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2025 RBC Heritage Final Thoughts

Weather


I have alluded to this in my initial course preview, but the major takeaway I have this year versus last year is that scoring is going to regress closer to mean, and we will see a scoring average more synonymous with 2023 than 2024. I was on property last year for both practice rounds and tournament play and I can tell you the golf course was soaked, and it produced the lowest scoring average of the last five years. It would have been even lower had players not been forced to perform through wind and rain on Sunday afternoon.


This year, however, I am expecting blue-bird conditions and a return to tournament standard scoring conditions under a firmer golf course. I expect Thursday to be incredible scorable and the easiest of conditions before the golf course continues to firm up over the weekend. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all look to be windier than Thursday, so my advice this week would be to potentially hop on some under scoring props on Thursday, and then come back on the overs Friday, Saturday, and Sunday if there is an over-adjustment. I would plan for a total scoring average of -0.85, and -15 winning score. I am not playing any demonstrative tee time advantage over the first two days.

 

Core

 

Xander Schauffele, $10,400: It’s been a while since I’ve been back on the Xander Schauffele train. His return from injury has been slow and I have gladly taken a wait-and-see approach, but I have been thoroughly impressed by what I have seen the last two weeks. I included him in my Valspar pool and was rewarded with a top-12 finish, and I heavily considered a Masters play on him as well, but settled for an easy top-20. From what I have seen from Xander on approach over the last two weeks, we will hear from a lot over the upcoming weeks, and I fully expect him to re-announce himself as a top-five player in the world, potentially jumping players such as Morikawa and Ludvig on the odds board and DFS slate. You still have an opportunity to be early on that premonition at this price and ownership, as he is $600 cheaper than Ludvig and $500 cheaper than Morikawa while also being lower owned than Collin. Do I believe this is more of a Collin golf course than a Xander golf course? Of course, but the price and ownership gap between the two is an overreaction and I fully believe the opportunity is on Xander this week. At a macro level, the No. 1 narrative that we should be focused on this week is recent approach play, and Schauffele has gained a grand total of over 15 strokes on approach in his last eight competitive rounds of golf. While other aspects of his game (driving, chipping, putting) have been slow to come around and are not yet at peak Xander form, I am playing him this week because of the highly encouraging recent approach play, which remains the No. 1 correlated skill at Harbour Town.


Tommy Fleetwood, $9,400: Tommy Fleetwood was the last cut out of my Masters pool last week in exchange for Min Woo Lee, and while the decision to go with Min Woo/Conners over Fleetwood/Reed proved costly for me, the heart wants what the heart wants and I had significant FOMO on Fleetwood last week despite his non-descript, completely average 21st-place finish. The Englishman gained over a stroke in all three tee-to-green categories, and simply lost 4.7 strokes on the green. Between the Masters and Players, Fleetwood has now lost over nine strokes putting in his last two tournaments, while his ball-striking has remained top notch. I continue to believe that this is some of the best approach form of Tommy Fleetwood’s entire career, and he will be able to parlay this majestic ball-striking one into something special, maybe even a PGA Tour victory. I’m not sure that I can bet on this to happen, but at this price tag, a top-10 finish would play tremendously. Harbour Town is, after all, a phenomenal Tommy Fleetwood golf course, and given his subpar carry distance and elite ability on approach inside two hundred yards, I have always felt that Fleetwood’s first PGA Tour victory would come at a golf course like this. Under a steady price tag and palatable ownership, I am all in on the potential Fleetwood break-through, and this has always been the exact spot and context that I would expect it to happen in. Low expectations, not one of the tournament favorites, low ownership, justifiable price tag, not a popular bet outside of the sharp community, and a tremendous course fit. Tommy is the absolute stones this week, and don’t be surprised if he’s on your television screen late on Sunday afternoon.


