Great field for Honda Classic
BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2011 The Honda Classic | Preview | 01 Mar 2011
The PGA Tour moves east this week to Palm Beach in Florida for the Honda Classic at the PGA National Champion Course at Palm Beach Gardens where Camilo Villegas will seek to defend the title he won by five shots over Anthony Kim.
The tournament is played over the PGA National’s Champion Course, an original Tom and George Fazio designed layout but reworked on two occasions by Jack Nicklaus.
The field is a strong one given that the world numbers two, three and four have entered, as have Rory McIlroy (8) and Matt Kuchar (10). That this tournament is sandwiched between last week’s Accenture Match Play and next week’s WGC event at Doral in Miami has all but guaranteed a great field.
Previous winner Luke Donald, fresh from his great victory in Arizona last week is the logical favourite as not only is he a previous winner of this event he has also been runner up. He did not win at this venue but did finish second here in 2008.
Westwood finished 9th in this event last year but he seems to have gone off the boil a little of late. He is certainly not as sharp as he was leading into this event twelve months ago and that is the concern for his followers.
Vijay Singh is rapidly returning to the sort of form we saw from him several seasons ago before injury became such an issue for him. He finished second to Aaron Baddeley in Los Angeles recently and importantly has a great record in this event. He finished 4th last year, runner-up in 2005 and won back in 1999. His win was not at this course but his 4th place finish last year was. I like Singh’s chances.
Matt Kuchar is another former winner of this event who is also in good form of late. Kuchar won his first PGA Tour event in this tournament when it was held at the TPC at Herron Bay and at present seems incapable of putting a foot wrong.
Australians in the field are Marc Leishman, Jarrod Lyle, Adam Scott, Nathan Green, Greg Chalmers, Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Nick O’Hern and John Senden.
