Opinion & Analysis
The best bets to win the 2023 RBC Heritage

From the wide fairways and large, almost impossible greens of Augusta to the flatter, narrower Harbour Town course, its tree-lined fairways and smaller greens giving a huge push towards players that suit accurate iron shots over brute force, with a nod to those that can scramble should they be unfortunate enough to miss the short stuff.
Hardly an event that is ‘after the Lord Mayor’s show’, with this new ‘designated’ event tempting all the qualified players in the world’s top 50, including the new Masters champion Jon Rahm.
Whether these all turn up after a gruelling final day at Augusta must be in doubt but, for now, we play the hand we have.
In terms of Masters form translating to Harbour Town, the top-30 from last year’s RBC Heritage contained Shane Lowry (tied-3rd the week before), Collin Morikawa (5th), Corey Conners (T6), Sungjae Im (T8), Tommy Fleetwood (T14) and Harold Varner III (T23). However, eventual winner Jordan Spieth had missed the cut by two shots, that missed weekend being a factor he shared with both Webb Simpson (2020) and C.T Pan (2019) both winners in admittedly calmer waters.
Best bet – Sungjae Im
Despite admirable consistency at the highest level, the 25-year-old has won just two events on tour, the most recent being the Shriners, in October 2021 and it’s about time the world number 17 got his head in front again.
Given he wasn’t really involved in the finish last weekend, his third top-16 from four Augusta outings looks a perfect prelude to an event that sees the top three in the betting sharing three previous outings, the best of which being Rahm’s 33rd here on his only start in 2020. As I write, Rory McIlroy has just withdrawn and it wouldn’t surprise should both Rahm and Scottie Scheffler do the same.
The regularity of Sungjae’s play is certainly leaning towards something special very soon, with his ten completed starts in 2023 rewarding him with three top-10 finishes, at Torrey Pines, Scottsdale and Sawgrass.
Look closer and the Korean was in challenging positions going into the final day in five of those 10, being seventh at the Tournament of Champions, ninth at the American Express, fourth at the Farmers, sixth at Phoenix and eighth at Sawgrass, whilst he was in 15th after three rounds last weekend.
Top-25 for accuracy off the tee in seven events this year (including his last five) he is also finding enough greens to think he can put it down to the best of his rivals this week.
Although he missed the cut here on his first two outings, 2021 saw him finish 13th after being top-20 in tee, approaches and tee-to-green (28th putting) and a year later he finished just outside the top-20, mainly due to losing four strokes on the putting surface, a factor that didn’t reward similar tee-to-green numbers (led off-the-tee based on accuracy).
A player with excellent Pete Dye form – a worst of 18th from four outings at the American Express, and 6th and 17th at The Players’ – he also boasts a fourth and 29th (sixth at halfway) at the comparable Valspar at Innisbrook, an event that Spieth has also won while, amongst others, Simpson, Stewart Cink and Luke Donald share top finishes.
Next best – Shane Lowry
In a similar vein to Sungjae, Shane Lowry has produced long-term form that deserves more than a single PGA Tour victory at the Bridgestone Invitational in 2015.
Of course, the Irishman was born and bred to play golf in poor conditions, so if there is any hangover from the weather at nearby Augusta the winner of the Irish Open, Portugal Masters, Abu Dhabi Championship and The Open at Royal Portrush should be well suited to take advantage.
The 36-year-old isn’t entirely weather-biased and last week’s tied-16th was his fourth consecutive top-25 finish at Augusta, a feature of his play here just seven days later.
Lowry missed the cut at the Masters in 2019 before finishing third here a week later, improved from 21st at Augusta to finish in the top-10 in 2021, and then matched a Masters third place with the same here last season.
Take Lockdown year away and Lowry has made a total of four cuts from four starts here, improving on his debut 44th (fifth after the first round) to finish third, ninth and third, shooting rounds of 65 and 66 in each of his last two tries.
In each of his last two years, the world number 23 has recorded top-10 ranks in approaches and tee-to-green, whilst in three of his four completed events he has inside the top-20 for the flat stick .
Those likeable stats have continued into 2023 and Lowry has finished inside the top-20 for Harbour Town’s vital stats – driving accuracy and greens-in-regulation – at Riviera, the Honda and last week at Augusta, when ranking in the top five for both.
One that repeats form from year to year at the same courses, he looks terrific value at anything over 25/1.
Outsider – Cam Davis
With the two main selections appealing most from all those up to around 60/1, look for a three-figure bet to offer value against those up front with question marks surrounding them.
In siding with the Australian, we have a player that again will relish a wind-affected tournament, having won the 2017 Australian Open from Matt Jones (Houston and Honda winner) with Cam Smith, Jason Day and Spieth behind.
