2023 Course Breakdown: Everything You Need to Know About Harbour Town
The Basics
- Course: Harbour Town Golf Links
- Location: Hilton Head, South Carolina
- Designer: Pete Dye (1969) in consultation with Jack Nicklaus
- Length: Par 71; 7,121 yards
- Hazards: A water hazard can be found on all 18 holes, but most of the time they do not come into play
- Fairways: Celebration Bermuda-grass over-seeded with Perennial Rye-grass, measuring 29 yards wide on average, some of the most narrow on the PGA Tour
- Rough: Celebration Bermuda-grass over-seeded Perennial Rye-grass 0’75” inches
- Greens: Bermuda-grass overseeded with Poa Trivialis, measuring 3,700 square feet on average
The RBC Heritage has been an annual event on the PGA Tour since 1969, and outside of 2011 and 2020 (COVID), it is traditionally played the week after the Masters. The host venue has been the Pete Dye-designed Harbour Town in Hilton Head, South Carolina for the entirety of the tournament, and the course has become a staple of the PGA Tour and is regarded by many players as one of their favorite courses. Here’s how the tournament has played out over the last decade.
Former Winners
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- 2022: Jordan Spieth (-13) over Patrick Cantlay (-13) (Playoff)
- 2021: Stewart Cink (-19) over Emiliano Grillo, Harold Varner III (-15)
- 2020: Webb Simpson (-22) over Abraham Ancer (-21)
- 2019: C.T. Pan (-12) over Matt Kuchar (-11)
- 2018: Satoshi Kodaira (-12) over Si Woo Kim (-12) (Playoff)
- 2017: Wesley Bryan (-13) over Luke Donald (-12)
- 2016: Branden Grace (-9) over Luke Donald, Russell Knox (-7)
- 2015: Jim Furyk (-18) over Kevin Kisner (-18) (Playoff)
- 2014: Matt Kuchar (-11) over Lukę Donald (-10)
- 2013: Graeme McDowell (-9) over Webb Simpson (-9) (Playoff)
- 2012: Carl Pettersson (-14) over Zach Johnson (-9)
I think it’s safe to throw out the 2020 event, as that was the second tournament coming back from the COVID layoff, and it was held in June so the greens were not over-seeded and it was really wet, which explains the easy scoring conditions. Outside of that year, the winning score has generally ranged from 9 to 19 under par, and how easy or hard the course plays really just comes down to turf conditions. The last couple of years, scoring conditions have been trending on the easier end, although last year played fairly challenging.
The cool thing about a tournament like the Heritage is that every single player in the field can compete, and since this event has been granted elevated status, we will be blessed with an incredible field this year. As previously mentioned, this tournament is almost always played the week after The Masters, and 13 of the last 16 champions have played the week before in the Masters. Wesley Bryan, C.T. Pan, and Carl Pettersson were the lone exceptions in the last decade. Of course, those who have played the Masters are usually the best players in the field, but it’s worth noting that even surprise winners such as Stewart Cink, Satoshi Kodaira, Branden Grace, and Graeme McDowell all played in the Masters the prior week.
In terms of the actual golf course, and why I mention the fact that every single player in the field can compete here, is because Harbour Town is the ultimate short, positional, golf course. The Pete Dye design is narrow, all about angles, and a course that often takes driver out of a player’s hand and completely mitigates distance, a far cry from what we saw last week at Augusta National. The golf course is all about positioning oneself off the tee and setting up the right angle to approach these greens. I always run my model a bit differently for the Heritage, as I am more concerned with identifying players who have really good on history on this specific style of golf course. Harbour Town of course exemplifies a certain style of golf course on the PGA Tour. I’m talking about tracks such as Waialae, Colonial, Sedgefield, Sea Island, etc. and Harbour Town is easily the most exaggerated version of this. These are all less-than-driver golf courses, with small, often Bermuda-grass greens, that are all about positioning off the tee and wedge play. It is no surprise that the same guys pop up at these events over and over again. This is one of the few weeks of the year that Kevin Kisner can feel as if he has just as good of a chance to compete as Jon Rahm, and I really do believe that the Kisners of the world are licking their chops this week. For this reason, I always go fairly heavy on course history and corollary course history because I know that there are a certain sub-set of player whose stats are never going to look as good because they are forced to play too many long courses that do not really fit their game. I spent a lot of time looking at these corollary courses and what players always seem to play well on these less than driver courses. Here are a few quotes that illustrate the point I’m making.
