If sleeping in your own bed is an advantage to an athlete than Rickie Fowler and Rory McIlroy were the right picks by oddsmakers to win this week’s Honda Classic. The PGA Tour event is at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and both have homes near the PGA National Golf Club.
It certainly helped Fowler last year. He shot three rounds in the 60s and cruised to a four-stroke victory over Morgan Hoffmann and Gary Woodland. He is the favorite to defend his title at 8/1. McIlroy joins JT Thomas at 10/1. Masters Champion Sergio Garcia is making his PGA Tour debut this week and is fourth at 16/1.
McIlroy made no secret about his desire to get back to Florida and leave the West Coast. He missed the cut at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am and finished tied for 20th last week at the Genesis Open. He won this event in 2012 and lost in a playoff in 2014.
Tiger Woods is entered but is not given much of a chance by sports books to win. He is at 40/1 with BetOnline, but 66/1 with Bovada. The Westgate LV SuperBook has him at 60/1. Woods has never won this event, but did finish tied for second in 2012.
Fowler Frontrunner
The 29 year old has won four times on the PGA Tour and finished second in November at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba and first in the limited field Hero World Challenge in December
This year he has played three events. He began the year at the Tournament of Champions and finished fourth. He missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open and tied for 11th at the Waste Management Open. He did not play last week at the Genesis Open.
PGA National’s Champions Course is more comparable to Torrey Pines where Fowler did not make the weekend. It was ranked the toughest Par 70 course on the tour in 2015 and 2016, but was softened a bit and fell to sixth last year.
He won the Honda Classic last year by hitting fairways, greens in regulation and scrambling when he didn’t. Whoever wins will need to be in the top 20 of all three of those statistical categories, which will only be made more difficult with the strong winds that are predicted for the tournament.
Spaniard Returns to States
Sergio Garcia has seen several life-altering changes both on and off the golf course. He won his first major championship in April at the Masters. He got married and the couple is expecting their first child in the next month.
He has already won this year, capturing the Asian Tour’s SMBC Singapore Open in January. He finished tied for 32nd at the Dubai Desert Classic a week later. He has not played since the end of January but feels he is ready despite the distractions of being impending fatherhood.
“Well, hopefully it won’t change much because that means that everything will go right, and that’s what you wish for,” he said.
