Cognizant Classic 2024

The PGA Tour moves on to the four-week Florida Swing, starting with the Cognizant Classic at the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens – formerly known as the Honda Classic.

Cognizant Classic Field News

The Cognizant Classic field will be announced in full on Saturday 24th February. However, 2012 champion Rory McIlroy (9/1 to win the Masters on BetMGM) has already committed to playing and will be looking to improve on two disappointing efforts at Pebble Beach and Riviera.

Fellow Irishman and 2022 runner up here Shane Lowry also makes the trip Florida and has made the cut in all of his six appearances here.

Matthew Fitzpatrick makes his first start here in seven years whilst another Englishman Justin Rose will hope to improve upon his best finish of 3rd place here back in 2010.

For Niall’s PGA Tour tips for this week’s event, click here.

Cognizant Classic Course

Outside of the majors, PGA National in  Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, always ranks among the toughest few with winning scores seldom getting into the high teens.

In fact only three times in the last 11 renewals has the winning score gotten into double figures under par, and on two of those occasions it was four and five shots back to second place.

This is certainly a week where driving accuracy trumps driving distance. Last year only one player in the top 20 in driving distance for the week finished inside the top nine on the leaderboard, whilst four of the top six in driving accuracy filled those spots.

In 2022, winner Sepp Straka led the driving accuracy stat when winning so it's clear ball striking is key when it comes to making a score around PGA National.

Weather forecast is always important around here also as wind plays havoc with some approach shots, especially the par 3s in the 'bear trap' (holes 15 through 17).

It's no surprise that we have a long list of winners and contenders here who have also played well at the Open Championship. Fowler, Scott, Harrington, McIlroy, Els, Hamilton, Leonard, Kuchar, Parnevik, Calcavecchia, O'Meara and Price are a handful to have won this event and either won or gone very close to winning the Open Championship.

2022 Champion Sepp Straka was runner up to Brian Harman in last year's Open Championship so there may be clues as to who could contend here looking at recent Open results.

Honda Classic Winners & Winning Score

  • 2023 - C.Kirk (-14)
  • 2022 - S.Straka (-10)
  • 2021 - M.Jones (-12)
  • 2020 - S.Im (-6)
  • 2019 - K.Mitchell (-9)

 

Honda Classic Stats

Here is a look at the key stats from the top five finishers at the Honda Classic in the last three years.

2023 Honda Classic
Player Position OTT APP ATG T2G PUTT DD DA GIR SCR
Kirk 1 15 8 37 5 9 54 41 7 20
Cole 2 14 16 50 16 3 29 35 32 3
Duncan 3 2 56 12 14 5 45 2 24 4
Gerard 4 26 4 52 7 26 51 35 19 12
Lowry 5 6 13 20 1 58 21 6 4 29
Martin 5 38 35 33 29 4 46 56 22 34
Straka 5 24 2 59 6 34 37 4 1 51
Suh 5 4 9 40 2 57 47 1 2 40
Taylor 5 77 38 8 52 1 8 76 32 20
2022 Honda Classic
Player Position OTT APP ATG T2G PUTT DD DA GIR SCR
Straka 1 1 20 31 4 4 13 1 1 3
Lowry 2 3 2 47 2 17 48 4 4 2
Kitayama 3 44 3 40 5 7 4 26 4 36
Berger 4 16 13 8 3 27 25 12 4 11
Noren 5 25 7 45 8 23 23 12 1 8
Woodland 5 22 31 13 10 19 9 26 9 10
2021 Honda Classic
Player Position OTT APP ATG T2G PUTT DD DA GIR SCR
Jones 1 10 7 2 1 25 15 15 5 17
Hagy 2 3 50 18 10 13 2 22 20 34
Henley 3 36 24 54 42 1 56 22 12 31
McCarthy 3 34 38 6 20 8 36 3 31 13
Pan 3 32 18 43 19 9 37 19 5 11
Seiffert 3 52 2 30 6 27 58 30 5 49
Steele 3 33 23 34 22 6 24 10 45 18