Welcome back to GolfStats Insider, your top source for expert tips and insights on the next PGA Tour event. This newsletter is free, but if you want more detailed golf stats, consider a GolfStats subscription. It offers detailed performance charts, easy-to-sort history, and special formulas to help you make the best choices. If you want to improve your fantasy league or betting strategy, now's a great time to upgrade!

If this newsletter was forwarded to you, we would really appreciate you subscribing by clicking the button below. Please forward to a friend if you are already a subscriber.

This week's field of 82 is loaded, with 71 players ranked in the top 100 of the Official World Rankings and 41 of the top 50, including eight top-ten players. Notable names include #1 Scottie Scheffler, #5 Tommy Fleetwood, #8 Collin Morikawa, #9 Xander Schauffele, and #17 Ludvig Aberg. The only top-ten players not in the field are #2 Rory McIlroy and #4 Justin Rose. Compared to last year, which featured 67 top-100 players and 43 of the top 50, this is one of the strongest Heritage fields in recent memory.

The field includes 21 of the top 25 in the FedEx Cup points standings for 2026. Those not playing this week are #7 Rory McIlroy, #12 Justin Rose, #16 Hideki Matsuyama, and #25 Adam Scott.

Past champions in the field are Justin Thomas (2025), Scottie Scheffler (2024), Matt Fitzpatrick (2023), and Jordan Spieth (2022).

If you’re serious about making the best picks this week, our GolfStats tools have you covered.

These tools are invaluable whether you’re betting, setting a DFS lineup, or simply looking for an edge in your fantasy league. Check out the full blog post for DK fantasy advice.

Before we dive into the Heritage, let's talk about what just happened at Augusta National, because the storylines from last week have a direct impact on this week's field.

Let's start with my prediction on players not to pick. Rory won, Scottie finished second, and Morikawa was T-7th. So how did that happen? There's a story from 45 years ago that explains it perfectly.

Back in the early '80s, standing at the paddock at Santa Anita racetrack, an old Irishman in a tweed jacket offered some wisdom that has stuck ever since. He said that unless you can talk to the horses, you can never really know how they feel. You can't tell if the horse slept well, enjoyed his oats, or just doesn't feel like racing today. That lesson applies perfectly to picking golfers. We have a wealth of stats and past performance data, but we never truly know what's going on inside a player's head or body.

Consider the information available heading into the Masters. Rory had withdrawn from the Arnold Palmer with a back twitch, struggled to a T-46th at the Players, then didn't play another event for three weeks before Augusta. That was the first time he'd taken three weeks off before a major. When he spoke with the media on Monday, he didn't seem particularly excited about his game.

Morikawa had played one hole at the Players Championship, took a few practice swings on his second hole, didn't feel right, and withdrew. He had planned to play Houston and Valero but pulled out of both. When he spoke with the media, they said they didn't really know what the problem was. He was visibly cautious with his swings, worried something bad would happen.

Then there was Scottie. After a dominant win at the American Express to open the year, he seemed to struggle with one bad round in every event. He'd open with a 73 at Phoenix and then play the next three rounds in 17-under. At Pebble Beach, a first-round 72 followed by 20-under over his final 54 holes. At the Genesis, a first-round 74 and 14-under the rest of the way. Then mediocre finishes at the Palmer and Players. We eventually found out that his second child was born on March 27, just nine days before the Masters. Scottie has always been very guarded about family, and he didn't say much at Augusta.

The betting market reflected all that uncertainty. DraftKings showed Scottie was chosen for only 25.6% of teams, well below his typical mid-to-high-30% range. Rory was at just 8.5%. And Morikawa? Only 1.5% of bettors took him. The market was just as cautious as we were.