- Jason Day: “This course shows that you don’t really need length to make a golf course difficult. For me personally, there’s a lot of irons, long irons off the tee and a lot of three and five woods. There’s only maybe four or five drivers out there.”
- Wesley Bryan: “You have to work the ball both ways off the tee. You have to work the ball both ways going into the green. And it’s just one of the only courses on Tour where you’ll see that you have to play every single shot in your bag.”
- Branden Grace: “I like this place. It’s completely different. It’s short and fiddly. It doesn’t matter if you miss a couple of fairways, a couple of greens, you can get your way around it.”
- Matt Kuchar: “It’s so unique, with the tree-lined fairways, with the ability to basically recall and remember every hole. You have to play chess around this golf course and position yourself off the tee. If you are offline it’s not that your ball is necessarily in a hazard, you have a recovery shot, but you will have to be creative. The greens are basically on the same level of the fairway. They’re not perched up with bunkers everywhere. You can actually run them up on the greens. They’re small greens.”
- Jim Furyk: “I think it’s all about working the golf ball. There’s a lot of strategy involved. But you have to be able to control the golf ball. You have to hit high shots, low shots, curve it to the right, left to right. It’s about hitting the proper side of the fairway, and that may depend day to day with the pin placements.”
So there you go, it’s just a different style of golf this week. Let’s run through the stats!
Stats
- Off the Tee
- 14.1% of strokes gained at Harbour Town have come off the tee, which is a bit below the Tour average of 15.2%.
- Last year, Harbour Town ranked fourth out of 38 courses in strokes gained off the tee, and every single year, this course ranks inside the top five in strokes gained off the tee difficulty.
- I’ve already alluded to how Harbour Town is a course that takes driver out of a player’s hands, and driving distance here is 267.8 historically compared to the Tour average of 283 yards. That is comically low, proving that most players aren’t hitting a ton of drivers here. Harbour Town features the fourth-lowest driving distance last year, and every single season it has ranked inside the top five in lowest driving distance.
- Driving accuracy percentage is just slightly higher than Tour average because despite these fairways being narrow to hit, most players are not hitting a lot of drivers on this course, and you can’t overpower this course either, so a player isn’t gaining any advantage off the tee by being long here.
- Last year, the Dye design ranked 35th out of 38 courses in missed fairway penalty, so there is not a massive disadvantage to missing the fairway, and Harbour Town also ranked 38th out of 38 courses in rough penalty, which is essentially non-existent. It ranked 30th out of 38 courses in non-rough penalty. The key piece about Harbour Town is that it’s not necessarily about being in the fairway. This course ranked nearly dead last in average difference of score between fairway drives and non-fairway drives, and that’s because the rough is not an issue whatsoever here. Often because of the overhanging tree limbs, it’s really all just about being on the correct side of the hole to give yourself the best angle in. There are going to be times when a player is in the rough, and they have a much easier angle approaching the green than if they were in the fairway on the wrong side of the hole.
- This is from Webb Simpson: “I think you’ve really got to shape it off the tee. Any hole could be two or three clubs off the tee. I love small greens. I love small targets. Paul said that I’m the worst driver of the ball with a really open fairway and one of the best with a really tight fairway.”
- I personally think that it’s useless to look at regular off-the-tee stats this week. I’m far more concerned with looking at how players perform off the tee on less than driver courses. How accurate a player is with a driver at Harbour Town doesn’t really matter because many players can and will leave driver in the bag. It’s all just about positioning, so the two stats that I am going to be looking at this week are good drive percentage and strokes gained off the tee on less-than-driver courses.
- The best players off the tee on less-than-driver courses are Sungjae Im, Corey Conners, Keith Mitchell, Cameron Davis, Hayden Buckley, Cameron Young, Emiliano Grillo, Luke List, Scottie Scheffler, and Tyler Duncan.
- The best players in good drive percentage on less-than-driver courses are Corey Conners, Justin Suh, Adam Hadwin, Chez Reavie, Aaron Rai, Russell Henley, Viktor Hovland, Martin Laird, J.J. Spaun, and Hayden Buckley.
- Approach
- 38.4% of strokes gained at Harbour Town have come on approach, which is well above the Tour average of 34.7%. Historically, that number dips to the 35% range, which is still above Tour average
- Last year, Harbour Town ranked 9th out of 38 courses in strokes gained approach difficulty, and it generally ranks harder than Tour average in strokes gained approach difficulty
- Harbour Town featured the 9th toughest greens to hit on the PGA Tour last year, and each year, it ranks tougher than Tour average in greens in regulation percentage
- Interestingly enough, Harbour Town ranks 25th out of 38 courses in strokes gained approach difficulty under 150 yards, but fourth out of 38 courses in strokes gained approach difficulty over 150 yards.
