GOLFICITY BETS: The 2020 RBC Heritage Gambling Guide

RBC Heritage Tournament Preview

After the excitement of the Charles Schwab Challenge, an equally high quality field will assemble at the Harbour Town Links this week for the RBC Heritage.

Whether the finale will match up to the conclusion at Colonial remains to be seen. Xander Schauffele could, arguably should, have won it before fluffing his lines, and Collin Morikawa should have at least extended the play-off when he missed a straightforward four-footer on the seventeenth green.

In the end, it was left to Daniel Berger – an experienced campaigner now despite being just 27 – to wrap up the victory, which was his third on the PGA TOUR. Coming at the end of a sustained period of form, maybe Berger is set to finally cash in on his undoubted talent.

This week the players will battle it out for the tartan jacket, an item of clothing worn by such luminaries as C.T. Pan, Satoshi Kodaira and Wesley Bryan in the last three years – that shows the problems the RBC Heritage organizers have had in attracting a quality field.

But freed from the shackles of taking place a week after The Masters as normal, this year’s edition should be a first-class affair.

RBC Heritage  Course Preview

Harbour Town Links is a classic coastal resort layout with a twist.

On the face of it, the course is friendly enough – but the knowledge that Pete Dye is the architect raises the bar somewhat.

Some of the holes play alongside the cliff edges, so those tend to be buffeted by the wind, while more inland holes are tree-lined and require pinpoint accuracy off the tee.

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This being a Dye course though, there is a sting in the tail with gnarly rough, deep bunkers and smaller-than-average Bermuda greens, which are protected by tightly mown run-off areas.

A 7,100 yard Par 71, there are only three Par 5s at Harbour Town and these are the easiest holes on the course, and so making hay here is key. Recently, the winning score has been -12, and that shows what is required to take care of business on a demanding course that is largely protected by the weather.

RBC Heritage Outright Winner

Many lessons were learned at Colonial last week.

We learned who hadn’t been working on their game over the break, and we learned that Jordan Spieth was hard at work on the putting green.

Another player who crashed back into form was Justin Rose, who played well in all aspects of the game and who carried himself with the air of a potential champion.

He arguably played the round of the week on Sunday at Colonial, and a player who is a known fan of Pete Dye courses has to be on the radar this week. Can Rose get it done?

RBC Heritage Top 5 Finish Pick

Are there any players in world golf right now with a chip-and-putt game quite like Patrick Reed?

He has the perfect set-up for Harbour Town, and the Texan won’t mind if the wind blows – that comes with the territory.

Captain America has stacked up a win in Mexico, a T15 at the Arnold Palmer and T7 at the Charles Schwab last week – that is exactly the kind of formline we are looking for in a potential champion.

RBC Heritage Top 10 Finish Pick

So this week we’re looking for players who are comfortable on Links courses and who possess a quality short game.

With those parameters in mind, Tyrrell Hatton is one of the players who springs to mind and at generous top-10 odds too.

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A two-time champion of the Alfred Dunhill Links event in Scotland, Hatton thrives in these conditions and that is primarily because of a) his comfort in the wind and b) his tremendous range of chipping.

Backed by the confidence of winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Hatton could well go close this week.

RBC Heritage Top 20 Finish Pick

There’s plenty of interesting value around in this market, and while there are a number of options available you can get around +300 on J.T. Poston to clinch a top-20 finish.

This is a player that is fancied to go close to winning the whole thing, so those are fantastic odds about a player who thrives in these wind-affected events on shorter, technical tracks.

A T6 finish on debut here in 2019 sets the scene rather nicely.

RBC Heritage Match-up to Watch

There are some interesting matchups available involving the megastars who will tee up at Harbour Town, but the best of the early betting value lies slightly lower down the rankings.

Matt Kuchar missed the cut at Colonial despite recording +1.43 with the putter – that shows just how bad he was from tee-to-green.

He’s got an excellent record at Harbour Town, which is perhaps why the bookies are so sweet on his chances in a matchup against Branden Grace.

But the South African is a former winner at this venue too, and what’s more he played far better than Kooch last week – his approach play and short game were in fine fettle.

Available at ‘+’ prices – fairly rare for a value matchup bet – Grace has to be backed to take down Kuchar this week.

Who to Fade this Week

Quite why he has fallen from grace so dramatically only he can answer, but Dustin Johnson is a million miles away from the form that made him a multiple-time PGA TOUR winner.

He was really bad last week at Colonial too, losing strokes in all departments apart from off the tee, and he missed the cut by a considerable margin in the end.

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To make matters worse for DJ, he will have bad memories of his last trip to Harbour Town – his final round of 77, when well in contention, was as dramatic as it gets.

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