The RBC Heritage is going to be different in 2023.
It’s one of the PGA Tour’s designated events — seven of the world’s top 10 are set to tee it up Thursday — creating one of the best, if not the best, field Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, has ever seen.
But what makes it even more intriguing is that the golf course forces players to prioritize accuracy over brute distance.
It’s no secret that many residents of the Official World Golf Ranking’s top 20 are long-ball hitters and have dominated the designated events early this season.
Jon Rahm (Sentry Tournament of Champions, Genesis Invitational, Masters), Scottie Scheffler (WM Phoenix Open, Players Championship), Sam Burns (WGC-Dell Match Play) and Kurt Kitayama (Arnold Palmer Invitational) have conquered the loaded fields in 2023. What do they have in common?
All four players are ranked inside the top 35 in driving distance: Rahm (ninth), Burns (19th), Scheffler (20th) and Kitayama (35th).
RBC Heritage: Expert picks | Sleepers | Photos
But, according to defending champion Jordan Spieth, Harbour Town Golf Links could produce a more diverse leaderboard.
“I think on a course like this, it’s going to be more unique than any of the ones that we’ve experienced in any of the elevated events so far because you have a course where it doesn’t matter about length,” he said Tuesday after the ceremonial cannon shot. “You just have to golf your ball around. It’s an advantage if you hit it far and straight, but you’ve got to take risk on more than you do other places if you want to try and keep hitting driver.
“It could be just such a massively bunched leaderboard of such big names, it’s got the potential to be as exciting an event as we’ve seen this year.”
Defending champion @JordanSpieth kicks off @RBC_Heritage with a bang
pic.twitter.com/OI1CsgnsWm
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) April 11, 2023
Pete Dye’s design has crowned an assortment of winners over the years. Spieth, Stewart Cink, Webb Simpson, C.T. Pan, Satoshi Kodaira, Wesley Bryan, Branden Grace and Jim Furyk are among those who have donned the tartan jacket going back to 2015.
Tough to classify any of those guys as bombers.
On top of the required accuracy off the tee, most of the routing demands working the ball both ways.
“I’m sure there’s plenty of winners here who have only had to move it the other way once or twice, but yes, in order to get to all the pins and really position yourself the right way, it requires pretty much both ball flights,” said Spieth, one of the true artists on Tour when it comes to playing the required shot.
If you’re looking for an analogy for the 2023 RBC Heritage, think of it as putting 15-20 Lamborghinis on a Driver’s Ed practice track. Speed and horsepower are canceled out and all of a sudden those drivers are forced to parallel park, avoid cones and keep both hands on the wheel at all times.
If they don’t, they’ll fail.