Short King Spring
RBC Heritage | Stats, Trends & Things You Don't Need To Know
Harbour Town Golf Links
Par 71 - 7,121 Yards
Fairways Hit: 63.31% (29th hardest out of 51)
Greens in Regulation: 62.12% (19th hardest out of 51)
Par Breakers: 20.82% (20th hardest out of 51)
Scoring Average: 70.33 (26th hardest out of 51)
Short Hitters Unite!
The average driving distance at Harbour Town generally averages around 273.8 yards. That’s generally bottom five on TOUR in terms of distance and can indicate that shorter hitters are more likely to compete here than other places. Here are the best players at “short driving courses” (Pebble, Harbour Town, Innisbrook, Sherwood, PGA National) over the last four years:
Raise A Guinness…
… to Shane Lowry. This lad has been nothing short of brilliant. His last nine starts worldwide have resulted in (8) Top 25 finishes with (7) of those being Top 15s. Those 36 rounds played by Lowry have gained him 2.02 strokes per round, the highest mark of anyone on TOUR who is not names Scottie Scheffler.
And trust me, I know that the true nerds are saying “but Rick, four of those starts are on the DP World Tour, they don’t count!”. I know, I know. If you convert to Weighted Strokes Gained, he’s the 8th best player on TOUR during that stretch and the 5th best in this field.
The Only Bucket I Care About
Okay — I generally *hate* the weekly conversation about playing golfers who hit it well between X and Y yards. It’s a flawed metric most people emphasize too much. However … I care a little bit this week. When you have a course like Harbour Town that generally forces you to play to specific landing areas, this makes a lot more sense. And it makes a lot more sense when you realize that nearly twice as many shots are hit from 175-200 yards at Harbour Town than the TOUR average. Here are the best players in the field from 175-200 yards:
You’ll Miss Greens, But Who Cares
With the greens checking in at 3,700 sq. feet on average, there’s going to be a lot of golfers playing from green-side. However, the numbers reveal that the short-game areas around these greens are some of the easiest on TOUR. Most golfers should be able to get up-and-down on a regular basis. With that in mind, here are the best golfers over the last 36 rounds, who are losing strokes around-the-green:
Collin Morikawa +1.17 TOT, (-0.09) ARG
Maverick McNealy +1.15 TOT, (-0.24) ARG
Dustin Johnson +0.00 TOT, (-0.24) ARG
Cameron Young +0.83 TOT, (-0.03) ARG
Cameron Davis +0.76 TOT, (-0.28) ARG
Single Shot Sweat
How sick are you? Willing to make a wager on a single shot? Welcome, sickos. The guys over at PrizePicks have a “Hole 14 - GIR” wager. Essentially, will the golfer hit the green or not on the Par-3 14th hole. That’s it. One shot.
The 14th can play wildly different every day, anywhere from ~150 yards to 200+ yards and (as you can imagine) the green is easier to the hit the closer you are. Here’s last year’s numbers…
Round 1: 159 Yards | 77.61% GIR
Round 2: 186 Yards | 48.12% GIR
Round 3: 192 Yards | 43.08% GIR
Round 4: 197 Yards | 50.77% GIR
So — here’s what we do. Wait for the round where it played less than 170 yards and SMASH THE OVER! Use code “RICK”, make a deposit and be ready for the moment.
Play: https://bit.ly/3oxONZw
Update: I don’t know how official this is, but the media tracker is showing 140 Yards for R1. Oh momma.
Good Luck,
Rick