Jordan Spieth and Sepp Straka head five selections for the RBC Heritage at the familiar and unique Harbour Town.
Golf betting tips: RBC Heritage
3pts e.w. Jordan Spieth at 28/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Sepp Straka at 40/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Brian Harman at 60/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. JT Poston at 66/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Daniel Berger at 66/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
The RBC Heritage used to be one of my favourite tournaments on the PGA Tour – the ideal comedown from the pressure-cooker of the previous week's Masters, as a mixed field assembled in South Carolina to tackle a course unique on the PGA Tour for its suffocating qualities. In so many ways this was the yang to the yin and it was all the better for it.
As such, it is now my least favourite of the Signature Events. Top-class players no longer have to play here but a $20million purse courtesy of a key sponsor compels so many of them to do so when it's the rank-and-file who need opportunities, their next one, in terms of individual golf at least, coming at the end of the month. For those low down the FedExCup it might already feel that time is running out.
For us, digging for clues from Augusta National is complicated by the fact that the course is almost its diametric opposite and while Scottie Scheffler did the double in 2024, in general a quieter Masters is preferred. Justin Thomas had been underwhelming last year, Matt Fitzpatrick a never-threatening 10th prior to his win, and Jordan Spieth had missed the cut. Stewart Cink had been a staying-on 12th, CT Pan hadn't qualified, and Satoshi Kodaira had shown promise in 28th before his shock victory.
There is no one formula we can apply and focus ought to be on the nature of Harbour Town, a short, tight course where missing the fairway on the correct side can be preferred to hitting the fairway on the wrong side. This is where it contrasts so starkly with Augusta, where driver is one of the most-used clubs in the bag and the penalty for missing the fairway is small. Here, players could go without if they wanted and I doubt anything has changed for Davis Love's restoration.
Spieth and Thomas are brilliant iron players while several of the other champions, including Webb Simpson, Jim Furyk, Matt Kuchar, Graeme McDowell and some of the more recent ones mentioned earlier, are known for their accuracy off the tee. Here we should remember that the driving accuracy stats are binary, yes or no, and don't classify by width of miss. There can be no doubt control is paramount, just as there can be no doubt that scrambling well, as all of these players do, is also a likely requirement.
Scheffler has all bases covered and after a bogey-free weekend at Augusta National, the first in the history of the Masters, he's likely to take some stopping. We saw last week the best of his iron play after a brief lull in that department, while he was first in scrambling for good measure. With finishes of 11th, first and eighth and all 12 rounds here under-par despite seldom putting well, this rates a golden opportunity.
Immediately beyond Scheffler, there aren't any I'm particularly keen on. Xander Schauffele stands out on ability and form, particularly with his irons, but I don't like backing golfers at courses which work against them and this one does. He's largely struggled off the tee and the same goes for Cam Young, albeit he was third a few years ago and has defied the 'course fit' narrative for both PGA Tour wins so far.
Still, with the risk of a post-Masters comedown certainly there for Young and Schauffele's short-game plaguing him for most of the year, it's the slightly less able but resoundingly better suited players who make most sense. Among them, Russell Henley's Masters performance, where he led the field in strokes-gained approach, suggests he ought to go well although he too has to go again having been bang there in the mix.
I'll start with a big name who is just a bit further down the market in JORDAN SPIETH.
This is the first time in a little while I've been pretty pleased with the prices quoted about Spieth, whose last win came in this event and who before that had also won at another Pete Dye design, TPC River Highlands, which correlates well. Colonial, Pebble Beach and Copperhead are good guides too and this is certainly a Spieth course.
Augusta is obviously one of those as well but we still shouldn't underestimate 12th place there last week, that despite another difficult time with the putter. It was better than the horror show of the Texas Open before that, but Spieth still ranked a lowly 50th and was therefore unable to fully capitalise on his best tee-to-green performance in almost a year.
Fifth in strokes-gained approach represented the third time in four that his irons have been of a top-10 standard and he's back driving the ball better, while it wasn't a surprise that he was among the best in the Masters field around the green. In essence he did everything well except make putts and it's no wonder he was caught between satisfaction and frustration.
"I feel like I'm playing great golf," he said. "I don't feel like my results are showing it. All you got to do when that happens is stay the course. The results end up coming. Sometimes the game takes a while to pay off."
Spieth went on to say he hit the ball better than he ever has at Augusta and while I doubt that's true, the message is clear: he's very positive about the state of his game and, historically, he's been a pretty good judge of it. I remember him winning the Travelers and then the Open on his two starts after a midfield US Open finish which he insisted could've been a win.
