PGA Tour: The "Honda": Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).Wonderful theatre at the Match Play last week, and a most deserving winner. Waste of time debating any improvements to the format - we'd all have differing ideas on that. But Hunter Mahan was outstandingly the best golfer once Zach Johnson had made a mess of his 19th Round One hole and good luck to Mahan as he moves forward. He'll turn 30 in May with 2 x WGC's in his back pocket, but only two run-of-the-mill events and "should do better" is written large on his career report card.

2).Rory went on about his semi final vs Westwood being his "final", but surely that's just the nature of match play?
From a point of view of English pride, not to say prejudice, I thought Lee was a touch unlucky Sunday morning. Off to a better start than even Chubby could have dreamed of and then a decent-looking iron into the 5th rolled up against the "collar" at the back of the green. Three strokes later and he was firing a lovely iron into the par 3 6th. But Rory holed his longer putt and Lee missed his. Lee's head down, two holes lost, Rory perking up, game over. Shouldn't be that way though and Westwood must know that he will only win the big ones by overcoming adversity along the way.

3).Mahan enjoyed his first outing with his Ping Nome putter having used a Ping Anser all his career. Now Nome sounds to me like the Alaskan town the sled dogs run to in the Iditarod, but Mahan was HOT on the greens from Thursday onwards.

4).OK, just to break the promise not to debate the format. Is it in the interests of the integrity of the game to hold a consolation match? Set aside the loot, just measure Wilson's achievement in winning a meaningless match-up in golf's new currency, official world ranking points. And he collects 7.6 pts for beating Westwood vs Paul Lawrie, for instance, who only won 8.88 points for winning two very meaningful matches. Just saying.

5).And on the subject of Aberdeen's favourite golfing son, it was timely to read that Aberdeen Asset Management are now sponsoring Martin Laird (impressive week, Martin). Which just goes to show how prescient Johnny Miller is as he spent all Saturday talking about Martin Laird, the man from Aberdeen. That Johnny!!!

6).That's the West Coast done with and the American golfing press is tickled to death about US golfers winning all nine tournaments. Partly courtesy of Robert Allenby's 18th hole Mayakoba meltdown of course. The last time Americans won nine in a row to start the season, the streak ran to 11 before Ian Woosnam scraped home in New Orleans. I'd put a lot of money on this year's streak not reaching 11.

7).So it's off to the "Sunshine State", and "The Honda Classic". "International" Tour players are queueing up to play in this intra-WGC week as they strive to register their mandatory 15 events for the year. Europe-based players seem to struggle mightily to get to grips with grainy Bermuda greens and don't expect anything less this week. PGA National is a Tom Fazio design which staged the 1983 Ryder Cup (where Europe finally came of age as a viable competitor) and the 1987 PGA Championship.
Personal note: I played PGA National in 1985, was walking down a front nine fairway when we heard a crack behind us and a Titleist fizzing over our heads. We looked back to see wtf was going on only to see a rather large golfer speeding by us, crouched over the front of his golfcart like Cav winning a TDF sprint. "Thanks guys," yelled Craig Stadler as he whizzed by.

8).Since those days Jack Nicklaus has "re-done" the course and redefined the signature "Bear Trap", holes 15 (par-3), 16 (par-4) and 17 (par-3), the most difficult hat-trick of consecutive holes on Tour last year. pgatour.com notes that only 12 golfers have completed the tournament in the five years the "Honda" has been played here without registering a bogey on 15, 16 or 17. Luke Donald (feet up this week) enjoyed the best score, a miraculous -5 here, in 2008, and Camilo is the only other to do better than -2 on these holes.

9).The golfers will have warm weather this week, mostly dry and sunny but with that ever present March wind. All of which makes it an improbable course to see Tiger playing at, his first visit to the tournament in 18 years (perhaps he'll be playing Quad Cities this year after all?), especially with the penal nature of so many of the holes. And Rory's high ballflight is similarly unlikely to be best suited to the course. Expect a strong tee-to-green player to prevail, along the lines of the five Honda Champions here so far: Mark Wilson, Els, Yang, Villegas and Sabbatini.

