What To Look For: 2021 Honda Classic

 Justin Thomas won The PLAYERS Championship

Thomas was 44th on my list of projected winners.  He has not played up to his standards this year with struggles off the tee and from the Red Zone which is unusual for him.  However he got back to his old ballstriking self on the weekend and came away with the victory.

Meanwhile...as the Bryson watch continues...DeChambeau showed some real skill this week on a course that usually neutralizes long hitters.  This was a display of Bryson being patient and utilizing the best strategy for the course by laying up off the tee and taking his chances that he could hit his layup clubs as far as the field average, but much more accurately and then take advantage on the holes he could use the driver.

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This week the Tour comes back to Palm Beach Gardens for the Honda Classic

PGA National is one of the more well known courses on Tour due to the famous 'Bear Trap' nickname for the holes on the back nine and it is open to the public.  Having said that, most Tour players I've talked to are not a big fan of the course due to the difficulty.

It's generally a tournament that players get into because the Palm Beach/Jupiter area is a popular residence for Tour players.  They can spend Monday and Tuesday working on their games at their home courses like The Bears Club, Old Marsh, The Dye Preserve, etc. and then play the pro-am on Wednesday.  It's also a good sized purse with a good fan turnout.

This is primarily a long iron course.  Even driving the ball well does not gain a lot of strokes compared to long iron play.

The final critical hole is the par-3 17th hole.

The difficult part to this design is the green shape is diagonal sloped to the right.  For right handed golfers the natural shot dispersion is to miss short on shots that miss to the right and long on shots that miss to the left.  The short right miss is the most common miss for righties and that plays 

The hole can play from 148 yards to 178 yards.  If the pin is back right, the players will need to be around 122-126 mph ball speed with ~8,500 rpm of spin.  Typically the issue is they don't generate enough spin on this hole while keeping the face fairly square to the path.  That means the ball will either fly further than they needed or they are hitting open face flares that end up in the drink.

Projected Winning Score: -11

3JACK'S FAVORITES

Daniel Berger +1,000

SungJae Im +1,200

Lee Westwood +2,000

Shane Lowry +2,500

Talor Gooch +2,800

3JACK'S DARK HORSE PICKS

Keegan Bradley +5,000

Dylan Frittelli +5,000

Patton Kizzire +10,000

Tom Hoge +10,000

Harry Higgs +12,500

3JACK