2023 Course Breakdown: Everything You Need to Know About PGA National

The Basics 

• Course: PGA National (Champion Course)
• Location: Palm Beach Gardens, Florida
• Designer: Tom & George Fazio (1981) with Jack Nicklaus re-designs in 2002, 2014 & 2018
• Length: Par 70; 7,125 yards
• Hazards: Water comes into play on 15 holes
• Fairways: Celebration Bermuda-grass
• Rough: TifSport Bermuda-grass over-seeded with Perennial Rye-grass
• Greens: TifEagle Bermuda-grass measuring 7,000 square feet on average a

 

The Honda Classic has been a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour since 1972, and it is the annual first stop on the “Florida Swing.” The event went through a number of title sponsors and course changes before settling on the Champion Course at the PGA National golf resort in 2007. The tournament is held in Palm Beach Gardens, home to many PGA Tour players. Jupiter is right down the road as well, so expect to hear about the “home bed” narrative all week. Just off the top of my head, Luke Donald, Shane Lowry, Denny McCarthy, Alex Noren, Aaron Wise, and Gary Woodland all live in the Palm Beach County area, and are all familiar practicing on this style of golf course. Agronomically, PGA National is very similar to the Grove, Medalist, the Bear’s Club, and Isleworth, the home courses of the vast majority of the pros that live in this part of the country.

Before we dive into the golf course, one thing that stood out to me while running through the past winners of this event is that four of the last 11 champions have been under 20/1, but 5 of the last 11 champions have been over 1001/1. Essentially, we’ve had multiple situations where the favorite wins, and we’ve had multiple situations where massive underdogs have found the winner’s circle. Anyone can win this tournament, and that’s not necessarily because it’s a putting contest, but there is still a massive amount of variance given the fact that water comes into play on nearly every hole at PGA National. The Fazio design is one of the hardest courses on the PGA Tour schedule, which normally decreases variance and weeds out the weaker tee to green players. That does seem to happen about 50% of the time, but this tournament rarely gets strong fields, so on years where Rory, Tiger, and Justin Thomas are not playing, there is generally less separation between the skill level of those at the top of the odds board versus those at the bottom. For example, no shots to a Daniel Berger or Sungjae Im, but they don’t have the ability to blow out a PGA Tour level field without their A game. So even though this course is such a difficult test from tee to green that in theory, it should accentuate the best players’ skill-set, the amount of water causes this event to open the door for players at longer odds. It’s generally been a nice break out spot over the years, as even the winners at longer odds have turned out to be solid players. Russell Henley won here at 300/1 in 2014. Henley is bonafide top-50 player in the world, and I can guarantee you that was the last time that Russell Henley will ever be 300/1 in any field, maybe short of a major if he’s in terrible form. Padraig Harrington won this tournament at 400/1, and yes, he was in extremely poor form at the time, but he’s also a top-50 player of all time. Even players such as Keith Mitchell and Sepp Straka have proven to be solid professionals. Moral of the story, I think this is a solid week to target players that you believe have a lot of potential, but have yet to break through yet. Let’s talk about this golf course.

PGA National was designed in 1981 by George and Tom Fazio, with various Jack Nicklaus re-designs over the last 20 years. These are all of my least favorite designers collaborating on the same course, but hey, we can’t be treated to Riviera every week. Tipping out to just over 7,100 yards on the scorecard, PGA National is by no means a long golf course, but there is trouble at absolutely every turn. Last year, PGA National played as the seventh most difficult course on the PGA Tour, and each of the last eight years, it has ranked as one of the 10 toughest courses on the PGA Tour schedule. In 2018, it played as the hardest course on the PGA Tour, including all of the majors. Every single year, it plays over par. Some times it plays two strokes over par! Essentially, expect some carnage this week, and I wonder if part of the reason why this event never gets good fields is because players do not like shooting such high scores. PGA National is a very typical Florida course. It’s extremely flat, with very bland architecture. That’s not actually often even the fault of the architect, there just really isn’t a ton of interesting topography or elevation changes in this part of the country. The way that architects tend to make up for a bad piece of land is by tricking the course out with water and bunkers, and PGA National is a perfect example of this.

