RADIO
Hello folks, and welcome back to Horse For The Course. Wow...what an edition of the Masters! The weather forced a rather circuitous route, but Jon Rahm eventually slipped on the highly-coveted green jacket Sunday evening. It marked Rahm's second career major championship win, and considering the form he's displayed this year, it appears that many more titles are in the cards for the big Spaniard.
There's an understandable tendency for both fans and players to suffer from something of a "Masters hangover" after the year's first major championship. However, this year's RBC Heritage provides us with a nice little "hair of the dog", as the 2023 edition of theHeritage has been tagged as a "Designated Event" by the PGA Tour and will have the majority of the world's top golfers teeing it up in Hilton Head.
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2023 RBC Heritage
The annual spot on the schedule the week following the Masters could be a huge detriment for many events, but the RBC Heritage has not only survived but thrived, as the traditional follow-up to the year's first major championship. The Heritage has a bit of a home-field advantage, as its scenic locale of Hilton Head Island provides a tremendous environment for the pros - and their families - to decompress following the stresses of Augusta National.
There's a lot to love about Hilton Head, but this Harbour Town layout happens to be one of the most unique golf courses on the PGA Tour schedule. In a rare change from most Tour stops, distance and power off the tee give players basically no advantage on this Pete Dye design that's withstood the test of time. We're going "old school" this week...accuracy off the tee, precise iron play, and a great short game will all be required at Harbour Town.
While the Heritage traditionally draws a rock-solid field, its status as a "Designated Event" has upped the ante for golf fans this year and boasts perhaps the strongest field in its history. In addition to defending Heritage champion Jordan Spieth, both Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler are slated to tee it up this week, as are notable stars such as Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, and Cameron Young. I would advise you to keep an eye out for WDs this week (Rory McIlroy and Jason Day have already pulled out of the event as of this writing), as some guys are simply out of gas following the Masters and that could be especially true after the brutal weather conditions at Augusta last week. This is gonna be a good one...let's dig in!
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The Course: Harbour Town Golf Links
Par 71 - 7,121 Yards, Greens: Bermuda, Designed By: Pete Dye
This Pete Dye beauty is one of the shortest layouts these pros will face all year. Its lack of length is a refreshing change of pace from the stretched-to-the-max layouts that we routinely see on the PGA Tour schedule. While it may lack length, Harbour Town is by no means a pushover. Very tight, tree-lined fairways often take drivers out of the players' hands, forcing them to play strategically off the tee. In true Dye fashion, this is a second-shot golf course and players will be taking aim at minuscule greens that routinely grade out as some of the toughest to hit on the PGA Tour schedule. These factors make me give almost no weight to the bombers this week and I'll instead be focusing on players that are precise off the tee and accurate on approach.
Other than Pebble Beach, this course has the smallest greens on the PGA Tour schedule, so while it's an area that often goes overlooked in our PGA DFS corner of the world, I'll also be giving weight to around the green ability this week. Harbour Town is slightly similar to Augusta National in that we often see the same players perform well here every year, while first-timers can struggle, so I'm giving an even bigger bump than normal to players with strong course history.
Recent Masters Winners & Scoring Info
- 2022: Jordan Spieth (-13)
- 2021: Stewart Cink (-19)
- 2020: Webb Simpson (-22)
- 2019: CT Pan (-12)
- 2018: Satoshi Kodaira (-12)
- Average Winning Score Last Five Years: -15.6
The Horse
Patrick Cantlay
- Event Scoring Average: 68.61 (Five career starts)
- Notable Course History: 2nd (2022), T3 ('19), T7 ('18), T3 ('17)
- DraftKings Price: $ FanDuel Price: $11,500
Let's just get this out of the way right off the bat...Patrick Cantlay is a brutally-slow player. I'm talking human-weather-delay slow. The pace at which he played Sunday at the Masters is an embarrassment, as both his playing partner Viktor Hovland, as well as the final group of Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka, were forced to wait on him all day during the final round. Ok...rant over but had to get it off my chest.
When the molasses-like Cantlay does eventually get to his ball and hit it, it's usually with elite results. The Californian has been in his usual, Steady Eddie form to this point in 2023, posting two top-five finishes and two top-20s over his last four starts. He grades out fifth among this week's Heritage entrants in SG: T2G over the last 24 rounds.
This event has been kind to the Dewalt/Delta/Goldman Sachs/Cisco/ADP ambassador, as he's consistently drilled the competition in the RBC Heritage. His plethora of sponsors should be happy this week, as he'll likely garner plenty of weekend TV time. Cantlay has thrived on Harbour Town's tight confines, posting top-three finishes in an eye-popping three of his five career Heritage appearances - including a sudden-death playoff loss to Jordan Spieth in last year's edition - while amassing a 68.61 scoring average in the Hilton Head event.
