Horse For The Course: PGA DFS Course History - Honda Classic

Joe Nicely's under-the-radar DraftKings, FanDuel PGA DFS picks for the The Honda Classic. His Horse for the Course for daily fantasy golf based on course history.

Hello RotoBallers and welcome to Horse For The Course! THE PLAYERS Championship seems to consistently produce drama on an annual basis and it once again provided an exciting week of golf. Justin Thomas outlasted the pair of Lee Westwood and Bryson DeChambeau for his first PLAYERS title and first victory of 2021.

After a week filled with drama at TPC Sawgrass, there's naturally a little letdown for a Honda Classic field that's a bit lacking in starpower this week. Despite the weaker field, this event gives us a great (and tough) golf course. Let's dive in!

Horse For The Course is an article that highlights players in this week's field with elite course history and is part of our free PGA DFS content here at RotoBaller. For my favorite DFS plays of the week check out my Core Four article here at RotoBaller every Wednesday. It's part of our amazing PGA Premium package that includes an all-new PGA Research Station, Lineup Builder & Optimizer, and some of the best articles in the PGA DFS industry! You can sign up now using Promo Code: NICE for an extra discount at checkout!

The Honda Classic Overview

A longstanding fixture on the PGA Tour schedule, the Honda Classic just can't seem to get a break with the schedule makers lately. Last year the Honda was sandwiched between the WGC-Mexico and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a placing on the schedule that certainly impacted the turnout. The Tour tried shifting things a bit this year, but left the Honda stuck between THE PLAYERS and next week's WGC-Match Play event. Not exactly a great solution...

One of the things that's always made the Honda feel special is the difficulty of the golf course, PGA National. Unfortunately, in today's modern game players aren't exactly knocking each other over to play a very difficult golf course if they don't have to.

As a result, this year's Honda Classic is headlined by the event's defending champion, Sungjae Im. Im is set to defend against the likes of Daniel Berger, a red-hot Lee Westwood, and rising star Joaquin Niemann. That's...about it, as this salary scale runs dry in a hurry. Nonetheless, any week with PGA DFS is a good week, so let's dig in!

You can also find out who the smart money is on by checking out Spencer Aguiar's PGA DFS: Vegas Report every week. And be sure to read all of our other top-notch weekly PGA DFS articles to help you win big!

The Course: PGA National (Champion Course)

Par 70 - 7,125 Yards, Greens: Bermuda, Designed By: Tom & George Fazio, Jack Nicklaus

As I mentioned in the intro, the players are facing a daunting task this week at PGA National. The Champion course routinely ranks as one of the most difficult layouts on the PGA Tour schedule with a score of 8-10-under par usually being enough to win the tournament. The infamous 'Bear Trap' is a brutal three hole stretch (Holes #15,16,& 17) that can destroy a players' scorecard at the end of a round.

Water is prevalent on the Champion layout and over 75 sand traps lay waiting around the course. As if all that weren't enough, the Florida wind can always wreak havoc when it starts gusting! If you want to dial in some key stats for this tournament, golfers this week will face SEVEN Par-4s that measure between 400-450 yards and the largest number of approach shots will fall in the 150-200 yard range. I'm looking for players that have the ability to succeed on hard courses, can avoid bogeys, and are solid ball strikers with strong proximity numbers in the 150-200 yard range. We can also throw in a dash of Bermuda putting splits.

For an in-depth breakdown of this week's course, check out RotoBaller's PGA Premium Course Breakdown by Josh Bennett!

Recent Champions & Winning Scores

• 2020: Sungjae Im (-6)
• 2019: Keith Mitchell (-9)
• 2018: Justin Thomas (-8)
• 2017: Rickie Fowler (-12)
• 2016: Adam Scott (-9)

The Horses - The Honda Classic

Despite an unbelievably-strong field last week at THE PLAYERS Championship, course history was something of a moving target, as TPC Sawgrass has traditionally produced erratic play. This week’s Honda Classic offers a much weaker field of golfers, but the host course, PGA National, sports teeth just as sharp as the more well known Sawgrass, with blustery winds expected this week only adding to the difficulty.

