Keeping sponsors happy is just one of the many responsibilities of a PGA Tour executive and that's presumably why RBC, a Canadian banking company who've sponsored both this event and the Canadian Open for some time now, have been honoured with a designated event for 2023.
Quite why it was decided that it should be the RBC Heritage and not the RBC Canadian Open, I don't know. Maybe it's because the Canadian Open comes a week before a major championship rather than a week after. Perhaps Jay Monahan just wants to watch the best players in the world compete at Harbour Town again, just as they felt compelled to in the summer of 2020.
Whatever the reason, it seems a bit daft to me. We'd already had six of these tournaments before the Masters so this will now be the eighth time that the best players have gathered in 2023. You can have too much of a good thing and the bottom line is this: what's the value of having them here if, deep down, they don't really want to be?
Few would admit to that and there are some to whom it doesn't apply – the Heritage is a fun, family-friendly event held on a quirky course which many people adore. There's just no way that Rory McIlroy wanted to take out his frustration on a course that creates it by suffocating golfers who like to thrash 330-yard drives and no wonder he's withdrawn. Jon Rahm should be anywhere but here, Scottie Scheffler likewise.
It's not a coincidence that many world-class players have been to Harbour Town only once, when golf came out of the pandemic and any opportunity had to be taken, when it wasn't a week after the Masters, when they'd hardly played in months.
There is a potential upside and that's a market which has to pay huge respect to these elite golfers despite the fact that the thing that makes so many of them elite, or at least provides the backbone of their success, is almost completely nullified by a short, twisting course where accuracy is vitally important. Sometimes, that means hitting a specific section of a fairway and there are occasions when being in the rough to the left is better than being blocked out in the fairway the other side.
Those who work their ball, who shape it and flight it and don't look to crush it, are at a distinct advantage. Elite wedge players, those who chip and putt well, ditto. Matt Kuchar's record here is phenomenal as is that of Luke Donald, Brandt Snedeker is a former champion, so too Carl Pettersson. Four of the last 10 have won the US Open, but it's not that which marks them out as ideal candidates. It's the fact that the likes of Kuchar, Jim Furyk, Webb Simpson and Jordan Spieth all play the game in a way that not many of their peers play it.
None of this is to say that Scheffler can't rock up here and win on his first try. Of course he can. But this is a rare opportunity to bet in a tournament the top golfers are not particularly motivated for, at a course they're for the most part not suited to, at a time when their focus could well slip or else mental fatigue simply kick in. Perhaps we ought to be thanking Monahan and co after all.
Spieth has confessed to feeling exhausted so he's off the list given that he'll have further duties as defending champion, and last year's runner-up Patrick Cantlay is arguably the one to beat. Either him or Collin Morikawa, who is both suited to and a fan of Harbour Town. He's also motivated, having spoken last year of his frustration at having gone six months without a win. That run now spans a year and a half and, having again suggested he's not far away with a top-10 finish at Augusta, he will appeal to many.
So will Matt Fitzpatrick, who took great heart not just from the way he played last week, but the way he felt. A childhood visitor to this course and one who has made no secret of his fondness for it, he'd be another US Open champion to add to the list should he win for the first time since. Along with a weary but course-proven Shane Lowry, plus Morikawa and Cantlay, these would be the four players I fear most in an event where you just have to take some chances.
I'll also say that Justin Thomas is seldom 28/1 and that alone made him interesting. Spieth, his friend, won this tournament after a chastening missed cut at Augusta, his first. Well, Thomas just missed the cut at Augusta. Lightning might strike twice but the truth of the matter is Thomas is far less suited to Harbour Town and if he does as Spieth did, so be it.
First to my one selection from the top of the market, SUNGJAE IM, who looks the best value among the best players.
Im has barely missed a beat this year having already amassed eight top-25 finishes, including at the Masters last week where he gained strokes through the bag. His form in the seven top-class events reads 13-6-56-21-6-17-16 and unlike many of his rivals, Harbour Town should help rather than hinder him.
Having missed his first two cuts at the course that might not seem an obvious thing to say, but subsequent finishes of 13th and 21st speak to his suitability. So does the fact that he ranked fourth in strokes-gained tee-to-green last year and was the best driver in the field, only to suffer an abject week with the putter.
That club has been stable of late, Im having gained strokes throughout each of his last four starts, and his top-25 putting display here in 2021 offers sufficient encouragement. I'd be hopeful he can maintain the level of performance he's shown since the beginning of last month and if he does that, Im should have a platform.
Like Morikawa, he's accurate off the tee, his approach play can be his biggest asset when he's firing, and he's rock-solid around the green. Im is a proper all-rounder whose record at the Wyndham Championship, where he was mugged by compatriot Tom Kim last year, plus at East Lake, also points towards this tree-lined test suiting him down to the ground.