At 20th in scrambling for the season and with his long-game firing, Spieth looks as close as he says he is and has done for some time, so where better than the scene of his last win which, by the way, came in spite of a below-average putting display. Plus, the change back to bermuda, on which he putted well for the most part in Florida events recently, is a welcome variable which could help him exit this short-term funk.
Runner-up the following year and a solid 18th on his last visit, Spieth is a real specialist around this quirky, old-fashioned golf course and having climbed from 89th to 52nd in the world since Pebble Beach back in February, it seems the right place to cement his return to the top 50. With that, dreams of a career Grand Slam would be hard to ignore but let's focus on the present for now.
Patrick Cantlay is essentially the same player he was 12 months ago and was tempting at the same price after an eye-catching Masters performance. His profile is similar to that of Spieth, right down to the fact that the putter is the one area of concern, and there's not much between them in my eyes. Spieth is narrowly preferred at the odds.
Viktor Hovland made some appeal after finishing with a flourish at Augusta, where he seemed in a generally better place. He's a supreme iron player with rounds of 64 and 65 to his name at Harbour Town, where he's gained strokes off the tee and with his approaches on all three starts so far. In many ways then he'd make sense but his short-game will come under pressure here and I'd rather wait for more good signs.
Preference then is for SEPP STRAKA, whose quiet Masters is just fine with me.
Augusta simply isn't a good course for Straka, who isn't long off the tee. It's true that we did have a couple of shorter hitters in the top 10 but both led the field in a different category and it takes something exceptional for players of this make-up to compete in the Masters.
So far Straka hasn't found it but Saturday's 69 was his best score yet thanks to a red-hot short-game, while on Sunday his trademark approach play picked up to the levels he'd shown in round one. In other words, he offered promise without piecing everything together in a tournament he's yet to impact in any way.
This one fits far better and that's all because of the golf course. Straka was third in 2022, having been 30th at Augusta the week before, and returned to be fifth a couple of years later having been 16th in the Masters. Last year's results across the two events read MC-13 so there's a pattern of modesty followed by something close to excellence and it's one I can see him continuing.
It's telling that so far this year his best golf came when runner-up at Pebble Beach, played across two shorter courses where he had previous form, and his next best was at Sawgrass which, like Harbour Town, is designed by Dye. These are good clues that his game remains where he needs it to be and bar a poor Texas Open in tricky weather at another course he's not massively fond off, his irons have kept on firing.
Straka led the field in strokes-gained approach in this event last year and is now ranked 20th on the PGA Tour despite that shocker in Texas, prior to which he'd been 12th, so I am expecting him to be reignited by a return to the sort of golf course we know he loves.
He won the John Deere after a run of poor form in 2023, started the following season with another Dye win in the AmEx having been without a top-10 finish in six months, added the Truist just under a year ago when building on the promise he'd shown here at another course which suits him, and seems just the type to emerge from midfield Masters obscurity and contend.
The player I've spent longest thinking about is Maverick McNealy, who boasts a couple of top-five finishes at Harbour Town, has gone close by the sea at Pebble Beach and in Hawaii, and calls Hilton Head one of his favourite places to visit. After an eye-catching Masters recovery which saw him crack the top 20 despite an opening 77 it came down to whether I felt I could trust him to carry over Sunday's iron play into this.
I'm not sure I can and the more I look at the roll of honour, the less his profile seems like the right one. McNealy has a wonderful short-game, but his approach play is down pretty significantly on last year and he isn't especially accurate either, so I'll head further down the betting to find BRIAN HARMAN.
Born and raised an hour and a half up the coast in Savannah, Harman has long considered this to be his home event, more so than the RSM Classic despite living at Sea Island nowadays. The Heritage was in fact the scene of his PGA Tour debut when still a teenager and two of his first three starts at Tour level came here at Harbour Town.
No wonder he's played in the RBC Heritage every year since earning his card and with plenty of success too, first cracking the top 10 in 2014 and playing well most years, but really kicking on more recently. Since the elevation to Signature Event status, he's been seventh, 12th and third, and 23 of his last 24 rounds have been under-par.
"This place is real special to me. It's nice to play in front of so many friends and family," he said last year and that followed three good rounds in four at Augusta, a course he's never managed to crack. He's prepared similarly this time, too, finishing 33rd thanks to middle rounds of 69 and 67 after a seven-over 79 to start.
As you might expect, Harman lost strokes off the tee there, his accuracy little use and his lack of length an issue, but the rest of his game was sharp (top 30 in all three of the remaining key statistical categories) and his approach play has been coming back around of late, just as his putter now appears to be.
