Harbour Town Golf Links features one of the most picturesque layouts the PGA Tour has to offer on a year-to-year basis. But with all due respect to this week's venue, Monday morning presented a daunting reality for golf fans around the world.
Trivia question In 2005 at Harbour Town, this week's PGA Tour venue, a player set the Tour record for fewest putts in a 72-hole tournament. Who set that record?
Answer below The Monday after the Masters is annually the furthest point away from more competition at Augusta National. Breaking news, we know.
This hangover of sorts isn't limited just to fans, writers and television production crews. Sliding on the green jacket Sunday evening hasn't promised more immediate success that season for the champion.
Take
Bubba Watson, for example. In 2012, after Watson won his first green jacket, the rest of his season featured some nice finishes but ultimately no other victories. In his first eight starts that year -- which included his career-changing Masters win -- Watson had four top-5 finishes. In the 11 starts that followed, he had just two.
At the U.S. Open that year at Olympic Club, Watson didn't make the weekend, as an opening 78-71 put him one shot off the cut line. In fact, before winning the Masters last week, Watson didn't have a top-10 finish in a major since his win in 2012 at Augusta.
None of this is by any means intended as an admonishment of Watson. This trend is not exclusive to this year's Masters champion. The numbers:
- Call it the after-effects of an emotional high, or maybe just the rigors of the late night talk show circuit, but Masters champions aren't quick to get back on the course in recent years.
Only one of the previous 10 Masters champions played the following week on the PGA Tour --
Zach Johnson, who finished sixth at Hilton Head in 2007. Only twice since 2000 has a player won any major championship then followed that up with a PGA Tour win the next week --
Tiger Woods at the WGC-Bridgestone after winning the PGA Championship in both 2000 and 2006.
The last player to win the Masters and then go on to win the next week on Tour? You have to go all the way back to
Bernhard Langer in 1985.
Trivia answer
Question: In 2005 at Harbour Town, this week's PGA Tour venue, a player set the Tour record for fewest putts in a 72-hole tournament. Who set that record?
Answer: David Frost, 92 putts. Amazingly, he still finished tied for 38th that week.
- When the champions do get back on the course, it's been rare that they contend in their returning event. Woods won his first PGA Tour start following his historic 1997 Masters victory. No other Masters champion since has won in his first subsequent tournament.
Of the previous six Masters winners, more players have missed the cut in their first start back (two) than have finished in the top 15 (one). Since 2001, only two players have even finished in the top five in their first post-Masters start:
Phil Mickelson and Woods, who have done it two times each.
- Of the last six Masters champions, only
Adam Scott last year went on to win later that season on the PGA Tour. Three of the last six Masters winners --
Charl Schwartzel,
Angel Cabrera and
Trevor Immelman -- have no PGA Tour victories since claiming the green jacket.
Even Mickelson, who is ninth on the Tour's all-time victory list, needed 20 PGA Tour starts between his 2010 Masters title and his next PGA Tour win, the 2011 Shell Houston Open. In the past 10 years, the player quickest to claim his next win after a Masters victory was Johnson, who did it four starts later in 2007 at TPC Sugarloaf.
- The season's next major has not been kind to Masters winners recently either. Of the previous seven Masters champions, only two went on to finish in the top 10 at that year's U.S. Open -- Schwartzel in 2011 (T-9) and Mickelson in 2010 (T-4). Five of those champions finished outside the top 40. Of the combined 26 Open rounds played by those seven champions, only four were better than par. The combined score: 75-over par.
Masters Champions Since 2007
At That Year's U.S. Open
Watson's only career start at Hilton Head came in 2007 (missed cut), so it's no surprise that he isn't in the field this week. His first post-Masters event in 2012 was three weeks later at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where he finished tied for 18th.
Waffle House, which was the site of Bubba's famed Masters celebration selfie, has been a target for hangover sufferers for decades. Maybe waffles can aid in the Masters recovery process too.