Sungjae Im, $8,700: Sungjae Im is an interesting case, both last week and this week. Last week, I took a chance on him because he was essentially doing everything that I was looking last week outside of approach play. He was priced in the low seven thousand range because despite the fact that he was driving, chipping it, and putting it well, it’s very challenging to accumulate solid results on the PGA Tour without great approach play. I believed that at that price point, there were enough positives to lead me to believe he could overcome the approach struggles and break the slate. He proceeded to do just this and was a key cog in the winning millionaire lineup. Last week, he gained 1.4 strokes off the tee, lost 0.2 strokes on approach, gained 5.8 strokes around the green, and gained 2.7 strokes putting. The approach play largely improved for him, and he proved that if he could just get his irons to field average, he was doing everything else so well that he could play a major role in the outcome of this tournament. I fully believe that Sungjae’s approach play will continue to trend back positively, and he is now traveling to a golf course that he also boasts a phenomenal track record at. In six appearances at Harbour Town, Sungjae has recorded four top-25 finishes, with a 12th and a 7th in his last two starts. He always drives the ball great here and I fully trust his ability to navigate the claustrophobic driving areas, and he has also gained on approach in each of his last four appearances at the Pete Dye design. I believed last week that the positive course history could invoke the best out of Sungjae Im, and it resulted in maybe the best DraftKings play on the entire slate. I expect his approach play to continue to come around amid the familiar pines of Harbour Town, and just like Xander, we will be hearing a lot more from Sungjae in the upcoming weeks. We are still getting there early.


Si Woo Kim, $7,600: I always knew that Si Woo Kim would be one of my favorite plays on this DraftKings slate before pricing even came out, and his correlating low ownership compared to players such as Bud Cauley and Brian Harman makes him all the more enticing as a slam. Kim has already hit for the short, positional trifecta, with victories at TPC Sawgrass, Waialae, and Sedgefield, and he already boasts a runner-up at Harbour Town in 2018 as well. I was disappointed by his performance at the Valero (another golf course I thought would fit his game nicely), but I actually view the fact that he did not compete in the Masters last week as a positive. Many of the other players in this price range endured an emotionally grueling four days at Augusta, and all of the media attention and hoop-la that comes with it, while Si Woo was sitting on his couch looking in the mirror about the reasons why he was not invited to this year’s party. Si Woo is far too good of a player to miss any more future Masters, and it’s time for this man to get his fucking shit together. The fact that a four-time PGA Tour winner and former Players champion has not contended in a meaningful way on the PGA Tour in TWO years is beyond acceptable, and I fully believe that this is the perfect golf course for him to re-announce himself to golf fans as a short, positional merchant and one of the 35 to 50 best golfers in the world. Buy the dip, Si Woo is on his way back up.

 

Pool


  • Xander Schauffele, $10,400

  • Patrick Cantlay, $10,000

  • Russell Henley, $9,700

  • Tommy Fleetwood, $9,400

  • Jordan Spieth, $9,200

  • Sungjae Im, $8,700

  • Wyndham Clark, $8,400

  • Aaron Rai, $7,900

  • Keegan Bradley, $7,700

  • Si Woo Kim, $7,600

  • Davis Thompson, $7,400

  • Sahith Theegala, $7,300

  • Tony Finau, $7,100

  • Sam Burns, $7,000

  • Lucas Glover, $6,900

  • Billy Horschel, $6,800

  • Andrew Novak, $6,700

  • Eric Cole, $6,400

  • Ryo Hisatsune, $6,300

 

Betting Card

 

Outrights

  • Collin Morikawa (11/1) (0.695U) (win: 7.6) FD

  • Daniel Berger (65/1) (0.12U) (win: 7.8) DK

  • Wyndham Clark (71/1) (0.105U) (win: 7.5) BookMaker

  • Bud Cauley (92/1) (0.08U) (win: 7.4) BookMaker

 

Matchups (BetOnline) (1U each)

  • Patrick Cantlay (-125) over Justin Thomas

  • Sepp Straka (-125) over Robert McIntyre

  • Bud Cauley (-115) over Michael Kim

  • Si Woo Kim (-125) over Sam Burns

 

Top 10

  • Collin Morikawa (-105) (1U) DK

  • Corey Conners (+180) (1U) DK

  • Daniel Berger (+320) (0.5U) DK

 

OAD

Scottie Scheffler

 

2024-2025

Outrights: -22.45U

Matchups: +8.91U

Positionals: -8.495U

Total: -22.035U

 

2023-2024 (2023 Procore - 2024 Tour Championship)

Outrights: +30.4U

Matchups: +5.42U

Positionals: +28.54U

Total: +64.36U

ROI: 313.4U Risk, +64.36U won, 20.5% ROI

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