The PGA TOUR continues a great stretch of big tournaments with a trip to Hilton Head Island for the RBC Heritage. Harbour Town Golf Links is a shorter, accuracy-focused par-71 along the coast, with the iconic lighthouse used as a target on the signature 18th hole. The 82-man field will play the no-cut Signature Event, with Round 1 beginning on Thursday, April 16, at 7:05 a.m. ET. Let’s take a look at the wide variety of markets available on DraftKings Sportsbook and pinpoint some of my best bets for Round 1 of the RBC Heritage.
The players will play the course in 41 pairs, each beginning at Hole No. 1 and teeing off every 10-to-15 minutes until the final duo gets underway at 2:10 p.m. ET. The weather this week is fairly favorable for most of the week, with fairly consistent wind throughout Round 1, getting slightly stronger later in the afternoon.
In this post, we’ll focus on my three best bets for Round 1 of the RBC Heritage on Thursday, April 16. Let’s tee it up!
Ryo Hisatsune (+110) over Nick Taylor
Hisatsune tees off at 8:05 a.m. ET with Taylor a few groups behind at 9:00 a.m. ET. While Hisatsune didn’t play last week at the major, he comes in with great momentum from earlier this season. The 23-year-old from Japan has a skillset that should fit this track and brings good plus-money upside in this matchup if he can outscore Taylor in Round 1.
Hisatsune posted an impressive T-8 at the Valero Texas Open two weeks ago and also finished T-2 at Torrey Pines, T-8 at Pebble Beach and T-13 at TPC Sawgrass. Over the last three months, he ranks ninth in this strong field in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and 15th in Total Strokes Gained. His Driving Accuracy is also in the top 20 in the field, along with his Strokes Gained: Approach. Last year, Hisatsune finished T-18 on this track in his tournament debut.
Taylor did tee it up last week and made the cut, but he faded with a five-over-par Final Round to finish T-41. He has made the cut in nine of his 10 events, but he only has two top-25 finishes and no top-15 finishes since the season-opening event in Hawaii. Taylor has been strong around the green, but he has lost strokes off the tee and has just about neutral Strokes Gained with his putter. The 38-year-old from Canada has more experience on this track, but he has only placed in the top 25 one time in his 10 appearances.
Hisatsune has the clear advantage in form and has a great chance of claiming this head-to-head 3-way matchup Thursday morning.
Garrick Higgo over 70.5 (-130)
Higgo tees off at 11:20 a.m. ET playing alongside Daniel Berger. The 26-year-old from South Africa is one of the 10 players who were added to the field this week due to a win on the PGA TOUR last season that normally would have qualified him for The Sentry. Since that Signature Event was canceled, Higgo and the other winners not already qualified for this event were added to the field this week.
He claimed the Corales Puntacana Championship about a year ago, when it took place as an “Additional” event the same week as the RBC Heritage. This year, the tournament will be held the same week as The Open Championship instead. Higgo won by one stroke in that event and added some strong finishes in the FedExCup Fall as well with a T-7 at the Procore, a solo second at the Sanderson Farms, and a pair of T-4 finishes at the Baycurrent Classic and the World Wide Technology Championship.
He hasn’t had the same form in 2026, though, missing the cut in six of his nine events with a T-40 at the Cognizant Classic his only finish better than T-60. He missed the cut at the Valero Texas Open in his most recent start, and he has the worst Strokes Gained: Approach over the last three months of any player in the field. He has played Harbour Town twice in his career, and he has finished over this number in four of his six rounds at the event.
Without much form in the areas that matter most, I don’t expect him to finish under par at the Par-71 in Round 1.
Matt Fitzpatrick/Scottie Scheffler Total Number of Birdies or Better o10.5 (-112)
Fitzpatrick and Scheffler are one of the marquee pairings in the first two rounds, and they’ll start their first round at 1:50 p.m. ET, which is the third-to-last group off the tee. Even though they’ll be playing later in the day, the pair is definitely capable of putting on a birdie barrage to card at least 11 birdies or better.
Scheffler leads the PGA TOUR in Birdie or Better percentage, while Fitzpatrick is also in the top 10. Scheffler averages over five birdies or better per round, and he had 10 birdies and no bogeys in his two rounds over the weekend while chasing a major last weekend. He came up just one stroke short of tying Rory McIlroy and forcing an epic playoff last week.
Fitzpatrick didn’t finish quite as high on the leaderboard, mostly since he started the week with a two-over 74 on Thursday. He looked sharper in the rest of his rounds, finishing under par in each round with four, six and four birdies in Round 2, Round 3 and Round 4, respectively.
Both of these players have won at this course in the recent past, with Scheffler claiming the title in 2024 and Fitzpatrick in 2023. Last year, Scheffler finished T-8 and Fitzpatrick ended up T-38. Fitzpatrick has been in much better form this season, getting a win at the Valspar and finishing runner-up at THE PLAYERS in his last two starts before the Masters. He averaged 4.9 birdies or better per round in those two strong showings on tough courses, so he has a good chance to do enough to hold up his part of this combined prop on Thursday.
The course doesn’t usually play very far under par, so 11 birdies or better is a big total, but these two former champs have the ability to go low enough to get to 11 with strong starts to their weeks based on their very solid recent form and course history.
