PALM BEACH GARDENS – The Honda Classic couldn’t be more conveniently located for Patrick Cantlay, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson.
Each of these players, all ranked in the top 10 in the world, reside in northern Palm Beach County, all within a 10-20 minute drive of Honda’s home, PGA National. It’s an event they can play while sleeping in their own bed, enjoying home-cooked meals and giving a nice boost to their local tournament.
Still, none of those elite golfers who have moved to our area to take advantage of our weather, world-class golf courses, restaurants — and most importantly, tax breaks — feel the need to give back a week of their time.
A week for the community that has given them everything they need to succeed at the highest level by playing in their hometown PGA tournament.
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Thomas, No. 7 in the World Golf Rankings, has not been in Honda since 2019. McIlroy, No. 5, has now skipped four in a row. Johnson, No. 9, has not played since 2015. Cantlay, No. 3, never played it out at Honda.
The tournament, which begins Thursday at PGA National, will be played on the Champion Course, which last season ranked third on the Tour’s toughest Tour. Just sayin.’
Honda has faced disappointing pitches in recent years, partly because of where it falls on the PGA Tour schedule and partly because a handful of the best golfers in the world who live in our community shun the tournament.
The tournament was boosted by moving to the start of the Florida Swing this year with a field that includes six of the top 25 players in the World Golf Rankings and 11 of the top 50 (plus numbers 51 and 52).
“There are so many good players here that the Honda will produce its own stars,” said Jack Nicklaus, whose Nicklaus Children’s Health Care foundation is the main beneficiary of the Honda Classic.
“Guys will play well at the Honda and they will keep coming back, soon they will be your lifeblood of the PGA Tour.”
Nicklaus, as well as Honda officials, are careful not to publicly criticize the best golfers who can roll out of bed and be on the course in less time than it takes to play the Bear Trap. Heck, McIlroy lives so close that he can walk there in less time than it takes to play nine holes.
The program is packed at this time of year. This year Honda is stuck between two invitees – the Genesis hosted by Tiger Woods and the Arnold Palmer in Bay Hill – and two weeks before The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
Still, many others, including fan favorites Brooks Koepka, Daniel Berger, Rickie Fowler and Gary Woodland, along with other locals in the top 50 like Genesis champion Joaquin Niemann, Shane Lowry and Matthew Wolff, manage to fit the event into their schedule.
“It’s a lot,” said Thomas. “There are probably four or five tournaments that I would like to play that are just not in a good part of the schedule. That’s just the way it is.
“Unfortunately sometimes you just have to take off and if I played that it would be a lot of golf in a row and I really don’t have to hate golf in mid-February.”
Thomas played the Phoenix Open and Genesis in the past two weeks. Prior to that, he played twice since the first week of December. And he probably won’t play in the Palmer the week after Honda. He has not played against Bay Hill since 2015.
He will have played 16 rounds of competitive golf in the space of 94 days prior to The Players.
McIlroy uses Honda week as his break between playing Genesis and the Palmer Invitational. He will then be in the playing field.
Thomas and McIlroy have both had success on the Champion Course. JT won Honda in 2018 and was third two years earlier. Rory, ranked number 5, was the champion in 2012 and runner-up in 2014.
Johnson tried to play against Honda three times. He missed the cut twice and finished 46th. He is a combined 27-over par in his eight rounds.
So the man who spent 135 weeks at the top of the World Golf Rankings has surrendered and given up playing the challenging course. His last attempt was when he missed the cut in 2015. After missing the cut at Genesis last week, Johnson has played two rounds of competitive golf since Feb. 6. And if he skips the Palmer, which he has done since 2011, he will have played two rounds of competitive golf in 31 days at The Players.
Three years ago, during Honda week, Johnson traveled further to perform for Swiss watchmaker Hublot on Palm Beach than he would have done if his schedule that day included a trip to PGA National.
Hawking Hublots pays more than missing the cut.
A Long Beach native, Cantlay recently expressed his love for “golf in California.” He played the last three weeks and four of the last five. He will probably take a two week break.
From 2014 to 2018, Honda attracted on average about half of the top 20 golfers in the world at the time and more than half in the top 10. This is the second consecutive year that the field has missed a player who is currently in the top 10. .
Two schedule changes affected the Honda field. The World Golf Championships event in Doral was moved to Mexico in 2016, and in 2019 the Players Championship was moved from May to March.
Over the past four years, while Honda has competed in two invitees, a WGC event and The Players, Honda has received pledges of 19 players in the top 20 and four in the top 10, combined.
The longest-running sponsor tournament on the Tour is under pressure from these events, making it easy for many to get started this week.
Honda has moved three weeks into the start of the Florida Swing this year — it followed a WCG event at The Concession, Bay Hill and The Players last year — and it helped.
Still, nothing beats the fields we saw in the early to mid 2010s.
“The Honda is in a difficult place,” Nicklaus said. “They’ve come from a series of pretty good tournaments, and especially Riviera. The guys love Riviera, it’s a nice golf course, it’s fun to play. Then they have to travel around the country and hit the Honda.
“Many go to Bay Hill because of their respect for Arnold. Then they play TPC. They can’t play all those weeks. I understand. I couldn’t play all those weeks.”
Golfers can’t play every week. That is understood. But the bigger names who now routinely turn down their home city tournament could easily find a way to fit Honda into their schedules.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Honda Classic: Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson among the cutoff events
