It’s cut day at PGA National, and some big names missed the cut at the Honda Classic.
If you were told that three of the favorites would miss the cut at the Honda Classic, it would’ve been hard to believe. Yet, that’s where we are after Friday’s round.
Let’s start off with the number one favorite at the tournament. Brooks Koepka came in with the best odds to win the tournament. It ended up being the worst he played to start a tournament since… the ’17 Honda Classic when he shot +9.
This go-round, he started off with a 74. He ended up liking that score so much, that he went out on Friday and shot it again. Back to back 74’s had him finish at +8, which was five shots off of the cut line.
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He wasn’t the only big name to miss the tournament. Louis Oosthuizen went one worse than Koepka by shooting 74-75, with Viktor Hovland taking it one shot further by going 77-73. It was especially disappointing for Hovland coming off of his first career win last week at the Puerto Rico Open.
The second-biggest mover of the Honda Classic Friday still managed to miss the cut. Rickie Fowler shot a 68 and jumped 64 spots to get to +4 for the tournament. Unfortunately for him, the cut was +3, and he wasn’t quite able to make it. His first-round 76 really put him at a disadvantage, and with the lack of scoring opportunities at PGA National, he wasn’t able to catch back up.
There was one other favorite who looked like he was going to make it. Justin Rose was +2 heading into Friday and was looking at needing to shoot 70 or 71 to make the cut. Through nine holes, he definitely looked like he had turned it around, shooting -1 on the front. The back nine would be a completely different story.
He would walk to the 13th hole still at -1 for the day, and +1 overall. Over the next three holes, he would go bogey, bogey, and then a double bogey on 15 as he got to the Bear Trap. A bogey on 18 would finish him off, and he would turn in a 74, missing the cut by three strokes.
Enough with the negative, let’s look at the top of the leaderboard and see who is in a good position heading into the weekend.
Scoring has been at a premium all week so far, as no one has turned in a card better than a -4 66. In fact, there is only one player who is lower than -4 for the tournament. Brendan Steele currently holds that designation as the leader of the tournament at -5.
Three out of the four players who shot -4 today jumped into the top ten. Luke Donald is -4 for the tournament and sits in a T-2nd place. Nick Watney is in a T-5th, and sits at -3. Sung-jae Im is up to a T-9th at -2. The biggest jump of the entire day belongs to Byeong-Hun An. He shot 76 on Thursday’s round, but his -4 Friday jumped him 88 spots into a T-44th at +2.
Gary Woodland is currently the favorite to win the tournament, even though he is two strokes back at -3. An opening round 70 was followed up by a 67 on Friday.
Tee Times start off a bit later now that cuts have been made. Mark Anderson is going off by himself at 8:10 Eastern, although someone will join him by the time he gets there as no one on the PGA Tour ever plays by themself. The next tee time is 8:15, and they will go off every ten minutes until the leaders, who are set to tee off at 1:45 PM. You will be able to see Brendan Steele and J.T. Poston then. With the lack of scoring so far, they may still be in the lead by the time they tee off.