Holes 15 through 17 are nicknamed the “Bear Trap,” which one of the hardest three hole stretches you will find all year on the PGA Tour. 15, 16, and 17 all feature a bogey rate over 15%, and they aren’t even amongst the three hardest holes on the course. The sixth hole, for example, is an absolute beast, playing to a scoring average of 4.35. 30% of players make bogey there and 7% make double bogey. The 10th hole is similarly brutal, with a 28% bogey rate, and the 14th also has a 22% bogey rate. Translation: there are some really hard holes on this golf course. All of the par threes here are extremely challenging, and they all play well over par. The two par threes on the front both play over 215 yards, and the two on the back nine, which are part of the “Bear Trap,” play only 175 and 179 yards, but they are both even more difficult than the two on the front nine despite being over 40 yards shorter. This can easily be explained by the fact that both 15 and 17 are completely exposed to the wind and surrounded by water. Last year, PGA National featured the fourth toughest set of par threes on the PGA Tour, and each of the last eight years, it has ranked inside the top-six most difficult set of par threes on the PGA Tour. Ultimately, PGA National often plays as the toughest non-major on the PGA Tour, and we have not had a winning score here lower than 12 under par over the last decade. This course is hard in calm conditions, but on windy years, it plays every bit as tough as a U,S, Open.

As I’ve alluded to often in my writing, Jack Nicklaus is not my favorite architect. Some of his other work includes the PGA West Nicklaus Course, part of the American Express rotation, and Muirfield Village, host of the Memorial Tournament, and by far his best work. While neither of these courses are worthy comp courses to PGA National, one through line that we can typically draw across all Nicklaus designs is that he lazily designs courses that consistently favor faders of the ball, because guess what? He faded the ball! It should not come as a surprise that many of the players who have found success here, such as Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, and Sungjae Im, all primarily play a fade. Nicklaus did a somewhat major renovation in 2019, where he made the green complexes a lot larger, and he re-seeded them with a better strain of Bermuda. 99% of the time renovations make courses longer to account for modern technology, but Nicklaus actually shortened the course in 2019, knowing that it was already hard enough! Let’s dive into the stats we should be looking at this week.

Stats 

Off the Tee 

Last year, 12.8% strokes gained at PGA National came via off the tee, which is comfortably below the Tour average of 15.2%. That number does tick up historically to 14.2%, which is still a full percentage point under Tour average.

Last year, PGA National ranked sixth out of 38 courses in strokes gained off the tee difficulty, and each of the last eight years, it has ranked inside the top-13 in strokes gained off the tee difficulty, which makes complete sense given the amount of water that comes into play on this course off the tee.

Last year, PGA National ranked fourth out of 48 courses in average driving distance on par fours and par fives, essentially proving that players are not going to hit a ton of drivers on this course, and do whatever they can to find the fairway, with all the trouble off the tee at every turn. PGA National is not a very long golf course, and the data points to players often taking less than driver off the tee to avoid trouble at all costs.

The Fazio design ranked 26th out of 38 courses in lowest driving accuracy percentage, and last year, players hit just 68.2% of their fairways, compared to the Tour average of 62%. In terms of width, these are the eighth most narrow fairways on the PGA Tour, but again, the lack of a driver heavy approach is always going to yield a higher than Tour average driving accuracy percentage.

Last year, PGA National ranked 22nd out of 38 courses in missed fairway penalty, which is actually a lot higher than I would have expected given the amount of hazards in play off the tee. Yet again, players seem to take their medicine off the tee, and hit less than driver to find the short grass.

Last year, PGA National ranked 25th out of 38 courses in rough penalty, and the rough here is generally just enough to get you thinking, but it’s not long enough to be really considered penal. It historically ranks right around the Tour average, Being just off the fairway in the rough at PGA National is actually fine, it’s really just about avoiding the hazards.

Last year, PGA National ranked 13th out of 38 courses in faction of missed fairways that resulted in a penalty stroke, and it generally ranks harder than Tour average in this same category, which makes loads of sense given the amount of water that comes into play off the tee. If this was a more driver intensive course, I would argue that it would rank towards the very top of this category.