We had 48 of the world’s top-50 players in attendance for last week’s PLAYERS and it’s safe to say that is not the case for the Honda, an event that seems to be on the losing end of the PGA Tour’s schedule makers. A very tough golf course that’s sandwiched between the PLAYERS and the WGC Match Play isn’t going to be a big draw for the sports pampered f***s and the result is a DraftKings salary scale that gets very thin, very quick.

In the absence of a true “elite” player, the duo of Sungjae Im (DraftKings: $11,000) and Daniel Berger (DK: $10.8k) will have to suffice as our top options. It’s not meant as a slam on either player to say that their respective price tags indicate the strength of this field, so while we’ve grown accustomed to seeing both Im and Berger in the $8k-ish range, we must be willing to spend up to the tune of $11k in order to grab them this week. 

Arguments can be made for either, as Sungjae is the defending Honda Classic champion after all. The young Korean grabbed his maiden PGA Tour win last year in a dramatic Sunday at PGA National. The popular factoid to spew is that Im likes Bermuda greens, but a combined +15.4 SG: Putting mark over three tournaments since the start of the Florida Swing drive home the fact that the saying is much more than just hyperbole. Despite the hot putting and top-25s in his last two at THE PLAYERS and the API, Sungjae still feels a bit wobbly as a whole. He’d lost strokes on Approach in three straight before finishing just on the positive side with his irons at Sawgrass (+0.2) and he’s also lost strokes Around The Green in three straight and five of his last six. Not exactly a wonderful stat on a PGA National layout where scrambling is so important. 

Volatility issues aren’t as big of a concern with Daniel Berger, a player that posted a win at Pebble Beach a month ago and comes in on the heels of a strong top-10 outing at THE PLAYERS last week. Berger doesn’t have a Honda win on his resume, but a T4 last year and a runner-up finish back in 2015 indicates he possesses all the tools needed to handle this tough PGA National layout.

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As we move down the salary scale, a red-hot Lee Westwood (DK: $10.6k) is tough to ignore, due both to his unreal recent form and a Honda track record that includes two top-fives (a T4 last year) and two top-10s over eight career starts. While veterans like Adam Scott (DK: $10.1k) and Russell Henley (DK: $9.8k) are both former Honda winners that certainly have the ball-striking prowess to get things done again this week and perhaps feel a class-level above the majority of this field when it comes to pedigree. 

Rickie Fowler (DK: $8.9k) was once money in the bank in this event, winning it in 2017 and posting a runner-up in 2019, however Rickie has made more money off the course than on it over the past year and he’s lost a combined 12 strokes total in his last two starts at Bay Hill and Sawgrass. He’s always intriguing when there is wind in the forecast, but I just can’t trust him at this point of his career.

Speaking of guys we can’t trust...both Byeong Hun An (DK: $8.0k) and Wyndham Clark (DK: $8.0k) have been DFS kryptonite the last two weeks, but each has the type of track record at the Honda - and the type of GPP upside - that pulls them into consideration on this watered-down slate. An has recorded top-five finishes in two of his last three trips to PGA National, while Clark had a chance to win this event in his Honda debut in 2019 before eventually settling for a T7 and following it up with a T11 last year. In Clark’s case specifically, a T8 at the Genesis indicates he isn’t too far removed from playing good golf.

Moving into the $7k range presents us with lots of guys with spotty course history, bad recent form, or a mixture of the two. Since we really have no choice other than to embrace the volatility this week, maybe we should roll the dice on Jhonattan Vegas (DK: $7.3k), a streaky ball striker with a strong PGA National track record and a spot of recent form. Vegas has made four consecutive cuts at the Honda and survived the cutline last week at THE PLAYERS after logging a random runner-up finish in Puerto Rico. He’s undoubtedly inconsistent, but does have some intriguing upside at this price point and has made a career out of two wins at another Nicklaus-designed course, Glen Abbey, the former annual host of the RBC Canadian Open.

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