Matt Fitzpatrick celebrates with his girlfriend Katherine Gaal after winning the 2023 RBC Heritage. | Photo by Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images
The RBC Heritage in South Carolina marks the PGA Tour’s fifth Signature Event of the 2024 season. Here are the odds and valuable insight.
Fresh off a historic Masters Tournament that saw Scottie Scheffler further cement himself as the top player on the planet, the best players on the PGA Tour will make the short trip to Hilton Head for the RBC Heritage.
Viktor Hovland withdrew from this event after missing the cut at the Masters, but eight of the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) will still tee it up. LIV Golf’s Jon Rahm is the only other player missing from the top 10.
Other notables that will tee it up this week include Matt Fitzpatrick and Jordan Spieth, who battled it out in an epic three-hole playoff here last year. The Englishman defeated the American on the third playoff hole, keeping Spieth from winning back-to-back titles in Hilton Head.
Tommy Fleetwood, Collin Morikawa, Cameron Young, and Sahith Theegala are also in the field while Hideki Matsuyama rests and recovers.
RBC Heritage Odds:
Here are the current odds for players to win, per DraftKings:
Scottie Scheffler +400
Rory McIlroy +1000
Xander Schauffele +1100
Ludvig Åberg +1200
Patrick Cantlay +1800
Tommy Fleetwood +2000
Matt Fitzpatrick +2000
Max Homa +2200
Collin Morikawa +2200
Wyndham Clark +2500
Will Zalatoris +2500
Jordan Spieth +2500
DraftKings
2024 RBC Heritage odds.
RBC Heritage Predictions
Contested annually on one of Pete Dye’s most renowned courses, Harbour Town Golf Links prioritizes target golf. You must avoid the hazards that snake throughout the course while giving yourself the best angles to attack its tiny greens. Even being on the wrong side of the fairway can lead to trouble, as many trees hang over the short grass.
As such, ball-striking is paramount, but so is driving accuracy. Harbour Town is not a long course for PGA Tour standards, but it penalizes any wayward tee shots and approaches.
Jordan Spieth rebounds for Top 10 finish
A quadruple bogey nine on the 15th hole during the first round of The Masters sealed Jordan Spieth’s fate at Augusta this year. But his early exit means he can focus on rebounding at the RBC Heritage, where he has had plenty of success.
We believe he does just that.
Even though he has missed three of his last four cuts, including at both Augusta and The Players, Spieth’s record at Harbour Town is too tough to overlook.
Photo by Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images
Jordan Spieth and caddie Michael Greller on the 18th green during the final round of the 2023 RBC Heritage.
He lost last year in a playoff and won the tournament the year before that. In all eight of those rounds, Spieth has broken 70 each time.
The three-time major winner can certainly be erratic at times, which does not typically translate to success, but the results at Harbour Town speak for themselves.
In addition, Spieth ranks 8th on tour in overall strokes gained and is slightly above average in driving accuracy percentage. As such, we like him at +250 to finish within the top 10.
Max Homa, Ludvig Åberg maintain presence on leaderboard
Both Max Homa and Ludvig Åberg have played well over the past couple of months, most recently recording top 5 finishes at The Masters.
We like that trend to continue at Harbour Town this week, even though Homa missed the cut there a year ago and Åberg has not yet competed on this track.
As such, we believe that Homa, who does not currently have many flaws in his game, will finish in the top 10—his third of the season.
Meanwhile, Åberg has been on a tear ever since finishing solo second to Wyndham Clark at Pebble Beach in early February. Since then, his worst finish came at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he tied for 25th. His ability to hit the ball as straight as an arrow and find greens at will makes him a strong candidate to finish in the top 5 at +275.
Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Ludvig Åberg during the 2024 Masters.
Scottie Scheffler contends but does not win
Once again, Scottie Scheffler’s odds this week border on being ridiculous. These numbers have not been seen since Tiger Woods regularly dominated the PGA Tour throughout the mid-2000s.
Nevertheless, the return on Scheffler finishing in the top 10 does not warrant a wager at -225. Neither does a top 5 finish, which is currently +100.
But fresh off a mentally-taxing win at Augusta, another win at Harbour Town does not appear to be in the cards. Plus, he has more important things on his mind, like the upcoming birth of his child.
Scheffler will most certainly contend at Harbour Town. He contends every week he plays, but we do not envision him winning for a fourth time in five starts.
RBC Heritage Winner
For the first time since his win at The Open Championship at Royal Portrush in 2019, Shane Lowry will emerge victorious.
The Irishman finds fairways and greens like few others have in 2024, and he will rely on his accuracy to triumph at Harbour Town.
Lowry currently ranks 3rd on the PGA Tour in strokes gained: approaching the green and 5th in strokes gained: tee-to-green. But he has also hit the fairway 85% of the time this season, which ranks first on the PGA Tour. You need to be in position off the tee on this golf course, and Lowry has done that better than anyone in 2024.
Getty Images
Shane Lowry hits a tee shot during the final round of the 2024 RBC Heritage.
At +6000, Lowry’s odds seem high, especially considering he has not missed a cut since January. Perhaps that is because he did not have his best stuff at The Masters, but Augusta National played extremely difficult this year. Even then, Augusta and Harbour Town share little resemblance.
Before The Masters, Lowry tied for 4th at PGA National, finished solo 3rd at Bay Hill, and then tied for 19th at The Players. Those three courses comprise three-quarters of the Florida Swing, and they are similar to Harbour Town, where Lowry has three top-10 finishes over his past five starts.
This time, however, he wins.
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Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.
