RADIO
Hello folks, and welcome back to Horse For The Course! Wow...what a week at Riviera. Jon Rahm continued to flex his ridiculous form and brought home his third victory of 2023 by outlasting hometown favorite Max Homa for the Genesis Invitational title.
The Genesis was the PGA Tour's second "elevated" event in as many weeks and was yet another example of how much sense it makes for the best golfers in the world to compete against each other more often. This week's Honda Classic represents the other side of the "super event" coin, as it decidedly isn't one and has a field that reflects as much. However, the Honda is nonetheless a notable tournament due to its tradition, as well as the shift in geography it signifies for the Tour schedule.
Horse For The Course is an article that highlights players in this week's field with elite course history and is part of our free PGA DFS content here at RotoBaller. For my favorite DFS plays of the week check out my Core Four article here at RotoBaller every Wednesday. It's part of our excellent PGA Premium package that includes an all-new PGA Research Station, Lineup Builder & Optimizer, and some of the best articles in the PGA DFS industry! You can sign up now using Promo Code: NICE for an extra discount at checkout!
2023 Honda Classic
While we're coming off two events that represent huge wins for the PGA Tour and its evolving schedule, if we're being frank, the Honda Classic is an unfortunate example of what can happen when scheduling works against an event.
Once one of the most star-studded tournaments of the year, the quality of the fields at Honda has noticeably declined in recent years, which can be attributed to multiple factors, including the shifting of the Players Championship from May to March, as well as several other logistical challenges caused by moves in the PGA Tour's schedule, and the decision to designate certain events as "elevated". The difficulty of this week's course, PGA National, doesn't exactly help to make it a destination event for many of the world's top players, either. Speaking of that difficulty in reference to this specific article, we'll find that even those with great course history in the Honda will often have some missed cuts mixed into their track record, due to the toughness of this PGA National layout.
Honda is one of the PGA Tour's longest-tenured corporate partners, but the company has announced that it will end its sponsorship of this event in 2024, which makes this week's tournament an "end of an era" of sorts. As we put the West Coast portion of the schedule behind us and hop cross country for the kick-off of the Florida Swing, the field for this year's Honda Classic is once again much weaker than we'd all hope to see, as defending champion Sepp Straka will square off against a group that's devoid of obvious star power outside of Sungjae Im and Shane Lowry.
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The Course: PGA National (Champion Course)
Par 70 - 7,125 Yards, Greens: Bermuda, Designed By: George & Tom Fazio (Jack Nicklaus Renovations)
PGA National routinely ranks as one of the most difficult layouts on the PGA Tour schedule. The Honda is an "anti-birdie fest" event, with winning scores that often end in the single digits in relation to par. The infamous 'Bear Trap' is a brutal three-hole stretch (Holes #15,16,& 17) that can destroy a player's scorecard at the end of a round and ranks as the fourth-toughest three-hole stretch on the PGA Tour schedule.
Water is prevalent at PGA National and in play on 15 holes! There are also over 65 sand traps placed throughout the course. As if all that weren't enough, the Florida wind can always wreak havoc when it starts gusting. If you want to dig into some key stats for this tournament, golfers this week will face SEVEN Par-4s that measure between 400-450 yards, and the largest number of approach shots will fall in the 150-200 yard range.
I'm looking for players that have the ability to succeed on hard courses, can avoid bogeys, and are solid ball strikers with strong proximity numbers in the 150-200 yard range. We can also throw in a dash of Bermuda putting splits, as it can prove to be a tricky surface for those without years of experience with Florida golf
Recent Honda Classic Winners & Scoring Info
- 2022: Sepp Straka (-10)
- 2021: Matt Jones (-12)
- 2020: Sungjae Im (-6)
- 2019: Keith Mitchell (-9)
- 2018: Justin Thomas (-8)
- Average Winning Score Last Five Years: -9
The Horse
Sungjae Im
- Event Scoring Average: 69.64 (Four career starts)
- Notable Course History: T8 (2021), Win ('20)
- DraftKings Price: $10,700 FanDuel Price: $11,900
Navigating course history can sometimes be tricky business, as not all courses on the schedule lend themselves to success year in and year out. It feels as though that is especially notable this week, as we're coming off a West Coast stretch with a group of courses on which strong course history has been a great harbinger of continued success, while we're now headed to a PGA National layout that has been one of the schedule's least predictive in that department.
A great example of that volatility is Sungjae Im, a player that has one of the stronger Honda track records among this week's entrants, yet has still bookended a win and a T8 at PGA National with a T51 and a missed cut across his four career Honda starts.
With erratic CVs being the rule and not the exception this week, I'm willing to give the nod to Sungjae here, as he's not only proven himself capable of handling this treacherous layout by amassing an impressive 69.64 career scoring average at the Honda - as well as recording his first career PGA Tour win here in 2020 - but because he's also, quite simply, the best player in this week's field by almost any measure.
When using long-term measurements, Im grades out either first or second in this field in SG: Total, T2G, Ball Striking, OTT, and in DraftKings points scored. The South Korean has also flashed some white-hot recent form, as he's recorded top-six finishes in two of his last three starts.
