By While I’m sad that we have to wait another 52 weeks for another Masters, I am happy to report that we had a tremendous week of PGA Tour betting.
We had four picks on the card last week and cashed three of them – Scottie Scheffler to win, Xander Schauffele to finish in the top 10 and Tiger Woods to make the cut.
When you add in the Stephan Jaeger outright at +5000 from a few weeks ago, this has been a great start to the season. Let’s try to keep the momentum going at the RBC Heritage.
The course in play this week is Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, S.C. It is a par-71 that measures a little more than 7,200 yards.
Like most Pete Dye courses, this is not one that can be overpowered off the tee. With narrow fairways, doglegs, overhanging tree limbs and water hazards lurking everywhere, this is more of a positional course off the tee.
In other words, you don’t have to be a bomber to play well there.
The greens at Harbour Town are extremely small (3,400 square feet) and difficult to hit on average. This places an emphasis on both approach play and scrambling.
The three main statistics I am looking at this week from players are strokes-gained approach, strokes gained around the green and bogey avoidance.
Course history has been fairly predictive over the years, so I don’t mind leaning on golfers who have played well here in the past.
2024 RBC Heritage best bets
Cameron Young to win (+3000, FanDuel)
Young has yet to pick up a win on the PGA Tour, but he has been in contention so many times.
In his short career, he has seven runner-up finishes and two third-place finishes. It’s only a matter of time before he gets the breaks he needs on a Sunday.
And the fact he’s won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour shows he knows how to win.
While this is a less-than-driver course for the most part, nearly 40% of approach shots are hit from 150-200 yards. Young is one of the best in the field when it comes to approach shots from that distance.
He’s been in solid form all year and nearly won this event in 2022.
Wyndham Clark to win (+3500, DraftKings)
Clark missed the cut at the Masters last week, which has led to a very enticing price point in the outright betting market.
If he had made the cut and had a decent weekend, his odds would likely be in the +2000 range. Instead, it’s nearly double that.
He seems to love these Signature Events, as he won at Pebble Beach and finished second at both The Players Championship and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
He doesn’t have a weakness in his game and he plays this event every year.
If you want to play the regional narrative, he won on a Carolina course last year (Quail Hollow).
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Shane Lowry top 10 (+330, FanDuel)
Lowry was close to making my outright betting card this week, but his number cratered before I had the chance to bet it. Instead, I will settle for a top-10 finish.
His T33 result at the Masters doesn’t look like much on paper, but he lost eight strokes putting. Had he been just even with the field on the greens, he would have finished in the top 10.
His irons and his play around the green are excellent, and he clearly likes the course. In his last five appearances at Harbour Town, he has finished in the top 10 three times.
Russell Henley top 20 (+115, DraftKings)
I can’t think of a better course for Henley’s game. He’s accurate off the tee, he’s elite on approach and he’s very good around the greens.
On top of all that, he seems to have found something with his putting this year.
In a field of only 70 golfers, I love his chances of finishing in the top 20. He’s been able to hit that mark in full-field events in eight of his last 13 starts and has hit that mark in two of his last three trips to Harbour Town.
