Photo Credit: Golf Pass
After what felt like a marathon of golf at The Masters, The PGA tour is teeing up a designated event just four days later. The RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links will feature a stacked field and a 20 million dollar purse this year. Harbour Town is one of the more unique golf courses on the tour schedule each year. It is a classic Pete Dye design that challenges players despite not being overwhelming in length, coming in at just around 7,100 yards. Due to the place on the schedule, this event has always been hit or miss with the biggest players in the game. Despite that, the golf course has been enough in recent years to still produce an entertaining golf tournament each year. Now that it has a very strong field, this could be one of the best events of the season, non major division, for The PGA Tour. Per usual we will do our picks grabbing a player from the top, middle, and bottom of the odds board. Let’s get to it!
Cameron Young
Cam Young has shown time and time again over the last two seasons that he is an elite player. His major record is astonishingly good for someone this early in his career, and when it comes to the eye test, it is hard to believe he hasn’t won a handful of events already. However, Cam Young is still searching for that first win of his PGA Tour career and there is good reason to believe that it could come this week at The Heritage. While Cam Young may not be the best statistical course fit, his current form is phenomenal. He was the runner up at Match Play and followed it up with a very competitive T7 at The Masters (which could have been even more competitive if he was on the better side of the draw). Not to mention, last year he finished T3 in this very event! He has seven career runner up finishes through his first two PGA Tour seasons so far. He is an elite driver and iron player with an average putter. He will win a lot in his career and based on his most recent form, we think it will be this week at Harbour Town, with a floor of him finishing in the top five.
Matt Kuchar
Kuchar is having the best year on Tour since 2019. This is a true horse for course play, but it is strengthened by his recent form as well. He has played a staggering 72 rounds of competitive golf on this course and has a true strokes gained of 1.75 over those 72 rounds. 2 strokes gained per round is thought to be the benchmark for “elite” competitive golf play. Since 2018 Kuchar has not missed the cut here and has posted finishes of T18, T3 (last year) and 2nd throughout that span. In his last five events Kuchar has made the cut three times. All three of those made cuts however, have resulted in a top 10 finish for him. When you combine his recent form with his outstanding history at this event, Kuchar is a great pick to finish inside the top 10 this week.
Ben Griffin
In Ben Griffin’s season so far he has made 17 starts. How many cuts do you think he has made? 3… 2… 1… 14! He only has three missed cuts on the season thus far. He has also made starts in two of the designated events which have happened so far, The Players and The API. In both of those events he made the cut and posted finishes of T35 and T14 respectively. He is further down the odds board this week than guys like Matt Wallace and Brendon Todd which just feels wrong to me. While Ben did miss the cut in the last start he made, it does not concern me too much. On Pete Dye courses players who have good hands around the green tend to rise up the board, as so many of his green complexes weed out poor chippers and putters. Ben Griffin is well above tour average in both chipping and Putting, making him a good pick to finish inside the top 20 this week.
