Best bets
2.5pts each-way Sungjae Im @ 12/1
1pt each-way Joaquin Niemann @ 18/1
1pt each-way Keith Mitchell @ 33/1
1pt each-way Matt Wolff @ 33/1
0.5pt each-way Alex Noren @ 28/1
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Paying SEVEN places at the Honda Classic!
Before getting down to the business of the week which is to identify the winner of the Honda Classic, let’s hear it first for the phenomenal Bernhard Langer who broke his own record as the oldest Champions Tour winner with his fourth Chubb Classic success in Florida at the weekend.
At 64 years, 5 months and 23 days and after shooting his age in round one, the fit-as-a-flea German posted his 43rd victory since joining the over-50s circuit and the 119th of a glorious career that began in the 1970s with attacks of the yips so painful to watch that his playing partners had to avert their eyes for fear of being contaminated.
From tee to green the young Langer was wonderful but from short range X-rated, often three-putting from four feet without the first two not even touching the sides.
Yet when he holed everything from long range and didn’t get the chance to twitch the short ones he was untouchable, winning the World Under-25 Championship by 17 shots. He was always the last on the practice green every night, stopping only when too dark to see, to find a cure for a “disease” which normally only afflicts older golfers.
And in spite of the yips returning from time to time, Langer found his own solution to such an extent that he won two Masters Green Jackets and 42 European Tour events, as well as playing in and captaining winning Ryder Cup sides.
Then, since turning fifty, 11 senior majors have been accumulated plus 32 more over-50 titles, often conceding superstars like Ernie Els up to 14 years start.
One landmark remains: passing triple US Open champion Hale Irwin’s record of 45 Champions Tour victories. If you can find a tame bookmaker who will lay you odds-against him getting the three more he needs, please let me know!
Langer has now won at least one tournament in each of the 16 seasons he has competed so dazzlingly on the “roundbellies” tour and with great rivals Steve Stricker recovering from serious illness and Phil Mickelson finding it hard to find anyone to play with him after his ill-considered attack on a tour which has paid him almost $100m in earnings, who is going to stop him?
And so to more immediate matters, the first leg of the Florida Swing on the fabulous Champion course at PGA National, where the players swap the Poa Annua greens of the West Coast for the entirely different Bermuda on the East.
It is important to find golfers who thrive on Bermuda and have performed well on previous visits to this searching test of golf, just two par fives (so no big advantage to bombers) but with water on 13 holes and the late fear factor of the Bear Trap, holes 15, 16, 17, two wicked par threes, the 17th particularly scary, with the daunting dogleg 16th the poisoned meat in the sandwich.
Last year the field of 144 ran up a cumulative 230 over par on that Jack Nicklaus-designed nightmare stretch and Ryan Palmer, the player with the greatest Honda experience, is himself 40 over since the tournament moved there in 2007 with 17 water balls. And he’s still coming back for more!
Not long at 7125 yards par 70, it yields birdies grudgingly and 11 of the 15 winning scores have been single digits under par. Even tougher than the Bear Trap is the par-four sixth, rated No. 10 in difficulty on the whole tour.
On the other side of the coin, last year’s winner Matt Jones holed everything in sight on day one to post a nine-under 61 but that record-equalling score is very much the exception.
With none of the world’s top ten in action at Palm Beach Gardens this week, as opposed to all ten at Riviera last week when Joaquin Niemann, Chile’s only world-class golfer, led from pillar to post after opening with a pair of 63s that more or less burnt off the bigger names, this one really is anybody’s.
Usually it is the player who suffers the least grief at the Bear Trap, avoids penalty shots, and shows the best nerve in the cauldron of fire who comes out on top.
There have been no repeat winners since PGA National started but it’s the exception that tests the rule and as this particular rule is not writ in stone I’m going for 2020 champion Sungjae Im to take the title for a second time.
Eighth last year following that hard-fought victory, the workaholic Im who lives out on the road and hates taking time off has built up a fine head of steam this campaign, winning in Las Vegas in October and kicking off 2022 with eighth at Kapalua, sixth at Torrey Pines and 11th at the AmEx. Still only 23, all courses seem to come alike to him.
A mass of Europeans starting their buildup to Augusta, including US debutant and recent UAE winner Nicolai Hojgaard, provide a good percentage of the opposition but will need to improve dramatically on last year’s woeful effort.
The list of casualties read like a who’s who of European golf with Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Martin Kaymer, Henrique Stenson, Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell, Luke Donald, Rafa Cabrera Bello, Matt Wallace and Russell Knox all missing the cut.
Yet the previous year Tommy Fleetwood and Westwood went close to victory and Ireland produced two Honda champions, Rory McIlroy and Harrington, in the past decade. This year Alex Noren, sixth at Scottsdale a couple of weeks ago and third to Justin Thomas in the 2018 Honda, looks Europe’s best hope.
With world No. 13 Louis Oosthuizen (never better than 18th at Honda) top man on rankings followed by Brooks Koepka (missed cut last week), Riviera hero Niemann won’t have a better chance of back-to-back victories even though, unless your name is Tiger Woods, that happens so rarely.
Past Riviera form reading 44-MC-43 made Niemann hard to pick but the clue was in his previous 2022 efforts, sixth at Torrey Pines, eighth in Saudi Arabia. So if you fancy him, don’t be put off by Honda form consisting of one missed cut, a 59th and a 25th.
Pocketing a life-changing $2.16m in LA will counteract any fatigue and if he can make the world’s best look ordinary, why not cash in again against the second division?
If there is to be a first repeat winner and it’s not Im, then Keith Mitchell is worthy of serious consideration. The 2019 winner is less predictable than Im but there’s no arguing with the current state of his game – seventh at Sony, 12th at Pebble and tenth at Scottsdale all caught the eye.
Veteran Aussie Jones warmed up for this title defence with 15th at Riviera and was unlucky to catch compatriot Cam Smith on a hot week when runner-up at Kapalua first time out this year. He can’t be ruled out.
If there is to be a breakthrough then dual Korn Ferry winner Cameron Young, joint second to Niemann at Riviera on only his 12th main-tour start – he picked up over $1m for losing! – is an obvious choice.
It isn’t the first time the 24-year-old New Yorker has suggested he’s no ordinary rookie. He was also a runner-up at Sanderson Farms at the end of last year and only stalled on the Sunday of the AmEx after firing himself into 54-hole contention.
But the fresher and even younger Matt Wolff could be an even better bet. He made the cut on his Honda bow and, unlike Young, has a win under his belt already, at the 3M on only his fourth start.
Wolff, still only 22, showed his hand at the end of last year with four stellar efforts in a row, the best of which was his second to Im at the Shriners.
Whether this rather volatile performer has the patience and temperament for this severe test is another matter but his great iron play sets up plenty of birdie chances and he has huge potential.
Of the market leaders, Daniel Berger, pipped by Harrington in a 2015 play-off and fourth in 2020, makes greater appeal than 2019 runner-up Koepka and Oosthuizen, who is still winless on American soil.
Bear Trap and water hazards apart, the wind across this exposed terrain is another key element in protecting par. It could to blow up to 15mph on Friday so even though it will be 25-27C for the four days, don’t expect a birdie-fest.
