Fantasy Golf Tournament Preview- RBC Heritage
OVERVIEW
What a Masters! Patrick Reed held off Euro foe Rory McIlroy in the penultimate grouping and impressive Sunday runs by Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler. From the green jacket to the plaid jacket, we head to Hilton Head and Harbour Town Golf Links. There are only three par 5’s on the course this week, so while they’re important to score on, players will need to make up strokes on some of the easier Par 4’s in order to contend. The course is designed by the Dye-abolical one, Pete Dye, so you know we’ll need to target our less than driver specialists as well as those that typically play well on Pete Dye courses. The rough is short and as long as drives don’t run too far through the fairway, players should have decent shots at these small greens. Hitting greens in regulation is imperative this week, and if they’re not hitting the greens, scrambling will be very important. I still have no idea if there’s any correlation to players coming from the lightning fast greens of Augusta to these or vice versa, but I think there may be something to research there and it’ll be something I look at before lock on Wednesday. The other big news about the event is that Dustin Johnson (DK $12,000) is now an RBC sponsored player and two years ago we found ourselves in a similar spot with Jason Day being in the field. DJ won’t be featured anywhere in this article, so I’ll use this space to give my thoughts. I didn’t see much from DJ last week to make me think he could run away with this tournament, but outside of a couple backdoor Top 10’s he hasn’t played well at Augusta, so there could be an edge for us there this week. He’s absolutely a Less Than Driver specialist as he can bomb two thru four irons as far as Matthew Fitzpatrick can hit his 3 wood, with much more accuracy. If the projected ownership on DJ is low this week (I doubt it will be), then you have a strong opportunity to be overweight on the best player in the field. If his ownership is where it usually is, then we need to make our normal decision in tournaments whether to play him at expected ownership or fade completely. I can’t say which way to lean as he’s not played this course in competition in the last 10 years, but he went to school in SC, so I’m sure he’s played here before.
TOURNAMENT BACKGROUND
o The Course
• Harbour Town Golf Links
• Par 71
• 7,100 yards
• Bermuda greens
o Location: Hilton Head, SC
o Corollary Courses/Performances: Pete Dye Designs – TPC Sawgrass, PGA West (Palmer), Sea Island Resort, Sedgefield CC
o Past Champions:
• 2017: Wes Bryan -13 over Luke Donald
• 2016: Branden Grace -9 over Luke Donald & Russell Knox
• 2015: Jim Furyk -18 in a playoff over Kevin Kisner
• 2014: Matt Kuchar -11 over Luke Donald
• 2013: Graeme McDowell -9 in a playoff over Webb Simpson
KEY STATS TO TARGET
o Strong Emphasis – SG: APP, Birdie Or Better, P4 Scoring, Scrambling
o Important – P4 400-450, P4 450-500, APP 175-200, APP 150-175, Driving Accuracy, Putting Inside 5’
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