- Harbour Town is definitively a short- to middle-iron course. 17.0% of approach shots last year came from 125 to 150 yards, which is above average. 18.7% of approach shots came from 150 to 175 yards, which is right around Tour average, and a whopping 26.2% of approach shots came from 175 to 200 yards, which is well above Tour average. So the proximity buckets that you really want to focus on is that range of 125 to 200 yards, and more specifically 175-200 yards.
- The best short- to middle-iron players in this field are Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler, Tom Kim, Justin Thomas, Russell Henley, Viktor Hovland, Tom Hoge, Mark Hubbard, Ryan Moore, and Rickie Fowler.
- The best players in that key range of 175-200 yards are Si Woo Kim, Tony Finau, Chez Reavie, Tom Hoge, Kurt Kitayama, Jon Rahm, Satoshi Kodaira, Taylor Pendrith, Rory McIlroy, and Nate Lashley.
- Around the Green
- 18.3% of strokes gained at Harbour Town have come around the green, which is well above the Tour average of 14.5%. Historically, that number dips to 14.8%, which is far closer to Tour average.
- On any course with a low greens-in-regulation percentage, players are going to have to rely on their short games often. With that being said, the actual degree of difficulty of the shots that you will face around the green at Harbour Town are not very difficult.
- Last year, Harbour Town ranked 37th out of 38 courses in strokes gained around the green difficulty, and every single one of the last eight years, it has ranked inside the top six in easiest around the green difficulty.
- The Pete Dye design ranked 36th out of 38 courses in strokes gained around the green difficulty from the fairway, 37th out of 38 courses in strokes gained around the green difficulty from the rough, and 22nd out of 38 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers.
- I will still look at around-the-green play on this course because the small greens and low greens-in-regulation percentage produces such a great deal of volume, but Harbour Town remains one of the easiest courses to chip at on the PGA Tour
- Putting
- 29.2% of strokes gained last year came via the flat-stick, which is well below the Tour average of 35.6%. Historically that number rises to 34.2%, which is still below the Tour average.
- Last year, Harbour Town ranked 6th out of 38 courses in putting difficulty, and most of the time, it does rank harder than Tour average, but it is usually closer to Tour average in putting difficulty.
- Last year, Harbour Town ranked 8th out of 38 courses in putting difficulty inside five feet, 7th out of 38 courses in putting from 5 to 15 feet, and 6th out of 38 courses in putting greater than 14 feet. This is generally harder than Harbour Town usually ranks in putting. Most years, the course ranks right around Tour average in putting difficulty from different distances.
- Harbour Town features the same form of over-seeded Bermuda that we have grown accustomed to over the last couple of weeks at Austin Country Club, Innisbrook, and TPC Sawgrass, amongst others. The best players in the field on this surface have been Ben Taylor, Tyrrell Hatton, Brian Gay, Sam Burns, Taylor Montgomery, Sam Ryder, Maverick McNealy, Andrew Putnam, Justin Rose, and Alex Noren.
- Scoring Stats
- The only two scoring stats I am looking at this week is how players have performed on short course and opportunities gained, as Harbour Town is still a course that will present players with their fair share of scoring clubs. There’s only three par fives on this course, it’s not a pure birdie fest, but more of a technical golf course that players have to work their way around. I did find a large correlation in bogeys avoided, but I still do not find that to be necessarily predictive. Despite a heavy weight on comp courses, I still want to give added credence to identifying the players that raise their baseline on these shorter, more technical style of courses. The best players in this field on shorter courses have been Patrick Cantlay, Seamus Power, Viktor Hovland, Russell Henley, Corey Conners, Sungjae Im, Tony Finau, Keith Mitchell, Xander Schauffele, and Maverick McNealy.
- The players who generate the most birdie looks for themselves inside 15 feet per round have been Tom Hoge, Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay, Scottie Scheffler, Si Woo Kim, Kurt Kitayama, Davis Riley, Tony Finau, Cameron Davis, and Xander Schauffele.