The Ponies
Shane Lowry
- Event Scoring Average: 70.30 (Five career starts)
- Notable Course History: 2nd ('22), T36 ('21), T21 ('20)
- DraftKings Price: $10,400 FanDuel Price: $11,800
After a terrific 2022 campaign that included three top-three finishes on the PGA Tour and a win at the BMW PGA Championship in the fall, Shane Lowry has been a bit slow out of the gates in 2023, missing the cut in two of his first three starts of the year. However, Lowry did appear to have the rust fully knocked off last week at Riviera, where he gained 7.3 strokes T2G en route to a rock-solid T14 outing in the Genesis Invitational.
Lowry should continue to trend in the right direction this week, as he heads to a PGA National layout on which he A.) Should have won last year; and B.) Has never missed a cut in five career starts.
The Irishman's Honda track record stands out for its consistency in an event that's infamous for the trouble it can give even the world's best golfers. Lowry's international experience and Irish roots help him to navigate Honda's sometimes-blustery weather conditions, while his all-world short game helps him to avoid the type of blowups that are commonplace at PGA National. He grades out first in this field in Bogeys Avoided over the last 50 rounds.
Matt Kuchar
- Event Scoring Average: 71.03 (Nine career starts)
- Notable Course History: T17 ('11), Win ('02)
- DraftKings Price: $9,300 FanDuel Price: $11,100
No, that's not a misprint in the Notable Course History section above, Matt Kuchar really did win this event in 2002. Besides the fact that he (and I) had hair at that wonderful moment in time, it also speaks volumes to the impressive longevity of Kuchar's terrific career that, 21 years later, he still must be considered one of the better players in this week's field and is in serious DFS consideration for the 2023 edition of the Honda Classic.
There's a noticeable gap in the veteran's Honda history, as he last teed it up at PGA National in 2011. Like many of the upper-echelon pros, Kuchar dodged this event for years due to both its difficulty and its placement on the schedule around bigger, higher-paying events. Now the 65th-ranked player in the world, the 44-year-old is trying to play himself back into golf's biggest events and the OWGR's top 50, hence his return to the Honda Classic.
While he hasn't returned to the level of elite consistency that we've seen from him over the past 10-12 years, Kuchar has managed a bit of a career renaissance in the past 12 months. He's certainly more volatile than he was at his peak, but he has shown that he still possesses upside with top-eight finishes in two of his four 2023 starts. The veteran comes in on the heels of one of his best T2G performances in literally years last week at the Genesis, where he gained an astounding 12.6 strokes T2G which included a +5.5 strokes mark on Approach.
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Jhonattan Vegas
- Event Scoring Average: 70.95 (Ten career starts)
- Notable Course History: T30 ('21), T27 ('20), T16 ('19), T4 ('17), T12 ('14)
- DraftKings Price: $8,600 FanDuel Price: $10,100
The veteran from Venezuela seems to always fly under the radar a bit. Vegas isn't the type of player that grabs lots of headlines in the modern game of golf that is so hyper-focused on its superstars and rising stars, leaving little attention for a player that can be described as a pro's pro.
Vegas has now been plying his trade on the PGA Tour for over a decade and he's amassed quite a Honda Classic resume in that time. The 38-year-old has made 10 career starts at PGA National and made the cut in nine of those appearances. A pretty impressive feat on a layout that's notorious for producing volatile results.
He'll make his 11th Honda start in sharp form. The Venezuelan comes in with his ball-striking firing on all cylinders. Vegas has gained a combined 22.6 strokes T2G across his four 2023 starts and has logged top-25 results in two of his last three outings. He grades out third in this field in both SG: T2G and Ball Striking over the last 50 rounds.
Byeong Hun An
- Event Scoring Average: 69.71 (Four career starts)
- Notable Course History: T4 ('20), T36 ('19), T5 ('18)
- DraftKings Price: $7,600 FanDuel Price: $9,100
Putting one of the PGA Tour's most erratic golfers on one of its most unpredictable layouts would seem to be a recipe for disaster, but Ben An has somehow found what shakes out to be a consistent baseline of results at PGA National and I'm feeling just frisky enough to roll the dice this week.
Thanks to his notoriously-bad putting, An was relegated to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022. He proceeded to produce a season that was very on-brand: 20 starts, one win, eight top-25s, and nine missed cuts. An's hot-and-cold game has produced similar results over a much smaller sample at the Honda Classic, as a missed cut in 2021 seems to go hand-in-hand with top fives in 2020 and 2018. Yeah...this dude is tough to figure out.
However, this event feels like the perfect environment to embrace that volatility rather than shy away from it. An's results have been predictably unpredictable this year, as he's made the cut in all four of his 2023 starts but has endured erratic swings with the putter that included gaining 6.9 strokes with the flat stick en route to a T12 at the Sony Open and losing 5.1 strokes on the greens while posting a T41 at the AmEx the following week. There's no formula for predicting when to hop on the An train, but his PGA National track record - coupled with the overall weak nature of this Honda field - makes me more willing to hop on in this spot.
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