Since 2007, the PGA National has become the regular host track for the Honda Classic. The par 70 Tom Fazio design sets one of the toughest tests on the PGA Tour with the winning score being better than 10 under par on four occasions during those fifteen renewals.
This week, there’s a change of green from the recent Poa Annua to the PGA National’s Bermuda Tifeagle variant. Strong approach players and scramblers around the greens often flourish here on the first event of the Florida Swing.
February 24- February 27 at Palm Beach Gardens
Par 70, 7140 yards
This Week’s Honda Classic Picks Features Two Thirty-Year-Olds. Keith Mitchell is bidding to become a two-time Honda Classic Champion this week. There can be little doubt, that Keith Mitchell is a more accomplished PGA Tour player than when he was the shock winner here in 2019.
The thirty-year-old from Chattanooga in Tennessee has solidly started the season with top 20 finishes at the Sony Open, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, and the Phoenix Open. 2021 was more erratic for Mitchell with plenty of missed cuts, but he did bank three big cheques through top 5 finishes at the Wells Fargo Championship, the 3M Open, and the CJ Cup at Summit.
That last result at the CJ Cup at Summit saw Mitchell hold the 36-hole lead only to fall away with a poor third round. The winner of that event was the 2020 Honda Classic champion, Sungjae Im who has excelled here at PGA National while he shared 3rd place with Rickie Fowler, who has always had a strong affinity here, winning in 2017.
It’s fair to say, the Summit Club has a strong correlation with this week’s PGA National which perhaps is no surprise given it was also a Tom Fazio design. I think with that 3rd place at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow, another Fazio design, it’s fair to call Keith Mitchell a Tom Fazio design specialist.
His price is a little shorter than I’d have preferred but there are no holes in his current form and this week’s field is considerably weaker than last. Take Keith Mitchell’s price of +3500 amongst your best bets at the Honda Classic.
Golf Pick: Keith Mitchell Win (+3500) with GTbets (visit our GTbets Review)
Golf Pick: Keith Mitchell Top 5 (+700) with Bovada (visit our Bovada Review)
When Keith Mitchell won the 2019 Honda Classic, Kyoung-Hoon Lee was in the thick of things at the top of the leaderboard all week. A poor final round of 71 saw the thirty-year-old South Korean, Kyoung-Hoon Lee fall out of contention to finish 7th.
Like Mitchell, Kyoung-Hoon Lee was in the early stages of his PGA Tour career back in 2019 and lacking in experience at the top of the leaderboard. That’s not the case three years on, having won his maiden PGA Tour title last season at the AT&T Byron Nelson where he outstayed an inform, Sam Burns.
A 6th place at the 3M Open is his best effort since but Lee has been a model of consistency only missing four cuts in those twenty PGA Tour events. Contrary to Mitchell, I figured Kyoung-Hoon Lee would be a similar price to gain redemption for the 2019 renewal. So, to see the opening show of +6600 with BetOnline makes Kyoung-Hoon Lee a bet this week amongst our BMR’s best bets.
Golf Pick: Kyoung-Hoon Lee Win (+6600) with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
Golf Pick: Kyoung-Hoon Lee Top 5 (+1200) with GTbets
It would be nothing unusual for a longshot to win the 2022 Honda Classic with three winners in recent years at +30000 or bigger in the betting. 2019, it was Keith Mitchell, our earlier selection, before that it was Padraig Harrington and Russell Henley at similar numbers.
This week’s long shot bomb is Lee Hodges, on debut who appears overlooked in the market after a solid Genesis Invitational and a 3rd place finish at the American Express a few weeks prior. The twenty-six-year-old from Alabama played well at last year’s Barracuda Championship where coincidentally Brandon Hagy and Adam Schenk played well on both renewals at the Tahoe Mountain Club in Tahoe.
Hagy and Schenk are proven course specialists at PGA National indicating a correlation between the two courses. Either way, the longshot price of +15000 with BetOnline at this week’s Honda Classic brings ample risk-reward that Lee Hodges may be ideally suited by the PGA National and become this year’s bomb price winner.
Golf Pick: Lee Hodges Win (+15000) with BetOnline
Golf Pick: Lee Hodges Top 5 (+2500) with Bovada
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.