- Comp Courses/Course History
- Outside of Augusta National, Bay Hill, TPC Scottsdale, and Waialae, Harbour Town has some of the most predictive course history out of any course on the PGA Tour. There is certainly a lot of nuance in the strategy involved at Harbour Town in terms of what clubs to hit off the tee and what angles offer the best approach shots into the green. The best players in this field at Harbour Town have been Patrick Cantlay, Webb Simpson, Matt Kuchar, J.T. Poston, Shane Lowry, Jordan Spieth, Cameron Davis, Jason Day, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Alex Noren.
- In terms of comp courses, there are definitely a few that I wanted to specifically highlight. Austin Country Club comes to mind as another short, positional Pete Dye course with similar agronomy. We don’t have a ton of data from the Match Play, but I do think it’s worth keeping in the back of your mind.
- Innisbrook is another good one in terms of its tree-lined nature, Carolina style, similar agronomy, and the fact that it is not super difficult around the greens. Innisbrook plays a bit longer than Harbour Town, and players are going to have to hit some more long irons, but that’s probably the biggest difference. 9 of the last 13 winners at Harbour Town have also finished top-10 at Innisbrook! The best players in this field at Innisbrook have been Sam Burns, Tommy Fleetwood, Davis Riley, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Matthew NeSmith, Jim Furyk, Patrick Cantlay, Matt Kuchar, and Justin Rose.
- Waialae is another short, positional course with a ton of crossover on the leaderboard where the same types of players (Kisner, Henley, Webb, Kuchar) seem to pop every year. The best players in this field at Waialae have been Matt Kuchar, Justin Thomas, Corey Conners, Justin Rose, Kevin Kisner, Webb Simpson, Hayden Buckley, Stewart Cink, Si Woo Kim, and Collin Morikawa.
- Sea Island is certainly another good one, particularly the Seaside course. It’s also a Carolina-style course, is short, positional, can get some wind, and the same types of players always seem to rise to the occasion at this event as well. The best players in this field at Sea Island have been Webb Simpson, Jim Furyk, Kevin Kisner, Corey Conners, Zach Johnson, Russell Henley, Mackenzie Hughes, Brian Harman, Matthew NeSmith, and Billy Horschel.
- Colonial is another really comparable, short, positional golf course. There’s different agronomy at the Charles Schwab Invitational host, but that’s okay. There’s still a ton of crossover across leaderboards. The best players in this field at Colonial have been Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau, Matt Kuchar, Harris English, Brian Harman, Collin Morikawa, Corey Conners, Kevin Kisner, Justin Rose, and Jon Rahm.
- TPC Sawgrass as well is an interesting one, as on paper it should almost have the most in common with Harbour Town. It’s a shorter, positional, Pete Dye course with the same agronomy. The issue is that water is so incredibly prevalent at Sawgrass, which adds a ton of variance, but there’s definitely some similarities in terms of the sight lines off the tee and how those are affected by over-hanging tree limbs. Chances are if a player likes the set-up at TPC Sawgrass, they are also going to be comfortable at Harbour Town. The best players in this field at TPC Sawgrass have been Tommy Fleetwood, Si Woo Kim, Justin Thomas, Viktor Hovland, Jim Furyk, Scottie Scheffler, Jason Day, Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott, and Max Homa.
Model
- Off the Tee (14%)
- Strokes Gained Off the Tee: Short Courses (7%)
- Good Drive Percentage: Short Courses (7%)
- Approach (32%)
- Strokes Gained Approach (15%)
- Proximity 125-150 yards (5%)
- Proximity 150-175 yards (5%)
- Proximity 175-200 yards (7%)
- Around the Green (7%)
- Strokes Gained Around the Green (7%)
- Putting (12%)
- Strokes Gained Putting: Over-seeded Bermuda (12%)
- Scoring Stats (12%)
- Strokes Gained Total: Short Courses (6%)
- Opportunities Gained (6%)
- Comp Courses/Course History (23%)
- Harbour Town (8%)
- Sea Island (3%)
- Colonial (3%)
- Waialae (3%)
- TPC Sawgrass (3%)
- Innisbrook (3%)
Top 20
- Scottie Scheffler
- Tony Finau
- Jon Rahm
- Justin Rose
- Viktor Hovland
- Rory McIlroy
- Tom Hoge
- Max Homa
- Collin Morikawa
- Sungjae Im
- Corey Conners
- Shane Lowry
- Xander Schauffele
- Tommy Fleetwood
- Si Woo Kim
- Russell Henley
- Justin Thomas
- Tom Kim
- Patrick Cantlay
- Tyrrell Hatton
Best of luck this week – AL