For whatever reason, I have noticed that bombers do seem to play well here. Between Sepp Straka, Sam Ryder, Keith Mitchell, Kurt Kitayama, and Gary Woodland last year, along with Matt Jones and Brandon Hagy the prior year, longer hitters do seem to populate the first page of the leaderboard. Justin Thomas ranked 1st in driving distance the year that he won, Rickie Fowler and Adam Scott ranked 12th en route to victory, and of course, Rory McIlroy has also won this event. This is not because you can bomb away aimlessly with driver here, but more so because longer hitters can lay back off the tee with four and five irons to find the fairway, and still find themselves with manageable approach shots into these greens. Shorter hitters that club down are going to have longer and more approach shots in, There are still some fairly long par fours that will play into the wind, and I would definitely suggest that this course plays longer than its yardage. Courses with a ton of water always play longer than their yardage because they dictate where a player can and cannot hit it, and PGA National embodies this in spades.

What was also interesting to me is that being deadly accurate is far from a requirement too. Keith Michell ranked 54th in driving accuracy the year that he won, but 2nd in scrambling. Thomas ranked 60th in driving accuracy but 1st in scrambling. Padraig Harrington ranked 52nd in driving accuracy but 6th in scrambling. Rory McIlroy ranked 36th in driving accuracy, but 1st in scrambling. So as you can see, you don’t have to be super accurate here (or super long), and there are still plenty of examples of shorter hitters finding success here. This course is really all about being able to mitigate distasters and save par. All of this is to say that I have a fairly standard weight on off the tee this week, and I think you want to identify players that gain the most strokes and do the best job of keeping the ball in play off thee tee on the less on less than driver courses. The players who gain the most strokes off the tee on less than driver courses are Sungjae Im, Cameron Davis, Kramer Hickok, Aaron Wise, Hayden Buckley, Austin Eckroat, Tyler Duncan, Chris Kirk, Charley Hoffman, and Taylor Pendrith. The players that rate out the highest in good driver percentage on less than driver courses are Kyle Stanley, Ryan Armour, Aaron Rai, Cameron Percy, Webb Simpson, Sungjae Im, Hayden Buckley, Justin Suh, Russell Knox, and David Lipsky. 

 

Approach

Last year, 37.9% of strokes gained at PGA National came via approach, which is healthily above the Tour average of 34.7%. That number jumps to 39.8% historically, so this is a course where approach play has proven to be at least 5% more important than Tour average, which is a lot more than it sounds.

Last year, PGA National ranked eighth out of 38 courses in strokes gained approach difficulty, and each of the last eight years, it has ranked inside the top-eight in this category. In 2018, it ranked as the number one course in strokes gained approach difficulty, and similar to off the tee, water comes into play off the tee on a great deal of the approach shots as well.

Last year, PGA National ranked 17th out of 38 courses in greens in regulation percentage, and it generally ranks lower than Tour average in greens in regulation percentage despite the course not featuring a ton of long iron approaches. Again, this can simply be explained by the amount of water on the course.

The proximity buckets that ranked above Tour average last year were 125-150 yards, 150-175 yards, and 175-200 yards. Last year, 19.5% of approach shots came from 125-150 yards, which is healthily above the Tour average of 17.1%. Last year, 23.1% of approach shots came from 150-175 yards, which is also heavily above the Tour average of 20.3%. Last year, 19.8% of approach shots came from 175-200 yards, which is again, healthily above the Tour average of 17.5%. Historically, that number falls closer to 25.3%, but with distance gains in recent years, we are going to see a more flat distribution across 125-200 yards. In totality, the range of 125-200 yards accounts for nearly two thirds of approach shots at PGA National. The best long-term middle to short iron players in this field are Cameron Davis, Mark Hubbard, Adam Svensson, Jason Dufner, Austin Smotherman, Lee Hodges, Shane Lowry, Russell Knox, Danny Lee, and Luke Donald.

 

Around the Green 

Last year, 14.1% of strokes gained came via around the green, which is a touch lower than the Tour average of 14.5%. Historically, that number falls to 13.1%, which is a bit below Tour average. PGA National generally ranks average to slightly below average in terms of the importance of around the green play from a strokes gained perspective

Last year, PGA National ranked 24th out of 38 courses in strokes gained around the green difficulty, and it generally ranks right around middle of the pack in this category historically.

