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Tournament Stats:
Verizon Heritage
April 17 - 20, 2008
Harbour Town Golf Links
Hilton Head, South Carolina
Par: 71/ Yardage: 6,973
Purse: $5.5 million with $990,000 going to the winner
Defending Champion: Boo Weekley
Results & Scores 2007 Verizon Heritage
Box Score of 2007 Verizon Heritage
Tournament facts:
Tournament Record:265 (Loren Roberts in 1996)
54-Hole Record:
197 (Justin Leonard in 2002)
36-Hole Record:
129 (Jack Nicklaus in 1975, Phil Mickelson in 2002)
Low round of tournament:
61 (David Frost in the 2nd round in 1994)
Tournament information:
This will be the 40th edition of the Verizon Heritage, which until 1995 was called the Heritage Classic. Harbour Town has been the site of the tournament every year. In 1989 the Tour Championship was held at Hilton Head.The first Verizon Heritage Classic was played to great fanfare in 1969 even though it was a "turkey" of an event. Originally it was just going to be an regular tournament on Hilton Head Island, giving away $45,000. But Charles Price, founding editor of Golf Magazine, talked to a few people including Charles Fraser who owned the new course Harbour Town, and suggested that instead of a small tournament he should apply for PGA sanction. They scrambled around and raised the purse to $100,000, then got a date for the tournament, which was Thanksgiving weekend. Jack Nicklaus, who was helping Pete Dye on the course, played and brought some friends including Arnold Palmer, who went out and won the first MCI Classic. They say that thanks to Palmer winning it the tournament was on the map. It helped create a nice tradition for a tournament in its first year.
The Verizon Heritage Classic was played over Thanksgiving weekend in its first four years of existence. It was moved in 1974 to September and then the next year to March. Since 1983 its been played the week after the Masters.
Course information:
The course was designed and built by Pete Dye in 1969. Jack Nicklaus got his start in golf course architecture as he assisted Dye on the design and building of Harbour Town. The average green size at Harbour Town is 4,500 square feet, which means it has some of the smallest greens on the PGA Tour. The course has 145 bunkers and water comes into play on nine holes.
For a more comprehensive look at the course, look at this Course Overview done by PGA Tour.com
The Buzz:
Unfortunately, the buzz is being created by players not in the Verizon field this week. The first is Trevor Immelman. With his Masters win he continued the tradition of other Masters champions by being whisked off to New York for appearances on shows like David Letterman and the morning talk shows. He and his wife attended a New York Knicks game and were having a good old time. Unfortunately he wasn't in the field for Verizon to begin with and certainly won't be playing now that he's won the Masters.The other big news came on Tuesday when it was revealed that Tiger Woods underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair cartilage damage in his left knee. The funny thing about this is that in talking with Masters Champion Billy Casper he expressed some concern on Saturday that something wasn't right with Woods. Casper thought it was possibly the flu or stomach ailment, but something was not right.
Now, of course, this has come to a big surprise to all. Nobody in the media knew of any problems with the knee and since Woods is such a private person it caught every off guard. Of course this has nothing to do with the Verizon since Woods never plays in it. But with Woods saying on his website that he will be gone for 4 to 6 weeks he definitely will miss defending at Wachovia in two weeks and probably will miss The Players Championship for the first time in his career. Look for him to possibly play next at the Memorial the end of May.
Tiger wasn't the only player to go under the knife this week as John Daly had surgery to repair a torn muscle in his stomach. Hopefully with this surgery Daly won't have pain in the stomach area during his swing. He is hoping to be back in action in two weeks when he will play in the Spanish Open. Since he is having problems getting sponsor exemptions, Daly may stay in Europe for a month playing in the Italian Open, Irish Open and the BMW Championship at Wentworth. Other items creating a buzz is Ernie Els becoming more vocal on autism awareness. He had a news conference about it on Tuesday as he is becoming a spokesperson. As far as golf, Els, who missed his second Masters cut in a row, is working with Butch Harmon. He told reporters on Tuesday that he lost his swing after his Honda win and hopes to see changes soon. Els has also been ill so you have to wonder if this would be a good week to just leave him alone. Hopefully in the coming weeks he will be better off.
Lastly, Boo Weekley is the defending champion and he has been the greatest thing for this event. He is one of the most personable people in golf. People love to be with him and he shows everyone a good time. For the Verizon Heritage folks he not only attended media day, which a lot of defending champions miss, but Weekley also showed up for a sponsor day that was a big boost for the tournament. Other players on the PGA Tour should take notice of all of this. Doing things like that is good PR and attracts other sponsors. I know on a personal basis, if Golfobserver was looking for a spokesperson, Weekley and his down-to-earth attitude would be a strong favorite for the job.
Here are some things to look for this week:
Here are some of the secrets that it will take to play well this week at the Verizon Heritage:
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Key stat for the winner:
Harbour Town is one of the best courses in America. It's a totally different experience in which ball placement is more important over power. Hitting it hard and far doesn't work at this venue so look for a precision player to win.
So what will it take to win this week's Verizon Heritage Classic? - What makes the course tough is the greens. At 4,300 square feet they are some of the smallest greens on the PGA Tour. Over the last eight years they have been difficult to hit. Of all the tournaments, the U.S. Open is the only one that ranks harder to hit than the greens of Hilton Head.
- Over the years putting and hitting greens have been the key to winning at Harbour Town. If you look at the list of Heritage champions all of them are good putters, especially from the 10 to 20 foot range.
- Because of the small greens, scrambling is a very important element in being able to win. Just look at the recent winners to see how important this stat is. Last year Boo Weekley only took 97 putts and won the category, Aaron Baddeley was 7th in his win in 2006, Davis Love III was 3rd in his 2003 win, Justin Leonard was 7th in his 2002 win, Jose Coceres was 5th in 2001 and Nick Price was 3rd in 1997.
- Heritage always seems to have dramatic finishes. In the last eight of the last nine tournaments here, four of them have had playoffs, three have had a one-stroke margin of victory while the other was two. You can't get any more exciting than last year when Boo Weekley beat Ernie Els by a shot, but he chipped in on 17 and 18 for the win.
- One other very important factor that will come into play this year is Mother Nature. The Masters had seven sunny days with a very cold, windy weekend. The opposite comes into play this week as temperatures will climb up in the upper 70s, but thunderstorms will wreck havoc with the tournament over the weekend.
