Rory McIlroy won the Masters and Justin Thomas won the RBC Heritage (signature event), which made him rough on the PGA Tour for a few weeks. Both are players with many fans, and JT followed the media round and mentioned how he has an absurd lifetime ace.
Rory defeated Justin Rose at Augusta, while Thomas put Andrew Novak at Harbortown. Of the four golfers in question, Andrew Novak has not recorded a victory on the tour. Needless to say, this has become a difficult drug to swallow after losing in the playoffs.
To his credit, Novak quickly bounces back, taking two rounds at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans before sitting in second place along with his partner Ben Griffin. If the Novak duo keeps winning, he obviously does so the week after losing in the playoffs.
Interestingly, it’s been a minute since the tour players lost to the event in the playoffs and won immediately the following week. This is clearly a set of specific situations that don’t happen frequently, but if you’re interested in who it is…it was Patrick Cantrey in 2022.
What’s even more interesting about this exact phenomenon is that it was this Accurate phenomenon. In 2022, the situation was the same as Cantrey, just like Novak now. Cantray lost his RBC legacy in the playoffs with Jordan Spieth before winning in New Orleans as Zander Schaufele and his partner. What a coincidence!
Perhaps Andrew Novak can follow in the footsteps that Cantrey laid out. we will see.