Last year, PGA National ranked 14th out of 38 courses in around the green difficulty from the fairway, 36th out of 38 courses in around the green difficulty from the rough, and 18th out of 38 courses in around the green difficulty from the bunkers. I would say that there is nothing overwhelmingly challenging about chipping at PGA National. I am right around my average (at most) in terms of short game. The course does typically feature a lower than average greens in regulation percentage, so players will be forced to rely on their short games at time, yet again, chipping at PGA National is far from the greatest challenge at the Fazio design. Getting to the vicinity of the green in two shots is really the hard part. If I was to look at any short game metric, it would be strokes gained around the green on Bermuda courses, as PGA National does rank harder than Tour average in around the green difficulty from the Bermuda fairways, and some rough around the greens was taken out in the recent Nicklaus renovations. The best around the green players on Bermuda courses have been Matt Kuchar, Chris Kirk, Danny Willett, Byeong Hun An, Fabian Gomez, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Stephan Jaeger, Billy Horschel, Robby Shelton, and Rory Sabbatini. 

 

Putting 

Last year, 35.3% of strokes gained at PGA National cam via the flat-stick, which is right around the Tour average of 35.6%. Historically, that number falls to 32.9%, so overall, this course tends to favor ball-striking over putting, which makes complete sense given the amount of trouble from tee to green on this course.

Last year, PGA National ranked 12th out of 38 courses in strokes gained putting difficulty, and it generally ranks right around middle of the pack in strokes gained putting difficulty each of the last eight years.

Last year, PGA National ranked 3rd out of 38 courses in putting difficulty inside five feet, 3rd out of 38 courses in putting difficulty from five to 15 feet, and 29th out of 38 courses in putting difficulty from five to 15 feet. For whatever reason, PGA National plays almost like a Poa course, where it is incredibly challenging to hole putts inside 15 feet, but it completely eases up when it comes to lag putting. I would say the most logical reason for this is that the greens here are typical Jack Nicklaus greens, lacking in character and subtlety. Again, this course sits on an incredibly flat piece of land, but outside of Bermuda putting in general, I am also once again going to take a hard look at putting inside 10 feet. It has been serving me well the past couple of weeks in helping me identify the actual most skilled putters that rely the least on variance. Once again, PGA National is another course where players are going to be forced to scramble and be faced with far more five to 10 footers for par than they are used to.

The best long-term Bermuda grass putters in this field are Ben Taylor, Brian Gay, Martin Trainer, Matt Kuchar, Harry Hall, Sepp Straka, Adam Long, Alex Noren, Kelly Kraft, and Thomas Detry.

The best long-term putters inside 10 feet in this field are Brian Gay, Kelly Kraft, Denny McCarthy, Bill Haas, Kyle Westmoreland, Adam Long, Justin Suh, Vincent Norman, Ricky Werenski, and S.H. Kim. 

 

Scoring Stats 

This is not the week to go hunting for the players that can make a ton of birdies. Scoring opportunities on this course are few and far between, and just like Riviera last week, taking down the Honda Classic is all about minimizing mistakes. The difference between Riviera and PGA National is the explosion factor, and due to the amount of hazards, there are fare more double bogeys available at PGA National than there are at Riviera. At the end of the day, I still primarily want to be looking at scrambling and bogey avoidance. I actually found a stronger correlation last year between bogey avoidance and top-10 finishers than I did with birdies or better gained, which is not something that you see every week. Last year, every single player in the top-20 gained to the field in bogey avoidance. The best players in this field in bogey avoidance are Shane Lowry, Thomas Detry, Matt Kuchar, Aaron Baddeley, Sungjae Im, Aaron Wise, Jonathan Byrd, Ben Griffin, Lanto Griffin, Patrick Rodgers, and Callum Tarren. 

I don’t look at scrambling often because I believe it is a statistic that ultimately lacks nuance, but if there is any course on the PGA Tour to look at scrambling, it’s PGA National. This course ranks fourth out of 38 courses in penalty strokes per round, so there are going to be a ton of instances where players are going to drive the ball in the water, and then have an iron shot from the drop area where they will need to get up and down from 150 yards to save par. There are more instances like this at PGA National than nearly any other course on the PGA Tour, and scrambling is the one statistic that does the best job at identifying the best players at making par when they find themselves out of position. The best scramblers in this field are Matt Kuchar, Aaron Wise, Billy Horschel, Aaron Baddeley, Jonathan Byrd, Shane Lowry, Denny McCarthy Joseph Bramlett, William McGirt, and Harry Hill. 

