The PGA Tour had a rowdy couple of week as Rory McIlroy won The Masters and Justin Thomas won the RBC Heritage (a signature event). That both are players with tons of fans added to the situation, JT even made the media rounds following and mentioned how he has an absurd amount of lifetime aces, and what’s more is that they each won their event after requiring a playoff to do so.
Andrew Novak is trying to do something the PGA Tour hasn’t seen in 3 years
Andrew Novak is looking to do something the PGA Tour hasn’t seen in about a thousand days.
Jim Dedmon-Imagn Images
Rory took down Justin Rose at Augusta while Thomas topped Andrew Novak at Harbour Town. Of the four golfers in question only Andrew Novak has yet to record a win on Tour. It goes without saying that this likely made losing in the playoff a tough pill to swallow.
To his credit Novak has bounced back immediately and through two rounds at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans sits in second alongside his partner Ben Griffin. If Novak’s duo were to go on to win he would, obviously, do so the week after losing in a playoff.
Interestingly, it has been a minute since a Tour player lost an event in a playoff and won immediately the week after. This is obviously a specific set of circumstances that doesn’t happen all too often, but if you are curious as to who it was... it was Patrick Cantlay in 2022.
What is even more interesting about this exact phenomenon is that it was this exact phenomenon. Back in 2022 the situation was identical for Cantlay as it currently is for Novak. Cantlay lost the RBC Heritage in a playoff against Jordan Spieth before going on to win in New Orleans with Xander Schauffele as his partner. What a coincidence!
Perhaps Andrew Novak can follow in the footsteps that Cantlay laid out. We will see.
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