Pat Mayo’s 2026 RBC Heritage Picks, Rankings, Course Preview | Fantasy Golf Picks | Betsperts Golf

2026 RBC Heritage Picks

Pat Mayo and Geoff Fienberg preview the course and run through the odds while making their 2026 RBC Heritage Picks, Bets, and one-and-done selections. We’re diving deep into key stats, course fit, sleepers, fades, and model insights to help you attack RBC Heritage week from every angle. Plus, a full Masters Recap.

WATCH: RBC Heritage Picks, Bets, One and Done | 2026 Masters Recap and Storylines

2026 RBC Heritage FIELD

• Field: 82 Players
• Cut: NO CUT
• First Tee Time: Thursday, April 16
• Defending Champion: Justin Thomas

Basically, the same field as every Signature Event, except the winners of all the 2025 PGA events are in the field. Since The Sentry was cancelled in January, that status was shifted to the 2026 RBC Heritage.

Rory McIlroy isn’t playing after winning The Masters. In fact, he wasn’t planning to play regardless of the result at Augusta. Justin Rose has withdrawn as well.

SUB TO FREE PME NEWSLETTER TO GET ALL ARTICLES AND CHEATSHEETS EARLY + EXTRA INFO & BREAKING NEWS

2026 RBC Heritage KEY STATS

• Strokes Gained: Approach
• Good Drives Gained
• Strokes Gained Short Game

Mayo’s Key Stat Rankings Powered by the Rabbit Hole at Betsperts Golf

2026 RBC Heritage COURSE

• Harbour Town GL
• Par: 71
• Yardage: 7,213
• Greens: Poa trivialis overseed
• Average Green Size: 3,700 sq. ft.
• Number of Sand Bunkers: 54
• Number of Holes Water is in Play: 18

Par 3’s (4): Average distance – 199 yards

• 2 of the 5 toughest holes are Par 3’s, and all four 3’s have a higher bogey than birdie rate
• Thomas: Went Par-Par-Par-Par on the 3’s on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

Par 4’s (11): Average distance – 422 yards

• The Hole 8-9 swing are both Par 4’s … #8 has the lowest birdie rate on property (9.5%) and #9 has the highest birdie rate among the 4’s (28.3%)
• Thomas: 5 bogeys for the week … 3 came on 10-11 (both are Par 4’s)

Par 5’s (3): Average distance – 569 yards

• 3 of the 4 easiest holes with the two on the front having a +2% eagle rate
• Thomas: Birdied #5 every day and got #15 in three of four days (bogey on Saturday)

DFS Streak

Holes 8, 11, and 18 are tough Par 4’s that rank among the six toughest holes on the course (all holding a sub-13% birdie rate), making a streak bridging either nine a tough sell. If I absolutely had to pick, I’d go back-to-front — holes 16-17-1-2 are all gettable, making #18 the only crazy obstacle while those going in the other direction have two trouble holes.

2026 RBC Heritage PAST WINNERS

• 2025: Justin Thomas -17
• 2024: Scottie Scheffler -19
• 2023: Matt Fitzpatrick -17
• 2022: Jordan Spieth -13
• 2021: Stewart Cink -19
• 2020: Webb Simpson -22
• 2019: CT Pan -12
• 2018: Satoshi Kodaira -12
• 2017: Wes Bryan -13
• 2016: Branden Grace -9

PAST WINNER NOTES

2025: Justin Thomas (+2000, T-6th on odds board), playoff win over Andrew Novak

• 7 better than Novak in Round 1 (gave it all back over the next two rounds)
• 9 of the top 11 ARG golfers cashed top 20 paychecks for the week

2024: Scottie Scheffler (+500, heavy favorite), three clear of Sahith Theegala

• 14 of the top 17 finishers gained strokes from the sand for the week
• The top 5 approach golfers of the week finished … 1-2-3-12-18 (Sungjae was the best putter for the week and finished T-11 despite losing ground in APP and P)

2023: Matt Fitzpatrick (+3000), playoff win over Jordan Spieth

• Inconsistent (66-70-63-68), top 10 for the week in both APP and ARG
• The top 2 finishers lost putting from 25+ and 4 of the top 6 lost from 20-25 feet

2022: Jordan Spieth (+5000), playoff win over Patrick Cantlay

• 4 behind Cantlay entering the weekend (66 on Sunday, his best round of the week)
• The top-11 finishers all gained strokes from the sand for the week

2021: Stewart Cink (+10000), four clear of Emiliano Grillo and Harold Varner III

• 5 better than Grillo on Thursday (1 behind him the rest of the week)
• 11 of the top 12 finishers gained Prox 125-150

FIRST ROUND LEADERS

2025

61 – Justin Thomas (AM), three clear of Scheffler/Henley

2024

63 – JT Poston (AM), two clear of the field

2023

63 – Aaron Rai (PM)

64 – Viktor Hovland (AM)

2022

63 – Cam Young (AM, first group), two clear of the field

2026 RBC Heritage Notes

Harbour Town is one of the few courses on the PGA TOUR where driving means relatively little. That’s not to say you can be terrible off the tee and win, but looking at the Strokes Gained history from this event, SG: Off The Tee means less than SG: Around the Green among top-10 finishers. That’s a rarity.

