{"id":15292,"date":"2026-06-04T16:33:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/15292\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T16:33:51","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:33:51","slug":"justin-thomas-returns-to-defend-title-at-rbc-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/15292\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Thomas returns to defend title at RBC Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This year\u2019s course might look a bit different. Harbour Town underwent a six-month restoration in 2025, spearheaded by five-time RBC Heritage champion Davis Love III.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Anything that (Love III) was changing or doing was going to be very minor and for the better because a lot of what makes Harbour Town what it is, you need to keep,&#8221; Thomas said. &#8220;And that&#8217;s the doglegs, the small greens, the trees where they are.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Novak might have lost to Thomas in last year\u2019s playoff, but it was his biggest payday on the tour, earning him more than $2.1 million. Novak rebounded quickly the following week, winning his first PGA Tour event at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/sports\/hamilton\/andrew-novak-pga-championship-golf\/article_9bb0cc92-ea79-4939-9393-2e6e689483a1.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Novak<\/a>, in his fifth season on the PGA Tour, had his best year in 2025. The former Wofford standout qualified for the FedExCup playoffs for the first time and finished No. 25 in the standings after advancing to the TOUR Championship.<\/p>\n<p>He recorded six top-10 finishes and made 19 cuts in 27 starts om 2025. Novak Totaled four top-three finishes, including three in the month of April at the Valero Texas Open (T-3), RBC Heritage (P-2) and Zurich Classic of New Orleans (Won).<\/p>\n<p>Other returning Heritage champions include:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Scottie Scheffler, the 2024 Heritage champion, is the world\u2019s No. 1-ranked golfer according to the World Golf Ranking.<\/p>\n<p>Since the beginning of the 2021 season, Scheffler has accumulated 20 PGA Tour victories, including a major win at the 2024 Masters. His 2024 RBC Heritage win marked one of multiple victories during a historic stretch in which he won seven of 13 starts from 2024\u20132025.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2023 champion, earned his third win on the tour at the Valspar Championship.<\/p>\n<p>He earned his second win at 2023 RBC Heritage after winning the 2022 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022\u00a0Jordan Spieth, a three time major champion and former world No. 1, has earned 13 wins on the PGA Tour including 3 majors and his 2022 victory at the RBC Heritage. He first played the RBC Heritage in 2013 on a sponsors exemption and will be making his 10th start at Harbour Town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s course might look a bit different. Harbour Town underwent a six-month restoration in 2025, spearheaded by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1270],"tags":[2163,2651,2652,1516,1352,208,6431],"class_list":["post-15292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rbc-heritage","tag-andrew-novak","tag-harbour-town-golf-links","tag-hilton-head","tag-justin-thomas","tag-rbc-heritage","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-the-heritage-golf-tournament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}