Honda Classic: Sleeper Candidates to win in Florida
The PGA Tour is back in the States, and head to South Florida for the Honda Classic at PGA National.
As much fun as it was to see the smaller field last week at the WGC-Mexico Championship last week, it will be nice to be back to a normal event like the Honda Classic. Especially when it comes to picking sleeper candidates.
In smaller fields, you are left with a much smaller percentage of players to pick from. Last week, the top 1/3rd were all “ineligible” for sleeper status. At the Honda Classic, that percentage is a lot smaller, coming in around 15%.
Here’s how it went last week picking the sleeper candidates.
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Tyrrell Hatton: T-6th (-13): A bogey on 17 kept him from tying Rory for 5th.
Rafa Cabrera Bello: T-16th (-7): started slow with 71-71, finished strong with 67-68.
Kevin Kisner: T-18th (-6): A rough opening day of 73 was salvaged a bit by finishing 69-67-69.
Cameron Smith: T-22nd (-5): Opened 73-73, but shot the best final round with a 64.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout: T-29th (-3): Didn’t find the 60’s until Sunday’s 67.
None of them made the top five, and only one the top ten, but when the top of the leaderboard is littered with the likes of Reed, DeChambeau, Rahm, McIlroy, Matsuyama, Thomas, it can be hard to find a spot at the top.
We will keep the cutoff at +5000. Only 20 players are ineligible this week, which makes it a bit easier to choose from the remainder of the field. Let’s get to it, here are the sleeper candidate picks to contend at the Honda Classic.
Ryan Palmer: +5500
Ryan Palmer played well here last year, putting together a fantastic final round 63 to vault all the way up to a T-4th place finish. I like the mix of success so far in the 2020 season with a nice memory of success at the Honda Classic last year. With two top tens and a 12th place finish so far this year, Palmer continues to show he is right there in the mix. His short game will determine his success here, as that is the weaker part of his game.
Lucas Glover: +5500
Now, for the life of me, I don’t understand the rest of Glover’s odds. Either +5500 is off, or the rest are. Palmer is +600 to finish in the top ten, and Glover is +850. In fact, he has the worst odds out of the first four in today’s picks. If not for a 3rd round +2 72, Glover would’ve come down to the end of the tournament with a chance to win. Like Palmer, he finished T-4th last year.
Also like Palmer, he struggles a bit around the green. His driver will give him plenty of opportunities though, as his length and accuracy off the tee (51st in distance and 69th in accuracy) is a great combination.
Jhonattan Vegas: +6500
Vegas is coming off his lone top-10 finish of the year, where he finished T-9th at the Puerto Rico Open after a blistering 62 to end the tournament. Last year, he opened strongly at the Honda Classic with a 64 and actually led by two after day one. He would end up finishing in a T-16th place. Back in 2017, he finished T-4th. I like the combo of a recent great round, with a nice history at the Honda. You can get Vegas, like Glover, at +850 to finish in the top ten.
Russell Knox: +7000
Knox is one of the better iron players on tour this year, at least when you look at SG on approach shots. He ranks 17th in SG, and 16th in GIR. He’s going to find a lot of greens this week, as long as his play off the tee can get him close enough.
He has had some success here before, finishing T-3rd in 2015, and T-2nd in 2014. I like Knox to make a quiet run, playing consistently with his strong approach game all week, sneaking up the board and into contention come Sunday.
Lucas Bjerregaard: +21000
We will finish it up by jumping down the board a bit. Bjerregaard jumped on to the public stage last year due to a mix of his cool name (sounds a bit like Beer guard) and his great play at the WGC-Dell Match Play event. He seems to step up when it matters, finishing 4th at the Match Play, 21st at The Masters, and 16th at both the PGA Championship and the Open Championship.
The good news is that he might few this as his last warm-up event before things get serious over the next five months. He finished T-12th here last year, only stumbling a bit on day three with three bogeys and a double. This could be the tourney he turns it on to make sure he is ready for the top-level golf coming up, and +1000 for him to finish in the top-20 sounds like a solid play to take.
Best of luck to everyone playing at the Honda Classic this week, especially to the underdogs!