10).This week is the last opportunity to qualify for Doral's WGC Cadillac event next week. The field has pretty much been finalised with just new entrants to the owgr top fifty, and FedEx points top ten, able to graduate to Doral. Europeans on parade over and above the usual suspects include Bjorn, Canizares (nice job qualifying courtesy of his T5 finish last week) and Clarke. YE Yang was runner up last year and I could see him playing well again, along with Justin Rose who has form here also. Rory? Tiger? Top Twenty? Maybe?

PS: The "Cadillac" field as it currently stands is listed on the Fantasy thread.

How do you know that?

Know what?

I was responding to Mclaren's post mate. Just seemed a kind of set in stone comment considering there's two rounds to go..

monty,
Maybe it was just an expression of Mac's view of Gillis's chances . . . . ? A player not to be under-estimated in my book.

Just a reminder that the Nationwiders are playing in Panama, and there's a hat-trick of Swedes close to the lead (Chopra, Gronberg and Lingmerth).

Ben Briscoe made the cut on the number but is still worryingly shown by pgatour.com as being American. Lists Liverpool FC among his interests so hope he catches the first half at Anfield before he embarks on Round 3.

i can see the winning score being 13 under from rose or rory, 11 under if anyone else does- can see westy putting in a 64 today

GC is doing a special morning drive this morning and the on course reports are all gloom and doom. Winds are high, etc.

But there is some good scores from the early starters.

Spencer Levin -4 after 11 holes
Mallinger, Fowler, Jacobson -3
M Bradley, McGirt, Christian -2

Yup, early scores all over the place, some good, some bad and downright ugly from Ricky Barnes; it'll be interesting to see if they have brought up the tees on 15 and 17 to mitigate any fierce winds.

Maltbie on Morning Drive just said tee have been moved up on #15,#17. About 150 and 160 yds each.

Good info GPB, Thanks. Makes perfect sense.

Hey, there's a feller named Stenson nudging the top ten. Anyone know anything about him??

Barnes played pretty badly today, but played by himself and was done by 11 am.

He won't have to play by himself tomorrow as Colt Knost shot 79 and he is last among the players that missed the cut.

Westy -2 for the day, nice start.

I think Charl Schwartzel is going to have a good weekend and might sneak the big prize late tomorrow afternoon.

Interesting to see Edward Lohr leading the NW event. He is a PGAT QS/NW grad with very low priority and he has 3 MC along with a T63 at Mayakorba.

Yet he is leading the NW event. Talent gap cannot be that wide.

Josh Broadaway had a nice round today. PLAYS CROSS-HANDED. Ouch!

I used to play with a guy that played crossed handed. Hit the ball a long way with a lot of wrist snap at impact. Played to a solid 8 handicap.

IIRC, NW 36 hole cut is low 60 ties, and 77 players made the cut. +4 was the cut, which is a high number for the NW tour. Scoring tends to be low on NW tour.

McLaren wrote:If Rose or Rory win the winning score will be -11, if an american wins it will be lower.

By "lower" do you mean -12 + or -10 - ?

Fannie is not on the bag for Stenson. Has the relationship been severed or is this just temporary?

Another bogey from Westwood - 4th from last in the field for "strokes gained putting". Same old story on Bermuda.

I picked Schwartzel for the Cadillac fantasy game - may have to change that if he wins this week.

Here comes Rory, got to go . . . .

Good day for Charl, can't see too many going low today with that wind picking up.
OK, time for Rory to make a move... Go Rooory!!!

Disappointing bogeys for Rose and Westwood - in the strokes gained putting stat, pgatour.com calculates that Lee has lost five shots to the field, just on the greens, in his past 32 holes.

pd,
Crummy turn out for Puerto Rico but a surprise starter is Ishikawa - must be banking on a big pay-day.