But here's the thing. Morikawa started slowly with a 74, but found his game with birdies at eight and nine on Friday. He shot 69-68 over the middle rounds, then ran off five straight birdies between 12 and 16 on Sunday to finish T-7th. Scheffler eagled the second hole and birdied the third on Thursday, but then played his last 15 holes in one over. After a 74 on Friday that seemed to end his chances, he was 12 shots back. Then over the final 36 holes, Scottie played brilliantly: an eagle, nine birdies, and 26 pars with zero bogeys for a 133 weekend, just two shots off the Masters record of 131 set by Johnny Miller in 1975. He came within a shot of Rory and made the tournament very interesting.

The good news is that Scottie's game is close, but he still seems to have that one bad round that just about eliminates him from winning. He's playing this week at the Heritage, so we'll see if he can put four clean rounds together.

How Rory Got Ready

What we're finding out now is remarkable. In the three weeks between the Players and the Masters, Rory made eight trips to Augusta National. He'd drop off his daughter Poppy at school, fly on a private jet from Palm Beach the 550 miles to Augusta, play 18 holes and practice, then fly home in time for dinner. As he said after winning, Augusta felt like his home course since it was the only course he played for three straight weeks. Rumor has it that some of the British writers were saying he shot a 62 in one of those practice rounds.

Again, going back to the old Irishman's wisdom: our picks would have been completely different if we had gotten that information.

The Victory

Rory looked drastically different this year at Augusta. He didn't have the weight of trying to complete the Grand Slam for the first time. When Tiger won the 2005 British Open for his second Grand Slam, he talked about how much easier it was the second time around. The pressure was still there for Rory, but it wasn't as intense as last year.

Looking back, what Rory did last year was completely astonishing considering all the history he had to overcome. For him to block out all that noise and find a way to win, it was something special. You can count on one hand the major championship victories that truly stand out like that: Phil Mickelson winning the PGA Championship at 52, Dustin Johnson shaking the major jinx at the 2016 U.S. Open even with that strange ruling lingering over him at Oakmont, and Tiger's 2019 Masters comeback.

This year's win wasn't easy either. Rory didn't hit the ball great in the first three rounds but built a big lead on Thursday and Friday. Saturday caught up with him as he shot 73 and lost his entire six-shot lead. After the round, Rory and caddie Harry Diamond went to the practice range and hit 47 balls in the dark, trying to eliminate the draw and get back to cutting the ball. He was the last to leave the range, and it was pitch dark.

That session paid off on Sunday. Yes, he struggled early with a double at four and a bogey at six. But that would be his last bogey until eighteen, and in between he made birdies at seven, eight, twelve, and thirteen. With a two-shot lead going into eighteen, Rory hit a terrible tee shot. Anything could have happened, but he stayed calm, made a bogey, and won by a shot.

Looking ahead, Rory needs the U.S. Open and British Open to complete the second career Grand Slam. He'll play Doral and Quail Hollow before the PGA Championship at Aronimink. Quail Hollow is one of his favorite courses with four wins there. At Doral, he had two third-place finishes in eight WGC appearances. He played Aronimink in the 2018 BMW Championship and finished 5th. For the U.S. Open at Shinnecock, he missed the cut in 2018. And the British Open at Birkdale? He was T-4th in 2017. He'll be among the favorites at each, but he'll have to contend with Scottie, Morikawa, and Schauffele, who are all playing well. The next five months should be fascinating.

This is the 58th edition of the Heritage, now a signature event for the fourth consecutive year. The tournament is well-established thanks to an RBC sponsorship deal signed 11 years ago. It was a long haul with many anxious moments and rumors of its demise, but the event is now very healthy, with the purse jumping from $8 million to $20 million when it became a designated event in 2023.

Harbour Town Golf Links has been the tournament site every year since the inaugural Heritage Classic in 1969. That first event was actually played during Thanksgiving weekend. The tournament was originally planned as a small event on Hilton Head Island with a $45,000 purse, but Charles Price, the founding editor of Golf Magazine, suggested applying for full PGA Tour sanctioning instead. They scrambled to raise the purse to $100,000 and secured a Thanksgiving weekend date. Jack Nicklaus, who had helped Pete Dye design the course, played and brought along Arnold Palmer, who went on to win the first Heritage Classic. Palmer's win put the tournament on the map and helped create a championship tradition that has lasted over 55 years.

