Golf Tips: RBC Heritage final round preview
Matt Cooper looks ahead to Sunday's final-round action from the RBC Heritage and he's happy to oppose hot favourite Scottie Scheffler.
Golf betting tips: RBC Heritage final round
1pt e.w. Ludvig Aberg at 11/1 (Sky Bet 1,2,3 1/5)
3pts JT Poston to beat Tom Hoge in two-ball at evens (bet365, Coral, Ladbrokes)
There’s a sense of deja vu about Sunday at the RBC Heritage as Scottie Scheffler takes another lead into the final round as he chases a fourth victory in his last five starts.
Should the World No. 1 end the evening adding the Harbour Town event’s tartan jacket prize to the green jacket he won last week at Augusta, it’s also possible that the stock of Germany’s Stephan Jaeger will have risen – because as it is he’s the only man to have defied Scheffler in the last two months (when pushing him into a share of second at the Houston Open).
Scheffler slipped through the gears in smooth style on Saturday. He made eight birdies and no bogeys in a 63 that moved him nine spots up the leaderboard to top of the pile and into a one shot lead. He ranked first off the tee, first with approaches and 18th for putting in that round - a simple and destructive combination.
Afterwards he echoed his thoughts from last week at the Masters when he said: “I really love winning and I don’t like losing at all." It’s a message the golf world is beginning to understand.
There might be a sense that the only thing that can beat him at the moment is the labour pains of his wife Meredith who is back home in Texas with him ready to exit stage right the second he gets the call that she's due. But the wind is set to change direction overnight and the pace-setter said that would be “challenging”, while the leaderboard offers plenty of threat.
Scheffler has carded rounds of 69-65-73 to total 16-under-par 197 through 54 holes. He leads by one from Sepp Straka and by two from Collin Morikawa (a Ben Coley pre-event pick). He’s three clear of Sahith Theegala, Patrick Rodgers and LUDVIG ABERG, and four ahead of Seamus Power, Patrick Cantlay (another of Ben’s selections), JT Poston and Tom Hoge. Jaeger is five back alone in 11th.
Rory McIlroy and Xander Schauffele are part of a five-way tie for 12th, six back, and history suggests that position is not without hope at Harbour Town. Two of the last 13 winners were six back – Satoshi Kodaira was T12th in 2018 and Brandt Snedeker T17th in 2011. Another four of those 13 winners were four back and two were three back. Blustery winds tends to help such flips and, as yet, though breezes will be different in direction they are expected to be no more than about 15mph.
Among those chasers are some contrasting experiences of final rounds and particularly final rounds at Harbour Town. Straka carded a Sunday 67 on his course debut and a 68 to land third in 2022 – in-between he had a 75. Morikawa is 1-for-4 at breaking par in the final lap on the course and needs to break a nasty recent run of three Sunday 74s in a row (he’ll surely do that though). Theegala has played the event twice, carding a 79 in 2022 and improving on that by 14 strokes last year. Rodgers, who is still seeking a first win at this level, needs to improve on a record of being 3-for-14 at breaking 70 in the final round when tied fifth or better at the start of it.
And Aberg is just being Aberg which is to say life is quite the stroll at the moment. After his second round he was asked if he’d been excited to arrive at the venue and said: “Oh, definitely. This kind of golf makes me excited. It’s a little bit more placing, a little bit more strategy, I guess. So I was really excited about that challenge.”
His back catalogue, not extensive currently, also suggested that he’d like Harbour Town. Back in 2020 he won a third tier Nordic League event at Barseback, a Swedish resort with a course that sneaks between trees before sometimes breaking out by the sea. Quite like this week, in fact, and Luke Donald had a fine record at both: third and first at Barseback, seven top threes at Harbour Town. Nick Faldo won at both. Last year’s winner of this event, Matt Fitzpatrick, was second the only time he played Barseback. Jesper Parnevik won on home soil and has a second at Harbour Town. Carl Pettersson won at Harbour Town and came close at Barseback in 2003.
Moreover, since turning pro, being by the sea and a bit breezy has suited Aberg. He won at Sea Island (another resort much like Barseback and Harbour Town), was second at Pebble Beach and while he was rusty in Hawaii he did close with a 63 at Plantation and a 66 at Waialae. And his first win as a pro was at Crans when, like this week, driver wasn’t always the first option from the tee. Still fresh-faced and fresh of the golf life he can make a Sunday run in a spot that suits.
There is 12/1 out there but in one place so we’ll take the 11/1 on offer with Sky Bet.
In the two-balls the evens about POSTON up against Hoge looks solid. The latter opened 67-64 but is capable (as is anyone) of big numbers on the course – in fact five of his six rounds ahead of this week were 73+.
Poston’s Saturday 70 was his first weekend failure to break 69 in seven attempts and his final round record is 66-65-64. Maintaining that trend would be a little remarkable but the odds on prices for Poston look more realistic than the evens.
Posted at 1002 BST on 21/04/24
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.
MOST READ
Next Off
Fixtures & Results
