It was once the most feared regular PGA Tour stop on the Florida swing, but not any longer. Not if the early Thursday scoring is anything to go by, at least.
Since moving to PGA National in 2007, regular viewers of the Honda Classic were guaranteed one thing. It was going to be tough, birdies were going to be at a premium, and bogeys and worse would arrive by the truckload.
And it was all the better for it. When Pádraig Harrington won in 2015, it was in a playoff with a -6 tally for 72 holes, and that was a tally matched by Sungjae Im and no one else in 2020, while Mark Wilson was able to take a shot more and still win in a playoff in 2007.
In fact, in the 17 years at PGA National under Honda’s sponsorship, only six times did the winning score reach double digits under par, and tournament winners include Ernie Els, Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott, Harrington, Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas, with Tiger Woods, Luke Donald, McIlroy himself, Sergio Garcia, Brooks Koepka and Shane Lowry among the runners up.
So, it wasn’t a bad tournament, not by any stretch of the imagination.
The Players Championship being moved back to March diluted the field somewhat as the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the PGA Tour’s flagship event have generally followed in back-to-back weeks, and Honda, having propped up the event since 1984, effectively told the PGA Tour to ‘shove it’ and pulled their sponsorship.
That’s business though. You can’t keep everybody happy and as far as the PGA Tour and the players are concerned, if Cognizant are willing to fill the void, then great. And let’s face it, it doesn’t really matter to the fans either. If you’re a longtime PGA Tour viewer, it might take a little getting used to, but it’s the players and the golf course that make a great tournament and give it identity, not the title sponsor.
But it almost seems as though Honda packed up the tournament’s identity and took it with them. A par-70 became a par-71 and the fairways were widened to make what used to be one of the toughest driving courses on tour into something approaching your typical TPC track. Take away the wind, add in pillow-soft greens and you get what we got in round one on Thursday when Jake Knapp went round in 59 strokes.
59! 12-under-par! At PGA National! Did you ever think you’d see it? Even allowing for the additional stroke-to-par gained by the 10th going from a par-4 to a par-5, that tally – amassed in just 18 holes – would’ve been enough to win five of the 17 tournaments prior to 2024.
Take nothing away from Knapp. Despite somehow saying he hates his swing, it’s as smooth as prime Ernie Els’ and Fred Couples’, and the seemingly effortless power really is a sight to behold. And it was an incredible round of golf. Were it not for an unfortunate lip-out on 17, he’d have had an 18-footer for eagle and 57 on the last.
59s used to come around once every 10 years or so on the PGA Tour – it’s something that even Tiger Woods in his pomp couldn’t manage – now we’ve had three in the last 12 months.
The pros have always made golf look much easier than it is, but with modern club and ball technology, they’re making it look ridiculously simple. So what’s wrong with testing them? Why not sharpen a course’s teeth rather than sanding them down?
This, after all, is the home of the Bear Trap, but with blunted fangs and claws, it’s more like a mouse trap.
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