The Heritage was played over Thanksgiving weekend for its first four years before moving to September in 1974 and then to March the following year. Between 1983 and 2019, it was played the week after the Masters (except in 2012, when it was two weeks after). COVID pushed the 2020 edition to June, but it returned to its post-Masters spot after that. In 1989, the Tour Championship was also held at Hilton Head.

Harbour Town Golf Links sits at Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The par-71 layout stretches 7,243 yards, with a course rating of 75.6 and a slope rating of 147. The tees, fairways, and rough are Celebration Bermuda Grass, while the greens are Poa Annua. Last year, Harbour Town was the 35th hardest course on the PGA Tour, with an average score of 69.35.

Pete Dye designed and built the course in 1969, with Jack Nicklaus getting his start in golf course architecture by assisting Dye. The average green size at Harbour Town is just 4,500 square feet, making them some of the smallest on the PGA Tour. The course features 145 bunkers, and water comes into play on nine of the 18 holes.

The course has changed relatively little over the years. In 2011, seven new teeing grounds were added, pushing the yardage past the 7,000-yard mark to 7,099. Some bunkers were repositioned to be more in play, the area around the second green was reworked, and some trees that created sightline issues were removed. In the summer of 2015, every blade of grass on the entire layout was replaced, along with a full irrigation system upgrade. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew hit Hilton Head, but there was no long-term damage beyond debris and tree loss, though players still notice fewer trees on holes near the bay like 16, 17, and 18.

After last year's tournament, the course had a significant refresher. Under David Love III's design team, all the greens, bunkers, and bulkheads were rebuilt, keeping Pete Dye's original design intact from over 55 years ago.

The weather forecast is looking great after four days of perfect weather at the Masters. Expect sunny skies all four days with temperatures in the mid-70s and winds under 11 mph.

Harbour Town is one of the best courses in America, and it's a completely different test from what we saw at Augusta. Ball placement is far more important than power here. Hitting it hard and far doesn't work at this venue, so look for a precision player to win.

Greens in Regulation: What makes Harbour Town so challenging is the greens. At 4,500 square feet, they are some of the smallest on the PGA Tour. Over the last 19 years, they have been extremely difficult to hit. Of all the tournaments on Tour, the U.S. Open is the only event where the greens are harder to hit than at Hilton Head.

Scrambling: With greens that small, scrambling is absolutely essential to winning at Harbour Town. Last year's winner Justin Thomas and 2024 winner Scottie Scheffler were both first in scrambling for the week. Matt Fitzpatrick ranked T-4th in 2023, Jordan Spieth was 6th in 2022, and Stewart Cink was T-4th in 2021. The list goes on and on. Jim Furyk set the championship record in 2015, getting up and down on 21 of the 22 greens he missed. If you can't get up and down at Harbour Town, you can't compete.

Putting: Over the years, putting and hitting greens have been vital to winning at Harbour Town. If you look at the list of Heritage champions, all of them are good putters, especially from the ten-to-twenty-foot range. With all the wedge opportunities the course creates, converting those mid-range birdie putts is the difference between contending and going home early.

Dramatic Finishes: Heritage always seems to deliver drama. In the last 27 editions, eleven have gone to a playoff, seven have been decided by a single shot, and the rest were settled by two, four, or five shots. Last year, Justin Thomas beat Andrew Novak in a playoff. In 2024, Scottie Scheffler won by three. In 2023, Fitzpatrick beat Spieth in a playoff, and in 2022, Spieth beat Patrick Cantlay in a playoff. Expect another tight finish this week.

For a deeper look at the key fantasy stats for this week's field, be sure to check out our Composite Rankings, which combine multiple performance metrics to give you one easy-to-read number for each player in the field. It's one of the most powerful tools we offer for narrowing down your picks.