Course Preview and Fits: Harbour Town

Harbour Town, much like Augusta National, is a course where the narrative is pretty well established. At Augusta, they say you need to be a great drawer of the golf ball, and at Harbour Town, they say you need to be an accurate driver of the golf ball. Let’s dig into whether that’s true, and if not, what does matter.

What’s obvious is that driving distance doesn’t matter. Like, at all. That’s no secret, and you need to look no further than the list of recent champions for proof: Webb Simpson, Wesley Bryan, C.T. Pan, Satoshi Kodaira, Jim Furyk, Matt Kuchar. Stewart Cink and Branden Grace are the only notable exceptions in recent history, and I’d hardly call them bombers. Long hitters like Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson have underperformed here relative to their average over a pretty sizable sample size. There are only six holes on the property where the average driving distance is above 280, meaning most guys aren’t even pulling driver on the vast majority of holes. Harbour Town ranks second behind only Pebble Beach in shortest average driving courses on tour, and is one of the shortest on tour by length as well; you’ll see a lot of 3 woods off the tee, and long irons for the bombers in the field. Well, except for maybe Brendon Todd, who drives the ball about as far as I do.

So does hitting fairways matter? Not as much as you’d think, actually. These are mostly narrow, chute-like fairways with overhanging trees, and with relatively short .75 inch Bermuda rough, positioning (i.e. angle into the green) ends up being more important than being in the short grass. Driving accuracy matters slightly more than at an average course, but it’s hardly going to win you the tournament.

So approach shots? Eh, those aren’t as important as you’d think either, given that Harbour Town boasts one of the lowest numbers on tour for SG (strokes gained) off the tee. Surprisingly, SG approach actually ends up being right around the middle of the road. Because of the shorter holes and shorter drives, players will find themselves left with an above-average number of short- to mid-distance approaches here, and given that longer iron shots showcase skill more than shorter ones, you won’t have as many guys differentiating themselves with their irons.

That leaves us with the short game. While this is one of the easiest courses on tour by SG around the green, chipping is actually the most important skill at Harbour Town. While they won’t be hard shots, players will get their fill of short chips during the course of the week, given that these are some of the smallest greens on tour and as such pretty difficult to hit; that adds up to a real difference-maker in terms of scoring.