The PGA Tour’s West Coast swing has been wrapped up and we now get set for even more thrilling golfing action, this time from sunny Florida for the 2016 Honda Classic.
A bevy of the best players on the Tour are set to tee off at the PGA National Golf Club this Thursday, but exactly how does each competitor fare against the entire field? In this week’s edition of our PGA Power Rankings column, we’ll run down the top 10 participants that have the best chance of coming away with a victory at Palm Beach Gardens.
After you’ve gone through the list below, head on over to our complete preview, sleeper picks and expert predictions for this week’s tournament to get everything you need to know about the Honda Classic.
Too bad we didn’t get to see Rickie Fowler in action this past week at the Northern Trust Open. He’s as hot as they come entering the Honda Classic, having won in Abu Dhabi a month ago (for a European Tour event) then finishing as the runner-up in Phoenix earlier this month.
Fowler has three top 10 finishes and a non-PGA Tour win since December, which even makes his early exit from the Farmers Insurance Open late in January appear like a mere anomaly. With such great form of late, this could very well be the 27-year-old phenom’s breakout season that we’ve all been waiting for, and we’ll get another great look at him this week at PGA National.
2. Adam Scott
This past week, Adam Scott finished as the runner-up to Bubba Watson at the Northern Trust Open. With that result, the Aussie now has two second-place finishes at the PGA Tour level for the season.
Scott had only entered the Honda Classic once of the past four years, but he did have a decent finish (T12) at this tournament in 2014. The 16-year Tour veteran has been maddeningly inconsistent in years past, but it looks as if he’s turned a corner this year based on his recent outputs.
3. Rory McIlroy
Had Rory McIlroy not tanked in the final round of the Northern Trust Open and finished tied for 20th at that event, the Irish native would’ve easily topped our list here.
Still, having won the Honda Classic title back in 2012 and finishing as the runner-up in 2014 bodes well for McIlroy’s prospects of winning again in Palm Beach Gardens on Sunday. By the way, Rory has two recent top-10 finishes from a pair of lesser tourneys out in the Middle East, but he’ll need to take his renewed game since his injury back unto the PGA Tour, and quick.
4. Patrick Reed
Patrick Reed sure has been active this entire season, and he’s been very good at those previous tournaments at that. Out of the eight PGA Tour events he partook in this 2015-16 season, the San Antonio native only had two instances where he finished worse than 12th place.
In fact, Reed has five top 10 finishes during that same span. He has a pair of runner-up finishes from The Bahamas and Kapalua, and even ended in sixth place this past week at the Riviera. Consistency has been Reed’s forte, and it’s only a matter of time before he finally grabs his first title of the year. Could this week’s Honda Classic be it?
5. Phil Mickelson
Who says 45-year-old Phil Mickelson is over the hill? With two finishes in the top three and another being an 11th-place finish over his last four starts, Lefty is playing some of his best golf in quite some time.
Mickelson made the most out of the West Coast swing indeed, where he has had plenty of success throughout his storied career. A trip back out to the Keys may work against him, but let’s not forget that he finished a solid 17th at the Honda Classic just last year.
6. Hideki Matsuyama
In the five tournaments that Hideki Matsuyama didn’t get cut or have had to withdraw from this season, he finished no worse than 17th-place in of those outings. The Japanese upstart even followed-up his first win of the year at the Phoenix Open with a superb 11th-place finish at the Northern Trust Open this past week.
Matsuyama has only been to the Honda Classic once, which was back in 2013 where he withdrew from play in the first round. Now armed with a better all-around game, the 23-year-old will look to carry over his positive momentum to PGA National this week to not only win the tournament, but to also possibly propel himself to the top 10 of the official World Golf Rankings for the first time in his young professional career.
7. Branden Grace
As a notable contender on the European Tour circuit, Branden Grace will finally get a chance to show his skills stateside for his first start in the PGA Tour on American soil this week at the Honda Classic.
It’s been a month since Grace last saw action on the greens, but his most recent outing – successfully defending his Qatar Masters Open title in Doha – is a promising sign for the South African indeed. And actually, Grace had finished tied for eighth or better in each of his past six starts. They just happened to be events outside of the main tour.
8. Sergio Garcia
Sergio Garcia is about as erratic as they come these days, yet it would be rather foolish to count him out from the Honda Classic this week. He made the cut in all of his five trips to Palm Beach Gardens, including a solid T8 finish back in 2014.
One thing worth noting about Garcia’s game this season is how good he is in par-4 holes. He’s currently ranked second on the Tour in par-4 scoring, and luckily for the sensational Spaniard, PGA National has 10 par-4 holes on the course. Are we about to witness the resurgence of the former Byron Nelson Award winner this week?
9. Luke Donald
38-year-old Luke Donald may be a full-blooded Englishman, but he has certainly made Palm Beach Gardens like his second home. He’s the only player in this week’s field to brag about having four-straight top 10 finishes at the Honda Classic, including a seventh-place finish last year and runner-up back in 2008.
However, Donald would need all the magic he could get once more from PGA National this week, because quite frankly, he’s not been as feisty a contender in recent years. He only has two top 10 finishes since the beginning of last year and has not won a PGA title since 2012.
10. Kevin Kisner
As the current FedExCup Standings leader and the top earner on the PGA’s money leaderboard this season, there’s certainly a lot at stake for Kevin Kisner this week. He just laid an egg by being cut at the Waste Management Open in Phoenix earlier this month, yet his four starts prior to that tournament had been nothing but exemplary.
Four-straight top 10 finishes – runner-up at the WGC-HSBC Champions and winner at The RSM Classic as his two most notable outings – speaks volumes of Kisner’s improvement from the previous season. With a revitalized game in hand, we can pretty much assume that he’ll trump his T51 finish at PGA National from last year, all the more ultimately take home another title on Sunday when all is said and done.
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