PGA Tour signature event RBC Heritage comes on heels of the Masters

The PGA Tour had back-to-back signature events in February with the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational.

Now, the top golfers in the game are getting a signature event on the back end of a major. This scenario will happen one more time this year with the U.S. Open which is then followed by the Travelers Championship.

Justin Thomas is among the 82 golfers headed to Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, for this week's RBC Heritage. For Thomas, it's a return to the site of his 16th and most recent PGA Tour win.

Justin Thomas holds his trophy while sporting the plaid winner's jacket after winning the 2025 RBC Heritage.

As far as this particular event's dates and the overall Tour schedule in general, well, this is how things were decided.

"It's not how I would prefer to draw it up, I would say," he said. "I think especially when it comes to majors, because majors are, the season is important. Obviously it's very important for your FedExCup standing, how your season is going, getting into events, not in events, whatever it may be. But majors are kind of what guys will generally build their schedule off of."

He went on to allude to the long-rumored bigger changes to the PGA Tour's future.

"We've had some changes and probably will continue to see some in the next, I don't know, couple years until it gets, it'll never be perfect, but at least something that's maybe a little more ideal for guys in their eyes," he said.

Thomas and the 82-man field return to Harbour Town to face a redesigned golf course, one that he says he likes.

"It's great. I've only seen nine holes. I just played nine today," he said Tuesday during his pre-tournament news conference. "I'll see the back nine tomorrow morning. I think Davis [Love III] and his team did a great job from what I can see. I think a lot of redoes or restorations, to be perfectly honest, I think they screw the course up pretty bad. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous a little bit about it.

"But knowing that Davis was doing this made me feel a lot better. One, because he is very good at this, but two, he loves, he isn't going to completely change a golf course at a place that he loves like Harbour Town. I think he won here five times, and this golf course and got has been great to him. Anything that he 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, and that's the doglegs, the small greens, the trees where they are."

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: PGA Tour signature event RBC Heritage comes on heels of the Masters