Reigning Australian PGA champion Cameron Smith will be among the players to watch while John Senden will make an emotional return to the world’s biggest stage when the PGA TOUR’s RBC Heritage gets underway this week

It’s been just shy of one year since Senden announced an indefinite leave of absence after his son, Jacob, was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

But with the family receiving some positive news from doctors earlier this year, the 46-year-old is slowly returning to the game and after playing a warm-up event at the Web.com Tour’s Louisiana Open last month Senden will tee up for the first time on the world’s premiere Tour this week.

Senden is making his 10th appearance at Hilton Head in Georgia, one of eight Australasians in the field including Masters top-10 finishers Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman.

Both Smith and Leishman have been singled out as players to watch, the PGA TOUR’s Rob Bolton listing them among the top-15 in his weekly ‘Power Rankings’ column.

Leishman is listed at 11th while Smith is eighth, Bolton noting the young Queenslander’s T15 finish in his debut appearance here in 2015.

Smith closed with 67-67 that week so clearly has a liking for the course and after his stunning effort to be T5 at Augusta National will not be short on confidence as he takes aim at a second PGA TOUR title.

Leishman’s record at the iconic Hilton Head is less impressive with a T9 in 2013 his only top-10 but, as Bolton notes, he ‘is now a threat everywhere he commits’.

Like Smith he comes off a hot finish with five birdies in his final seven holes at Augusta to salvage a round that was heading south over the first 11 holes.

Senden, Smith and Leishman are joined in the field by Aaron Baddeley, Geoff Ogilvy, Greg Chalmers, Rod Pampling and New Zealand’s Danny Lee.

Baddeley is a former winner of the tournament having lifted the trophy in 2006 but has had a mixed bag of results since.

A T9 in 2016 was his first top-10 in almost a decade though his recent form suggests his game is moving in a positive direction.

He has made each of his last five cuts with his best in that stretch a T14 at the Genesis Open, another venue where he has tasted success previously.

Of the rest there has been little in the way of fireworks at this event with Geoff Ogilvy’s T3 in 2003 a standout.

Greg Chalmers has never finished better than T20 in 11 appearances while Rod Pampling’s lone top-10 in 11 starts came in 2005.

Danny Lee is playing the tournament for just the fifth time and has recorded two missed cuts and a best finish of T39.