The last real tournament of 2021 is finally upon us after a long Super Season and an exciting fall swing, which produced another win for Jason Kokrak last week in Houston.
This week, the TOUR makes its final stop back in the southeast as Seaside Resort as it is set to host the RSM Classic across it's two courses starting on Thursday morning.
This week's field isn't lacking for star power as the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Webb Simpson, and Louis Oosthuizen are set to tee it up for the final tournament of the year. Scheffler leads the way on most of the odds boards after he held the 54-hole lead going into Sunday in Texas. He would eventually fall two shots short of his elusive first TOUR win, but he continues to play great golf.
Seaside Resort has been hosting this event as a full field tournament since 2015 in Simon's Island, GA. This is one of the hotbeds for TOUR players as a number of them live in the area and will have the home game narrative this week. Davis Love III is one of those, and he now serves as the host for this tournament.
Players will get one round on the Seaside Course and the Plantation before the cut on Friday afternoon. The Seaside will then host the remainder of the tournament on its Par 70 track at just over 7,000 yards. The Plantation however will provide players with the best scoring opportunities of the week as it is also just over 7,000 yards but plays as a Par 72 featuring a couple of extra Par 5s.
The main defense of both of these courses are the winds coming in off of the Atlantic Ocean and some really grainy Bermuda grass greens that often turn this event into a bit of a putting contest. We will want to keep an eye on the weather this week to see if any side has an edge, but outside of that, we can get right into our picks for the week.
Best Bets
Russell Henley +2800 (DraftKings)
When you hear about all of the Sea Island guys ad nauseam this week, Russell Henley won't be included in that bunch, but he did play golf at Georgia and this course was the host of the SEC Championship. He is quite familiar with this course, and it certainly shows in his results as he has three top-10 finishes in his career at this event.
The key for Henley, and many others, will be his putter as the years that he has put together solid finishes around Sea Island, he gained more than two and a half strokes on the greens. He will come in yielding a hot flat stick after gaining 3.7 shots on the field in that category in Houston.
Henley has been hot across much of his game this fall, but hasn't been able to put it together across four rounds to really break through. His T-7 finish last week was his best of the bunch, and I think he will come back home ready to build upon that result.
The former Georgia Bulldog has a great game to fit this track, and if he can keep the positive momentum in his favor he should be a factor come Sunday afternoon.
Mito Pereira +6600 (BetMGM)
Everything checks out for this to finally be Mito Pereira's week for the win, well most everything. Mito ranks second in my model this week with just one glaring issue, his putter. It is pretty clear at this point that he is not some elite putter, like my next bet, but he has put it together well enough to get three Korn Ferry Tour wins in one season.
I am always one who believes a guy can put together a peak week putting at any given time and generally on any given surface. This price tag allows me to take a chance that his 4.1 Strokes Gained: Putting on the Bermuda grass at the Houston Open was the start of a hot putter for the Chilean.
If he can carry that type of play into this week at the RSM, everything else seems to check out for him to be a contender for the final tournament of 2021.
Denny McCarthy +13000 (DraftKings)
In a tournament that can become a putting contest, I will happily turn to one of the best Bermuda putters on TOUR in Denny McCarthy. He ranks in the top five in this field in putting on Bermuda grass greens no matter how far out you want to take it. He's simply one of the best in the game at rolling it on the greens he will see this week on Sea Island, and he comes in with some form in his game.
I was on Denny last week for a top-10 finish, which really hurt as he fell one stroke short and finished T-11. This wasn't your typical scenario of falling short though as McCarthy needed a field best final round to climb into that position. His 6-under 64 was one of the best scores of the entire week, and he did it with sharp play tee to green and a hot putter, which gained over two strokes in that final round.
I am looking for McCarthy to roll that form into this week in Georgia at a place he has played well historically, including a T-8 finish a couple of years ago. I will be betting Denny more heavily in the placing markets this week, but at this number, he's worth a sprinkle to win as well.
