Honda Classic: Thoughts and Observations from the Opening Round

Day One at the Honda Classic is in the books, so it’s time to take a look at what happened. Here are some thoughts and observations from the first round of play.

It’s nice having a full-field event going on once again, as there is plenty of golf to go through from the first day at the Honda Classic.

Scoring was a bit tough on the PGA National course, with only 22 people scoring under-par. Remember, there are 144 people there, which means that only 15.27% shot well today. There are 25 people at even, so there were quite a few that were close to joining them.

It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see a lack of low scores. In the last seven years, we have only seen a champion break into the double digits once. That was back in 2017 when Rickie Fowler shot -12 to win by four strokes over Morgan Hoffman and Gary Woodland.

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Speaking of Rickie Fowler, he did not have a good day today. In fact, he had one of the worst rounds of anyone on the course. Fowler shot 76, with only one birdie along with seven bogeys. This puts him at +6 for the Honda Classic so far, and a win is likely the furthest thing from his mind now and is going to have his work cut out for him if he wants to make the cut after the second round.

He wasn’t the only one to disappoint Thursday. Viktor Hovland, coming off of his first career win last week at the Puerto Rico Open, played even worse than Fowler. Hovland managed three birdies but tossed them away by carding eight bogeys plus a double bogey, as he would close out with a +7 77.

Pre-tournament favorite, Brooks Koepka, had one of the more interesting rounds of his career. Over a seven-hole stretch, he had three pars, two birdies, plus a double and a triple bogey. He looked like he may be turning it around with a birdie on the par-4 12th, but would finish with bogeys on 16 and 18 to shoot +4, in a T-103rd place.

In a trend of favorites struggling, Justin Rose joined Koepka and Fowler. He shot a +2 72, due to a double bogey on the 15th, and finds himself in a T-74th place. He will have a couple of shots to make up to get inside tomorrow’s projected cut line.

Tom Lewis was the early leader in the clubhouse, shooting a -4 66. He did it cleanly as well, carding two birdies and an eagle on the par 5 3rd hole.

Harris English looked like he was on his way to tying with Lewis at -4, as he did this at the 11th hole.

Perfect touch.@Harris_English chips in to move to 4-under and the co-lead.#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/tFWb9F8Y2G
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 27, 2020

He would drop a shot later on at the 13th hole but pick it back up on the 18th to finish in a tie for 1st with Lewis.

Doc Redman had a nice charge as he made his turn, and headed to the 2nd hole (his 11th) at even. He would string together four birdies in a row, getting to -4. Two bogeys on his last three holes would drop him to -2, where he is tied with Brendan Steele and Wyndham Clark.

Players will go off at 6:45 AM Friday morning. Funny enough, the two leaders are at completely opposite ends of the tee times. Harris English will go off the 10th tee at 6:45 with Harold Varner III and Kyoung-Hoon Lee. The man he is tied with, Tom Lewis, will go off the 10th as well, but in the last group with Rob Oppenheim and Mark Anderson.