2024 RBC Heritage Course Preview: Harbour Town Golf Links
The golf world descends upon Hilton Head Island, South Carolina for this week’s 2024 RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links.
Harbour Town is a 7,213-yard par-71 designed by Pete Dye in 1969 that features Poa trivialis overseeded greens. The collars also have the same poa overseed, while the approaches, tees, fairways and rough (down from 2.5 inches last year to 1.25 inches this week) all feature Perennial ryegrass overseed.
The average green size at Harbour Town is among the smallest on the PGA Tour at 3,700 square feet. Pebble Beach Golf Links at an average of 3,500 square feet per green is the only other course on Tour so far this season with green smaller than 5,00 square feet. Water is in play on nine of the 18 holes, and there are 54 bunkers in play as trees line the majority of the fairways.
Harbour Town is one of my favorite club-down courses on Tour because it requires golfers to be strategic and precise off the tee, and its lack of length means that more golfers can contend here than at a usual PGA Tour course where bombers have a bigger built-in advantage. Trees not only line the fairways here, but they also overhang so that shots in the wrong side of fairways on many of these tight doglegs will have trouble finding the green in regulation.
As a result of the tight and angular doglegs and tree-lined fairways that are 33 yards in average width, average driving distance at Harbour Town was just 278.6 yards last year, which is 12.9 yards below the Tour average.
The formula for success at Hilton Head is plotting into the ride side of the fairway off the tee to set up precise approach shots to these small greens. As is typical of Pete Dye designs, golfers will need to take on the trouble to be rewarded with quality birdie opportunities at Harbour Town.
Harbour Town Historical Approach Distances
The course features just three par-5s with all three listed between 550 and 590 yards.
Harbour Town also has four par-3s and 11 par-4s. Only four of the 11 par-4s play over 450 yards, and none play over 475 yards, so the majority of par-4s will give golfers a short iron into the green this week. There is some hidden length on the par-3s at Harbour Town as all four are listed at more than 190 yards.
Here are the percentage of approaches from each 25-yard range from the 2023 RBC Heritage via DataGolf.
| Approach Yardage | Percent of Approaches in 2023 |
|---|---|
| 50-75 | 1.8% |
| 75-100 | 3.6% |
| 100-125 | 11.5% |
| 125-150 | 17.0% |
| 150-175 | 18.1% |
| 175-200 | 28.3% |
| 200-225 | 3.6% |
| 225-250 | 2.9% |
| 250+ | 13.0% |
Key Metrics for Harbour Town Golf Links
- Weighted SG: Approach (with emphasis on 100-200 yards)
- SG: Around the Green
- SG: Total on Club-down Courses
- Bogey Avoidance
- Total Driving (With an Emphasis on Driving Accuracy)
- SG: Putting
- SG: Total on Pete Dye Courses
- Putting from 5-10 Feet
