PGA DFS: The First Cut, 2020 Honda Classic for DraftKings and FanDuel

Welcome to the Florida swing, which brings some of my favorite golf of the year. Sure, a little of that comes from the fact that I live in Florida, and if schedules work out, I could go to any and/or all of the tournaments. Nothing beats an in-person PGA DFS sweat. This year I’ll be heading to this week’s Honda Classic and my backyard event, the Valspar Championship.

The Florida swing brings a quick and abrupt change from the West Coast swing, as lock times will now be at 6:45 a.m. EST on Thursdays and Fridays. There is a complete 180 in grass types as well, going from bent to all Bermuda everywhere. Bent can survive the cold and does terrible in the heat, which is obviously not suitable for Florida.

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The PGA DFS First Look

PGA DFS Tournament Intro: Honda Classic

This Week’s Course

PGA National

Tournament Format

A field of 144 players and a cut after 36 holes of play with the top 65 making the weekend.

Course and Tournament Commentary

West Palm Beach has always kicked off the Florida swing no matter what tournament followed. It’s a staunch test year in and year out, but as a par 70 at 7,100 yards, one would think it shouldn’t be that difficult. It is within 10 miles of the Atlantic so it can get quite breezy, but it also has tons of water in play. It will create some of the best cut sweats of the year. No score is safe if you have 16-18 to play in round 2.

The tournament has been played since 1972, becoming the Honda Classic in 1984 and moving to PGA National in 2007. So that’s 13 years of data, a pretty good sample size for the Tour’s rotation. It typically plays as one of the hardest courses everywhere and plays even harder if there is any expected wind. As of the earliest forecast possible, it looks like we could get 20-plus mph at least one of the first few days. That will likely lead to a well-over-par cut.

PGA National

Par and Yardage

Par 70: 7,100 yards.

Course Difficulty 2019

5/49, about one full stroke over par.

Hole Dispersion

Four Par 3’s : 217, 226, 179, 175
12 Par 4’s: 365, 464, 395, 479, 427, 421, 508, 450, 438, 388, 465, 434
Two Par 5’s: 538, 566

Grass Types

Bermuda

Designer

Jack Nicklaus re-design. Don’t get caught in his bear trap

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PGA DFS Sweatsheet: Honda Classic

You best bring your A-game on the two par 5’s this week, as about 30% of the total scoring will come from those two holes alone. The great thing about 18, though, is that trouble looms everywhere. So while it may be a relatively easy birdie hole — close to a 40% birdie rate last year — seven or even eight is also easily in play.

PGA DFS Preview

It’s not great to look too far forward, but one can’t help but see what’s coming. For the first time ever, DraftKings will offer $1 million first-place prize at The Players Championship. In terms of the Honda, it seems DraftKings is a bit nervous about the early lock time, taking prize pools down quite a bit from Mexico.

Fantasy Golf Player and PGA DFS Statistical Preview: Honda Classic

Commentary

While Brook Koepka may be the only golfer at the tournament ranked inside the top 10 in the world, the field is solid and deep. Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose and Louis Oosthuizen lead a contingent of strong European Tour players that have come to their Florida homes and will be playing on the PGA Tour for the next month or so leading up to The Masters. Kurt Kitayama, Erik van Rooyen, Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Matt Wallace, Lee Westwood, Shane Lowry and Ian Poulter are also playing this week.

For the PGA Tour players, the South Korean duo of Byeong Hun-An and Sungjae Im joins Americans Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel. Viktor Hovland is joined by teammate Matthew Wolff and Chilean prodigy Joaquin Niemann as the young studs of the field. Tom Lewis will look to get back on track after a missed cut out in Puerto Rico last week.

PGA DFS Statistical Preview: Honda Classic

Previous Winners

2019: Keith Mitchell: -9
2018: Justin Thomas: -8
2017: Rickie Fowler: -12
2016: Adam Scott: -9
2015: Padraig Harrington: -6

PGA DFS Statistical Preview

Driving Accuracy vs. Driving Distance: Mitchell had won of the worst driving accuracies on tour last year, and ranked inside the top 25 in driving distance. In fact, each of the last four winners has failed to reach 70% fairways hit for the week, with Thomas and Mitchell hitting less than 60% on their way to victory. Controlling the ball out of this Bermuda rough will be the key factor this week.
Strokes Gained Tee to Green Analysis: Winners here the last few years have avoided the big numbers, and Mitchell and Thomas both avoided doubles the week they won. You can’t do that at PGA National without a complete, well-rounded game, and each of the last four winners has gained strokes in all three tees-to-green categories. The last two gained at least two strokes over their four rounds around the green.
Putting; How good do you need to be here?: With winning scores in the single digits almost every single year, you really don’t need to be a good putter to win. Sure, Rickie Fowler is one of the best out there, but the other three names surrounding him, not so much.

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Author

Jason Rouslin

Jason established his roots in the littlest state that could...Rhode Island. But after 29 years of bitter cold, and only being able to play golf 4 months a year, upended those roots and moved to Florida. Now four years later, Jason is a husband to Sarah and father of two boys, James & Myles. A dog and more specifically Lab lover (Bella), he dedicates his time to serve as the lead of PGA content at Awesemo.com. In the time he is not diving into the PGA stats and covering this week's current tournament, you can find him researching and trading stocks, on the golf course, at Disney World, on a hike, or somewhere in between. Want to chat? Have a question about Golf/Stocks or anything else? Hop on twitter and give him a message @dfsgolfer23. You can also contact Jason by emailing [email protected].