Over the past six years, Strokes Gained: Approach has been almost three times more impactful than Strokes Gained: Off The Tee and Strokes Gained: Around-The-Green among the top-5 finishers at The RBC Heritage.

Like most Pete Dye courses, overall course strategy from tee to green needs to be on display more so than an average tournament. Hitting fairways is great and all, but a lot of these holes are structured in a way where being in the right rough generates a better birdie opportunity than being situated in the left section of the fairway. With its tiny greens, the field only hits greens at a 58% rate, making it one of the lowest average GIR rates of any course, so taking advantage of the proper angle will be imperative to scoring. Focusing on approach and putting is the path this week. Which makes the leaderboard accessible to all skill sets.

Pete Dye Courses on the PGA TOUR

• TPC Sawgrass (The Players Championship)
• Harbour Town (RBC Heritage)
• TPC River Highlands (Travelers Championship)
• TPC Louisiana (Zurich Classic)
• Austin Country Club (WGC Match Play)
• TPC Stadium Course at La Quinta (Two rounds at The American Express)
• Crooked Stick (2012/2016 BMW Championship)
• Whistling Straits (2015, 2010, 2005 PGA Championship)
• Kiawah Island (2012 PGA Championship)

Along with other Dye tracks, nearby Sea Island Resort (RSM Classic) and The Wyndham Championship are the courses with the most crossover success.

Harbour Town features tree-lined fairways and measures on the short side of PGA TOUR courses, coming in at around 7,100 yards. Even with three Par 5s, eagles are tough to come by for the field, regardless of distance. Hole 2 has a 2.7% eagle rate and Hole 5 is at 1.9%. It also sports the second smallest greens of any course on TOUR.

2026 Smallest Avg. Greens by sq. ft. Played

• 3,500 – Pebble Beach (AT&T PB Pro-Am)
• 3,700 – Harbour Town (RBC Heritage)
• 4,300 – TPC Southwind (FedEx St. Jude)
• 5,000 – TPC River Highlands (Travelers)
• 5,000 – PGA West Stadium (American Express)
• 5,000 – Muirfield Village (Memorial)
• 5,000 – Colonial (Charles Schwab)

Harbour Town annually ranks as the course with some of the fewest drives over 300 yards and shortest average driving distance on the PGA TOUR; just 280 yards off the tee compared to the PGA TOUR average of 292 yards. For example, on the Par 4s at Harbour Town in his career, Dustin Johnson averaged around 286 yards per drive. That is well below his average driving distance at almost any other course, you know, when he was allowed to compete on the PGA TOUR. Only 25% of drives are over 300 yards at The Heritage.

Players go for the green on Par 5s just over 50% of the time and hit the green less than 10% of the time going for it. Fortunately, Harbour Town has the easiest greenside bunkers on TOUR, with a 67% sand save rate. Just a notch higher than TPC Southwind (66.95).

After years of Harbour Town being THEE spot for big Sunday comebacks (Eight of ten champions have entered Sunday with at least a two-stroke deficit). Four of the past six winners entered the final round leading or with the co-lead. Only Thomas and Spieth were comeback winners although Thomas was only a stroke behind Si Woo a year ago entering Sunday.

Three of the past four, and seven of the past 15 years, the RBC Heritage has gone to a playoff.

The difficulty of the course usually depends on the elements. On Hilton Head Island, while there is usually a consistent, coastal breeze, certain rounds at Harbour Town can be played in full-on gale-force winds. One of the reasons Simpson was able to break the tournament record in 2020 was due to an unusual lack of wind all four days. Of the past 20 rounds at The Heritage, more rounds have been played in winds greater than 17 mph than under 10 mph. If the wind gets down it’s a pure birdiefest. Although there’s plenty of scoring, 12 of the 18 holes play over par annually.

2026 RBC Heritage Picks

Jordan Spieth — It’s been almost four years to the day since his last win. Which was here in 2022. But it’s been almost as long since he’s been playing so well so such an extended amount of time. While the results haven’t materialized at the very top end, over the past two months, Spieth’s ball striking is near the tops on TOUR while his chipping is crawling back to Magic Beans level. This sort of T2G run hasn’t been seen from Spieth since 2023 when it culminated with a T2 at Harbour Town.

Brian Harman — Harman was +10 after four holes during the second round at The Masters. He then reeled off four birdies in a row and snuck himself into the weekend where he ended up finishing Even par. He did it with the old Harman formula of Iron + Chipping + Putting. A strategy which will work better at Heritage since it’s a difficult course for the bombers to overpower.