lead after the first round of the RBC Heritage

Golfweek’s JuliaKate Culpepper recaps the first round at Harbour Town Golf Links.

Golfweek’s JuliaKate Culpepper recaps the first round at Harbour Town Golf Links.

Matthew NeSmith shoots 66 at Harbour Town, where he proposed to his wife

The 26-year-old PGA Tour rookie already has won the Junior Heritage and popped the question to his now wife at Pete Dye’s Hilton Head layout

Of all the courses Matthew NeSmith has played in his life, Harbour Town Golf Links, site of this week’s RBC Heritage, is his favorite – and for good reason.

The South Carolina native won the Junior Heritage on the Pete Dye layout in Hilton Head, South Carolina, in 2011, the Players Amateur in nearby Bluffton in 2015 – which earned him an exemption into the Heritage – and the famed 18th green overlooking the Calibogue Sound is where he dropped to one knee and popped the question in 2018 to Abigail, his now wife.

It’s also where he carded seven birdies en route to a 5-under 66 on Thursday to join the trophy hunt for his first PGA Tour title.

“This course fits my game nicely, especially if I play well,” NeSmith said. “I’ve been around here a couple of times. So I’m pretty excited about it.”

After his round, NeSmith recounted the circumstances of his proposal to his wife on March 18, 2018. They began dating as students at University of South Carolina, and he was playing the course as part of a birthday weekend trip to Hilton Head for her.

“I started to have a little bit of a panic attack around 14 because I didn’t think we were going to finish in time because there was tons of people on the golf course,” said NeSmith, who had a friend hiding in the bushes to photograph the moment for posterity. “Once I got on the green, I kind of don’t remember a whole lot until we were eating dinner. It was a little nerve-racking, to say the least.”

NeSmith made a par at 18 on Thursday, but he aced the engagement.

He and Abigail were married on Nov. 1, 2019, during a break from his fourth and fifth tournaments as a Tour member. The 26-year-old rookie earned his promotion from the Korn Ferry Tour thanks to a victory at the Albertsons Boise Open.

He’s off to a promising start, making the cut in nine of his last 10 starts and posting three top-15 finishes. He entered the week a very respectable 64th in the FedEx Cup standings.

Leaderboard | Photos | How to watch | Tee times | Updates

This is NeSmith’s first RBC Heritage appearance. He earned an invitation for winning the 2015 Players Amateur when he shot 65 in the final round to catch Chase Koepka, who had entered the final round with a five-stroke lead. But NeSmith passed up the Heritage in order to compete in the SEC Championship that same week with his teammates at South Carolina.

NeSmith started on the back nine on Thursday and strung together four birdies in a row, beginning at No. 13. He trails early leader Ian Poulter by two strokes. Asked what it would mean to complete a trifecta of sorts by winning the RBC Heritage having already won the Junior Heritage and his wife’s hand in marriage at Harbour Town, he said, “It would be great. It’s later on in the week, and there’s a lot of golf to be played.”

[jwplayer Mx5oFdbQ-9JtFt04J]

[lawrence-related id=778049879,778049616,778049796,778049763]

Wesley Bryan is back and ready for his mic drop

Wesley Bryan, who was sidelined for 18 months with a torn labrum, is set to compete at the RBC Heritage, where he won the title in 2017.

Wesley Bryan returns to the PGA Tour this week at the site of his greatest triumph. In 2017, the South Carolina Gamecock grad became the first native of South Carolina to win the RBC Heritage when he rallied from four shots back on Sunday to win his maiden PGA Tour title.

But Bryan’s Cinderella story came to a grinding halt when he tore the labrum in his left shoulder, requiring surgery and nearly 18 months on the sideline. He last made a cut on the Tour in July 2018, and played two rehabilitation starts on the Korn Ferry Tour in Panama and Mexico this season before the suspension of play due to the global pandemic left him waiting again.

“I was gearing up for an April return, and then the coronavirus stuff hit. It’s good. It gave my shoulder a little bit more time to heal,” he said.

Tee times, TV info | Fantasy picks | Odds, predictions | Rankings

Until his win at the RBC Heritage, Bryan was better known for batting golf balls out of mid-air, chipping basketballs into hoops and banking shots off walls and into trash cans in homemade videos recorded with his brother, George, his setup man and a master at juggling, at their father’s driving range in Chapin, South Carolina. Bryan’s best trick of all had been going from toiling in mini-tour obscurity with no status in 2014 to the Korn Ferry Tour to an automatic promotion to the PGA Tour in less than nine months.

When golf took a break, the Bryan Bros., put the band back together and relaunched their YouTube channel, which has more than 50,000 subscribers, and became a source of live golf entertainment as George and Wesley competed head-to-head and in other challenges such as seeing if they could shoot 59 from the red tees.

“I’ve been seen as very brash and abrasive and a lot of smack talk toward George, and George is embracing the role of the guy that’s always jittering and jolting around the golf course and readjusting his glasses and picking up his tee oddly. So, we’ve been running with that for a little bit,” Wesley said. “I think the biggest comment I get is why can’t you take that level of trash talk on Tour and mic yourself up? And I think that it would be a more entertaining product than what you normally see on the golf course, but I don’t think – it’s not the time or place. I can talk junk to my brother, but I can’t quite do it – I don’t know.”

Bryan suggested that it wouldn’t be quite the same at a Tour event if he were jawing with his fellow South Carolina resident Kevin Kisner.

“That’s a bad example,” Bryan said, with a wide smile. “I think we could really get into it. I wouldn’t mic us two up, but you know what I mean. It’s a different game when you can edit and do all that.”

That’s really nothing new, though, for Bryan, who once argued with tournament officials at a 2015 eGolf Tour event that he should be allowed to play with a GoPro strapped to his chest as a means of generating greater social media exposure. Too bad it was deemed a violation of USGA rules. Last week, at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Rickie Fowler wore a microphone during competition. Is Bryan willing to be the next Tour pro to give golf fans a window into his most intimate thoughts on the course?

“Believe it or not, when you are away from competitive golf for 18 months, nobody really remembers that you were there,” he said. “Maybe after a few weeks, they’ll realize that I’m back out here and maybe ask me to get mic’d up, I’m not sure. But it’s not like people have been blowing up my phone or banging on my door trying to get a camera in front of me with a microphone on.”

Bryan already has proved once that he’s more talented a golfer than someone simply blessed with incredible hand-eye coordination to hit a ball in mid-air and make trick-shot videos. He said the biggest adjustment when he returned to tournament competition was figuring out how to use a yardage book again after relying on his laser at home. When he played the Korn Ferry Tour in February, his heart rate jumped to 165 beats per minute on the first tee, according to his Whoop.

“Just getting those nerves and the juices flowing was amazing. That’s what I miss,” he said. “Just to be back on property where my first and only PGA Tour win came is great. I’m excited to lace up the shoes and go out there tomorrow.”

[lawrence-related id=778049619,778049535,778049574,778049451]