The Ponies
Shane Lowry
- Event Scoring Average: 69.00 (Five career starts)
- Notable Course History: T3 ('22), T9 ('21), T3 ('19)
- DraftKings Price: $8,300 FanDuel Price: $10,200
The Irishman has been tremendous across his five career trips to Harbour Town, posting a pair of T3s to go with a T9 in 2021. Lowry let last year's RBC Heritage slip through his fingertips, as he was in firm control of the tournament late into the final round before some untimely wind gusts - as well as a bit of pressure - allowed Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay to overtake him late.
After kicking off 2023 in hit-and-miss fashion, Lowry has righted the ship as of late, gaining strokes T2G and on Approach in four of his last five starts. He's coming off a rock-solid T16 outing at the Masters and has now recorded top-20 finishes in four of five.
Lowry's plodding, fairways-and-greens style translates well to this coastal Pete Dye design. He ranks eighth in this week's field in Good Drives Gained and 14th in GIRs Gained over his last 24 rounds. Thanks to his international experience (six of the last 10 Heritage winners have been players born outside the U.S.) and Irish roots, the 36-year-old is uniquely equipped to handle this environment and his all-world short game is always a bonus around Harbour Town's tiny greens.
Tommy Fleetwood
- Event Scoring Average: 69.30 (Three career starts)
- Notable Course History: T10 ('22), T25 ('19)
- DraftKings Price: $8,100 FanDuel Price: $9,700
While I agree that waiting on Tommy Fleetwood's "breakthrough" win in the U.S. became tiresome long ago, we have to believe that the Englishman is simply too good a player to never lift a trophy on American soil. Right?
I've quit trying to predict victories for Fleetwood, but a spirited effort and strong finish feel well within his range of outcomes this week at Harbour Town, a layout on which he produced a T10 last year on the strength of going 64-68 across the weekend.
The unique Dye layout has been an American safe haven for international players of Fleetwood's ilk, i.e., golfers that may lack bombing length off the tee but consistently find fairways and greens, and possess the ability to get up and down when they don't.
The Englishman's iron play has been positively steady - he's gained strokes on Approach in every measured start this year - though it's his knack for scrambling that catches the eye ahead of Harbour Town, as he's gained an average of 1.9 strokes Around The Green over his last five tournaments and ranks second in this week's field in SG: ATG across his last 24 rounds.
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End of the Season Totals: @rotoballer @BettorGolfPod
2017 +54.26 Units
2018 +55.88 Units
2019 +27.743 Units
2020 + 37.015 Units
2021 + 68.846 Units
2022 +67.485 UnitsTotal Winnings: +311.229 Units
Total Outright Wins Since 2017: 36
H2H Totals Inside Thread… https://t.co/pNQrSK1rFE
— Spencer Aguiar (@TeeOffSports) December 12, 2022
Matt Kuchar
- Event Scoring Average: 69.73 (19 career starts)
- Notable Course History: T2 ('22), T18 ('21), 2nd ('19), T5 ('15), Win ('14)
- DraftKings Price: $7,700 FanDuel Price: $10,000
Matt Kuchar isn't a particularly exciting player to watch, but his patented brand of "Dad Golf" is tremendously effective at Harbour Town. Kuchar's skill set and Hilton Head track record have placed him in the annals of RBC Heritage history alongside such vanilla (boring) greats as Davis Love III, Jim Furyk, and Stewart Cink. Legendary plodders, all.
The 44-year-old veteran totes an impressive 69.73 career event scoring average into this year's edition of the Heritage, a tournament where he's made a staggering 18 (!) consecutive cuts. Since winning at Harbour Town in 2014, Kuch has finished inside the top 10 in half of his eight Heritage appearances with just one finish outside the top-25.
As if his ridiculous course history alone wasn't enough, the vet comes in on the heels of his best finish since last year's RBC Heritage - a T3 at the Valero Texas Open, an outing in which he gained an elite 7.6 strokes on Approach and 4.6 strokes Around The Green. He's an unbelievable bargain on DraftKings this week at just $7,700.
J.T. Poston
- Event Scoring Average: 68.29 (Four career starts)
- Notable Course History: T3 ('22), T8 ('20), T6 ('19),
- DraftKings Price: $7,300 FanDuel Price: $8,900
The Postman has delivered in his previous trips to Hilton Head (I'm sorry, it was just too easy) with a T3 in last year's RBC Heritage standing as the highlight of three top-eight finishes since 2019.
After a rather impressive T34 in last week's Masters on an Augusta National layout that stretched the limits of Poston's below-average distance off the tee, this week's cozy 7,121-yard Harbour Town layout will be a welcome sight for the Hickory, North Carolina native that makes his money with the flat stick on the PGA Tour schedule's shorter layouts.
Before last week's outing at the Masters, Poston put forth his best iron performance of the year - +5.4 SG: Approach - en route to a T10 at the Valspar Championship, an event where we've seen lots of crossover success with the Heritage, by the way. The 29-year-old also reached the Round of 16 at the Dell Match Play last month. He arrives in Hilton Head sporting a juicy blend of recent form and elite course history, as well as affordable DFS price tags.
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