I think it's significant that whereas he's on the back foot from the get-go at Augusta as he is a few other PGA Tour courses, Harman is averaging almost a full shot gained per round off the tee here over the last five years, a significant uptick on his baseline and proof that his ability to find fairways matters much more than usual.
He's gained strokes off the tee at Pebble Beach and Sawgrass this year but nowhere else and his best driving performance over the past 12 months came at River Highlands, so the point is that versus someone like Young or Schauffele, this is one course where he could even beat them with the tee shot.
Those top-10 tee-to-green performances at Pebble Beach and in The Players suggest that it's a matter of getting to the right course and producing, which I believe this tournament gives him an outstanding opportunity to do.
Returning to that point around where he first played on the PGA Tour, his other early start came in the Travelers at another short, Dye-designed layout in the aforementioned River Highlands, and his record there since is outstanding: eight top-10s from 2015 onwards and several chances to win at a course which asks similar questions to Harbour Town.
Harman will hope to pick one of or both of these titles before he's done and while making them Signature Events hasn't helped on the one hand, he's raised his game in the face of stronger competition. Now playing this for just the third time as a major champion, he could spring something of a surprise and at 50/1 and upwards makes a lot of each-way appeal.
Postman to deliver again
So does JT POSTON, whose exceptional course record shows third, fifth, sixth, eighth and 11th from just seven starts.
A winner at Sedgefield Country Club, runner-up at River Highlands, sixth and seventh at PGA West and with a respectable Sawgrass record, Poston has proven beyond doubt that this golf course is absolutely ideal for a tidy game built on precision and putting prowess.
When that putter of his runs cold it can be a struggle but the bigger issue this year had been his iron play, which dipped significantly after such a promising start and hurt him in some big events.
That's why I'm drawn to the fact that he's one of the most improved players on the circuit in that regard based on his last two starts in Texas, first when still unable to make the cut on a long golf course because he putted terribly, then when staying on for 21st in San Antonio. Across the two, Poston averaged about 1.25 strokes-gained per round with his approaches and that could prove a significant clue.
With his putter showing clear signs of improvement, Poston looks to be ready to conjure the same sort of return to form he found at this time last year when 11th place here was his best golf of the season, and fifth in the PGA Championship soon followed. The latter carries extra significance as he's from North Carolina, which is where the PGA Championship took place and where he won his first PGA Tour title once.
We're just over the border in South Carolina this time and should he continue to hit his irons as he has done the last twice, the well-supported Poston seems likely to give his running in one of his favourite events on the calendar.
I'm aware that the above selections lean very heavily into the idea that things that've happened before might just happen again and that's sometimes not the best way to go about this, but Harbour Town's quirks and its very specific demands make it a place where the same names often pop up. Before Cantlay, Luke Donald produced seven top-three finishes in nine years, remember.
In that spirit, DANIEL BERGER is the final selection.
Third here on his return last year, the second time he's filled that spot in the RBC Heritage, Berger is an ideal fit for the course. He's accurate, his approach play is his strength, and while he's not always putted well here I would consider the move back to bermuda greens a potential positive, too.
It was a better putting display combined with a continuation of his quality ball-striking which should've seen him win at Bay Hill only to have his pocket picked by Akshay Bhatia, and Berger is back out to the same sort of prices despite moving to a specialist golf course and a field absent of Rory McIlroy this time.
To my eye his chance looks stronger despite two quiet efforts since, first when down the field at Sawgrass then when missing the cut in the Masters. The latter doesn't concern me at all as Berger simply isn't the right type for Augusta and when he missed the cut there in 2021 he bounced back immediately in this.
Form figures of 72-33-3-13-21-3 demonstrate that he's warmed to the challenge, really ever since closing 63-65 in 2020, and another 65 last year saw him climb from 16th to third on Sunday. Once more this was built on high-class iron play and over the last three renewals he's played in, Berger's strokes-gained approach numbers are particularly strong.
His short-game has been less reliable lately and may determine how he does, but twice since February, Berger has been the number one iron player in a good tournament featuring the world's best player, Scheffler. He's also ranked fifth in another and we're left waiting for a blend of suitable golf course and improved chipping and putting, which seems as likely to come this week than any.
Since returning from injury, five of Berger's six top-10s have been on bermuda greens (these are overseeded with a strain of poa annua, for the record) and he has plenty of correlating form, including second to Spieth at River Highlands and a win at Pebble Beach. He'll have easier chances in terms of field, but there is no better golf course for him between now and the FedExCup Playoffs.
I think he's a realistic winner and rather than chance genuine outsiders in a Signature Event, given that they almost always go to someone further up the betting, he completes a five-strong team of course specialists tasked with beating another of them in Scheffler.
Posted at 09:00 BST on 14/04/26
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