Fatigue won't be a factor and his form is probably a shade stronger than it was 12 months ago. Should Im strike his ball as well as he did then, he'll go very close to landing a third PGA Tour title and the pick of them so far given the company we're in this week.
Henley has long had a good record at Augusta but was a three-figure price for a reason and, as one of the less confident members of the world's top 50 (he's up to 29th now), won't have arrived there expecting to contend. That he was in third place around the turn and kept plugging away to finish fourth will surely send him out to Hilton Head on a high.
The Heritage is a tournament he's contended for in the past and two years ago he finished ninth despite one of those abysmal putting displays which have become all too common in recent times. First in strokes-gained approach and third in strokes-gained tee-to-green, he played well enough to win and win well.
There's no denying that kind of performance is always a lingering threat, but his was the best short-game in the field at the Masters and where he's concerned that's what I'd want to see. We know he's accurate off the tee (first in fairways this season and last week) and that his iron play is capable of reaching world-class levels on any given week. It's the short-game which has become difficult to predict.
Leading the field in scrambling at Augusta and putting so well might just be something he can run with for another week and his form at similar courses to this one, including Sedgefield where he looked like winning last year, is encouraging. So too is his overall record at Pete Dye courses, having played well at Sawgrass, River Highlands and Whistling Straits as well as here.
Henley's wins in the Honda Classic and at El Camaleon offer strong correlations through the likes of Graeme McDowell, Brian Gay, Straka, Lowry and plenty more besides, and if the putter fires then I could see him producing a performance similar to that which saw him dominate under low-scoring conditions in Mexico back in November.
This is close to a home game for Henley, his wife hailing from South Carolina where they've lived in the past, and he looks a strong each-way candidate.
JT Poston has three top-10 finishes in four starts here and hails from across the border in North Carolina, where he captured the Wyndham Championship. Accurate off the tee, deadly at times with the putter and favoured by low-scoring conditions, his mid-pack Masters finish could of course set him up for another strong go at winning this.
He's just a hair shorter than I'd like so next on the list is JOEL DAHMEN at about twice the price.
Dahmen has gone 16-48-12 across his three starts in this event, his work around the green the only thing stopping him. Both top-20s came courtesy of quality putting which isn't usually his strength and, as you'd expect, his ball-striking has been really strong.
He's a player who often pops up by the coast at courses he likes. That was the case when he won the Corales Puntacana and when he placed for us at a nice price in Mexico, and it's why I can see the return to Harbour Town sparking improvement after what's been a really quiet start to the year.
Bezuidenhout is short but accurate off the tee, no handicap at all here, and when he's firing he does so with quality approaches and a red-hot putter.
Significantly, his approach play has turned a corner lately, ranking 18th in The PLAYERS and 10th in Texas. Between the two he struggled in the Match Play but that's always been the case, both the course and the format seemingly conspiring against him. Despite that, his approach play was again solid, so that's three starts running his irons have fired.
Born and raised in South Carolina, this is a home game for an in-form, course-proven player who has done really well to get his career back on track, so he's one I expect a lot of people will be interested in.
"We don't get many home events, so to speak, on the Tour, because we're traveling throughout the country," he said a few years back. "Anytime you have that local Clemson support and South Carolina support is good.
As for what specifically about the course he enjoys, he added: "I like that you have to think your way around. You look at the scorecard and the length, and it doesn't look that hard, but it's a lot of picking your spots and knowing where to miss it.
"It just suits my game."
Thompson, like Im and Henley another former winner of the Honda Classic, has been playing better lately. His driving, approach play and putting have all improved and he sat third at halfway in Texas last time out before fading.
This is a considerably stronger field so further improvement will be needed, but it's possible at Harbour Town. He has two top-10s in his last four visits including when eighth in 2020, the strongest renewal in the event's history and comparable to this one.
It's true that he's largely relied on his putter to get competitive here but he did rank 10th in strokes-gained approach that week and has generally driven it well. Moreover, it's simply the right kind of course for a short, accurate driver whose first pro win came at a very fiddly layout on the Korn Ferry Tour where he had to shoot 23-under.
That's a similar formula to the one expected this week and this two-time winner, who finished second in the 2012 US Open, saw off major champions in the Honda and impressed with his resolve when doubling his tally in the 3M Open, is capable of hanging tough in high-class company.
Duncan's sole win saw him get the better of Webb Simpson at the RSM Classic, a tournament which shares some things in common with this one, and he's rediscovered his game this year.
Third place in the Honda and again at the Corales Puntacana mean he's 78th in the FedEx Cup standings and they've come within his last five starts, while earlier in the year he'd contended to a point in the AmEx to hint at better times ahead.
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