It’s not gone quite to plan since, but the 28-year-old has plenty of form that stacks up with recent contenders here.
His sole PGA Tour victory at the Rocket Mortgage came via a play-off victory over Troy Merritt (third, 10th and 12th here) and Joaquin Niemann (top-five finishes at the Sony, Texas and Valspar and Harbour Town) whilst he also has front page finishes at the Dye-influenced American Express and Sawgrass, Charles Schwab, Honda and John Deere, all courses relating to recent previous Heritage champions.
Including some of those, Davis’ best finishes since the start of 2022 include six top-10s and three top-20 finishes and he ended the year with a fast-closing seventh place behind Cam Smith at his home PGA.
Third, after three rounds of the Players a month ago, he missed the cut last time out in Texas where, despite a valiant best-of-second round 66, was always unlikely to make the weekend after an opening 80. That appears to have put a few points on his price, and he’ll be backed for the big victory but also for a third top-20 finish in four outings.
Top-20 – Corey Conners
I know. Conners was awful last week.
Although I can’t get some appalling short game errors out of my mind, it’s difficult to shake off a player that suits this track down to the ground and for whom it is relatively easy to make a case for.
Take Augusta away and the season has gone relatively well.
In eighth place at halfway, the 31-year-old finished 18th at the opening Tournament of Champions then 12th at the Sony and, 21st at Bay Hill (third at halfway), before winning two of his three group games at the Match Play, losing only at the final hole to eventual runner-up Cameron Young.
Given the way Conners repeats form, it was no surprise to see him creep closer each round before eventually repeating his 2019 victory at the 2019 Texas Open, again putting up yet another sterling performance for tee-to-green fans.
As at Waialae, Conners led the greens-in-regulation stats, and at both he racked up double-figures for his tee-to-green superiority, a huge factor around Harbour Town, where his relatively weak putting can be disguised.
For whatever reason, Conners produced a display far from the previous three consecutive Masters top-10s and I’ll put that down as an anomaly. If that is the case, Conners has drifted 10 points for no good reason, a factor that affects his price in the place markets.
Although missing the cut in his first three tries, the Canadian would number 30 has improved since landing in the top echelons of the rankings, finishing 21st, fourth and 12th in 2020 through to 2022 recording just two rounds over 70. Those figures could easily have been better given he lay in second place at the halfway stage of 2020 and 2021, and third after the opening round last year.
He could be a very big price to gain an outright place, but I’ll err on the side of caution after Augusta and play the much safer game.
Recommended Bets:
- Sungjae Im – WIN
- Shane Lowry – WIN/TOP-5
- Cam Davis – WIN/TOP-5
- Corey Conners – TOP-20
Opinion & Analysis
The 2 primary challenges golf equipment companies face

As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!
Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.
Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.
One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?
Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.
Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.
Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”
For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…
Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…
That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.
@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic
Podcasts
Fore Love of Golf: Introducing a new club concept

Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!
Opinion & Analysis
On Scottie Scheffler wondering ‘What’s the point of winning?’

Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.
View this post on Instagram
“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”
Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.
That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.
As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.
I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.
One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.
The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.
If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.
Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.
As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.
It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.
David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.
In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:
“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”
Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Eventually, though, something shifts.
We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.
Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.
Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.
Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.
So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.
I see someone evolving.
He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.
It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.