To clear up the comment, by lower I meant lower in the sense that a lower score usually does.

Rory or Rose will limp over the line as most brits do, if an american hits form they will power to at least -13.

Rose might not get to the line.
Rory looks like he'll fly over it; must admit I'm very surprised, even shocked at Rory's play so far. Seems he's the only player among the leaders with any forward momentum.

The other thing with Ishi is that the JP tour doesn't start until after the Masters, so there's nothing else to do (specially as he was unable to qualify for Doral). He's gonna need any points he can get to keep him afloat in the rankings and at the moment he seems unable to make any impression in the big tournaments...

Like him or not, Bradley is becoming a common presence at the top of leaderboards these days.

Another one goes in for Rooooory!!!!

The thing about Rory is that he's actually living up to the hype about his game. Doesn't happen as often as some may think it does.

Justin Rose has really played poorly since he hit the lead at -10 yesterday.

An enigma, sometimes he hits the front and keeps on moving out. Other times (like Hartford a couple of years ago when he should have won comfortably) he seems to stop swinging and his short game can't bail him out. Very disappointing so far, but plenty of time to turn things around.

Ishikawa is not risking much by playing in Puerto Rico. His 2 year resume is fully populated and he is losing a MC at the PGA and replacing it with whatever result in P.R.

However if he is playing Tampa and Orlando the following two weeks (and he did last year), he will be dropping one of his 2010 wins and ~5.2 pts at the last top 50 Masters qualifier.

I think Ryo is highly over-rated but I give him credit for trying to get into the Masters. right now he is only about 8 points away from #50, so he will need a 3rd finish or better to even have a chance at getting into the top 50 after next week.

Love to have a putting run like Gillis is on at the moment!

Ned,
Your man Ben Briscoe having another decent tournament . . . . . . still flagged as American though.

Three bombs to finish up with for McDowell - if he can repeat his 2011 Round 4 of 64 he could get right in the conversation.

Reckon the -4's might have a chance but don't fancy anyone further out.

Anyone heard any medical bulletins from The English Patient Poulter?

McDowell played very well this last couple of days and I have a feeling and hope that he may turn his fortunes around a bit in the next few weeks.

Poults' last medical buletin a few hours ago was reading...

Time to try some force feeding just weighed in. The lightest I've been in a long time. Lost 7lbs in 3 days & struggling to eat. No good.

Not looking very promissing for next week...

I think we should have a nurse smiley for all the wounded soldiers we have to keep track of. Might even bring Maverick back.


First time I've ever seen Harris English play, very impressive and phenomenal stats for the week.

Think mysti might have a pay day.

I don't know anything about Ben Briscoe and I just read his bio.

You got to like a guy who "Never travels without his wallet". LOL

Could he be someone like Justin Rose who was born in South Africa but for all intents and purposes, he is from England?

Or Aaron Baddeley, who was born in New Hampshire, USA, but represents Australia?

Edward Lohr will have big lead going into tomorrow.

Loar is another European Tour refugee. Like Gillis!

Harris English needs to win this to qualify for the Cadillac via FedEx points.

BAAAAANG!!!! That's my boy #1!!!

Rory going on all cylinders. Beware of Rose if he can start to dial in his irons.

If Rory stumbles tomorrow - not likely - this thing could be wide open.

Enjoy your reign for the next 24 hours Luke.

Wow, Rory! 66, The two best scores late in the day.

Looks like Els works with Woods on Sunday.

Spot on pd, I wonder how many WON'T pick him for The Masters?

Pleased to see Loar having a good week, he went from being a top amateur to being a journeyman's journeyman, winning lots in Asia and never quite getting secure on the ET despite a few runners-up spots. Would be nice to see him finally make it on the main stage... plus I always like to see fellow lefties do well!

Re Briscoe, I think it's just a pgatour.com error, maybe they haven't found the Wales flag icon that's been gathering dust since Richard Johnson vanished from the scene. Think he's done the Laird/Knox route of heading Stateside for college then sticking around to work his way on the minitours.

