Twofer Tuesday: Palmetto Championship

Twofer Tuesday leaves Jack's Place and heads back to South Carolina for the third time this season, for the Palmetto Championship at Congaree.

I'll let pgatour.com explain the situation here:

The Palmetto Championship at Congaree is a one-time replacement for the RBC Canadian Open, as lingering concerns tied to the U.S.-Canada border and ongoing COVID-19 challenges made it too difficult to host Canada’s national open for the second year in a row.

This is the third PGA TOUR event contested in South Carolina this season (RBC Heritage and PGA Championship) while the Korn Ferry Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation will be hosted in South Carolina the same week as the Palmetto Championship.

But while this is a stand-in of sorts for a national championship, don't make the mistake of thinking it's a second-rate course. Congaree Golf Club is long -- par 71, 7655 yards -- and built to mimic an Australian sandbelt course. It's not going to be a pushover by any means.

And a number of the big names are already at Torrey Pines, prepping for the US Open next week. That means we could see someone whose game has been almost there step up and get a win in SC.

• My first pick is Patton Kizzire. Patton's been erratic this season to say the least. But while he missed the cut last week at the Memorial, he posted T3s in both of the Texas events he played before that. And being from the Southeast, he should feel pretty comfortable at Congaree.
• My other pick may be unfamiliar to many of you -- Garrick Higgo. Garrick plays the ET and, at only 22 years old, he's showing some real promise. He's 8th in the Race to Dubai and 54th in the OWGR. (He caught my attention when he won the Canary Islands Championship last month.) Since February 2020 he's posted four wins -- the Sunshine Tour's Tour Championship and three ET events. In fact, in his last four ET events, he posted two wins and no worse than T8... and he followed them up with a T64 at the PGA Championship. Not bad for his first major appearance! And since he's from South Africa, I think Congaree's similarities to sandbelt courses may work to his advantage. In my opinion, he's the most promising choice in the field.

GC's live coverage begins Thursday at 3pm ET. I'll be honest here -- I think I'm most excited to see what Higgo can do this week. He's going to be in the US Open at Torrey next week, so this will be his warmup. I think this young man has some real potential!