Threesomes on Sunday then, Gillis elbowing in on what would've been a fascinating last pairing of 22 year olds. Will be interested to see if Sky can pull off some live coverage!

predictions of bad weather on Sunday. Tee times have been moved up to 8:30 am on split tees. I Guess Leaders will go off at ~10:30 am.

harris looks so cool out there- he reminds me of jim furyk in his persona he has that level headedness and makes par putts for fun!

certainly not a european 'character' but possibly a future and id back him to become rookie of the year!

put some money on him because his odds have been plumeting in each event he has played and he has made 6 out of 6 cuts .

I saw him first in the walker cup(2011) and him and our boy's tom lewis and bryne looked the best of the bunch for my money!

Hold on to your hats down there at the "Honda".

There's a "wind advisory" (apparently nothing to do with Johnny Miller) for South Florida from noon Sunday to 5.00 p.m. with winds gusting to 30 or 40 mph. And it will cool down considerably from the early morning mid-70's to low/mid 60's by the time the leaders finish.

Chance of showers as well.

Caddies will earn their money today.

Great pick mysti, he'll have fun playing with Rory.

cheers!

its gonna be fun for me tonight!!

If we cast our minds back to the 2011 open we will remember that Rory does not play in the wind or poor conditions. I expect to see his withdrawal any time soon.

If the weather is as bad as the worst extreme of the forecast, there could easily be an interruption to the action.
In which case, I hope they give Sean O'Hair a reminder not to get too carried away with his video games and delay the restart (a la St.Andrews).

I read that Dicky Pride referred to Rory yesterday after his round as a 'sexy beast'... Not sure about Rory, but I'd feel quite uncomfortable to be called a 'sexy beast' by a guy with a name like that...

lol

Conjours up images of Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley . . . . .

There's a squall line north-west of Palm Beach Gardens forecast to reach the area by 10.00 a.m. (perhaps earlier from what I can tell). Would think Rory has a very favourable tee-time in that case, on the first tee at 10.30.

Should cool down and calm down once the front has zipped through.

There was some chat on here a while ago that the owgr tournament minimum (divisor) of 40 was unfair to new players. But I see that Harris English could be up to about 70th if he should win today. Not bad.

They're on their way with winds "25 mph gusting to 34 mph".
Good luck - water hazards everywhere!
Harrington in the first group - trying to remember Bob Torrance's advice when it was blowing a gale at Largs no doubt.

Rory learning the game in Ireland will only help him on a day like today.

Shotrock wrote:Rory learning the game in Ireland will only help him on a day like today.

well we have said that plenty of times in opens, however he allways cointradicts it and says he cant play in bad weather!!

lets be honest the guy is good enough whatever he has said!

I think everyone knows Rory grew up on a parkland course so I assume Shotrock meant he should be used to indifferent weather conditions and playing when it is a bit chilly.

I wonder, can anyone think of an example where Rory has excelled in poor conditions?

cant think of one to be honest.

however he did ok at st andrews in 2010- the weather got up abit then

kwinigolfer wrote:

There was some chat on here a while ago that the owgr tournament minimum (divisor) of 40 was unfair to new players. But I see that Harris English could be up to about 70th if he should win today. Not bad.

Present and accounted for.

Lets not forget that Harris English does have a fairly recent win and 2nd place on the NW Tour that is in his resume. And if he does win today, he is winning one of the 25-30 tournaments of the year. WINNING.

Looks like they'll be back at it by 11.30 a.m.

So the leaders will have been unscathed but will still have to contend with strongish winds and dipping temps (14 degrees F cooler now that two hours ago) - not clear how much rain, if any, fell at the course, but hopefully it will not have softened up the greens at all.

Players already on the course (figuratively speaking) are collectively 28 over par which makes Westwood's early birdie look pretty good!

No-one's doing much to improve their chances to play in next week"s "Cadiilac" (no Tiger jokes please), though English would scrape in with a win today.