 

Comp Courses/Course History 

PGA National ranks 12th out of 38 courses on the PGA Tour in correlation of success with course history. This course is fairly straightforward and all out in front of you, but it’s an execution test. With the amount of trouble on this course, players cannot simply show up here in poor form and expect to not be exposed. We’ve seen plenty of players (Tommy Fleetwood, Kurt Kitayama, Justin Thomas, Alex Noren etc.) show up and perform immediately at this golf course. I certainly found more examples of players finding success on their first appearance here than say, Riviera. With how many players reside in Florida these days, chances are that even if they have not played this tournament before, they are playing clubs every day like the Bear’s Club, Medalist, or Isleworth, which all have similar greens and water everywhere. Florida golf is fairly straightforward because of the lack of elevation changes and flat topography that there isn’t generally much of an adjustment that players need to make. We often see players struggle with an adjustment period if they are traveling to the West Coast and playing Poa greens, or playing any course that features an absence of flat lies and tricky green complexes. This is a Jack Nicklaus Florida golf course, it’s not like these guys are playing Alister MacKenzie greens. I still have a fairly standard weight on course history because I do believe that there is some strategy involved with how players attack this course off the tee and how aggressively they want to play. The best players in this field at PGA National have been Byeong Hun An, Shane Lowry, Sepp Straka, Billy Horschel, Sungjae Im, Ryan Palmer, Jhonattan Vegas, Cameron Davis, Aaron Wise, and Matthias Schwab. 

In terms of comp courses, we want to focus on water intensive courses that place an emphasis on keeping the ball in play off the tee and middle iron play. The three courses that immediately come to mind are TPC Sawgrass, host of the PLAYERS Championship, TPC Southwind, host of the FedEx St. Jude’s Championship, and TPC Twin Cities, host of the 3M Open. All three of those course rank inside the top-10 in penalty strokes per round and feature a ton of water, almost to the point where, especially in the case of TPC Twin Cities, water is the main personality trait of the golf course. You could argue this is also the case at PGA National.

The best players in this field at TPC Sawgrass are Bo Van Pelt, Chris Kirk, Webb Simpson, Alex Noren, Matt Kuchar, Taylor Pendrith, Erik Van Rooyen, Billy Horschel, Ryan Moore, and Chris Stroud.

The best players in this field at TPC Southwind are Seung-yul Noh, Harris English, Austin Cook, Jason Dufner, Fabian Gomez, Camilo Villegas, Webb Simpson, Sepp Straka, Michael Kim, and Ben Crane. 

The best players in this field at TPC Twin Cites are Sungjae Im, Greyson Sigg, Callum Tarren, Danny Willett, Adam Long, Jhonattan Vegas, Briace Garnett, J.T. Poston, Alex Noren, and Hank Lebioda. 

 

Model 

Off the Tee (12%)

• Strokes Gained Off the Tee: Less than Driver Courses (6%)
• Good Drive Percentage: Less than Driver Courses (6%)

Approach (33%)

• Strokes Gained Approach (18%)
• Long-term Proximity 125-150 yards (5%)
• Long-term Proximity 150-175 yards (5%)
• Long-term Proximity 175-200 yards (5%)

Around the Green (8%)

• Strokes Gained Around the Green: Bermuda courses (8%)

Putting (17%)

• Strokes Gained Putting: Bermuda courses (11%)
• Long-term Putting Inside 10 feet (6%)

Scoring Stats (14%)

• Bogey Avoidance (7%)
• Scrambling (7%)

Comp Courses/Course History

• PGA National (7%)
• TPC Twin Cities (3%)
• TPC Sawgrass (3%)
• TPC Southwind (3%)

 

Model Top 20 

1. Sungjae Im
2. Shane Lowry
3. Billy Horschel
4. Chris Kirk
5. Ben Griffin
6. Alex Noren
7. J.T. Poston
8. Aaron Wise
9. Ben Taylor
10. Mark Hubbard
11. Cameron Davis (UGHH)
12. Christiaan Bezuidenhout
13. Russell Knox
14. Eric Cole
15. Matt Kuchar
16. Robby Shelton
17. Adam Long
18. Adam Svensson
19. Ryan Armour
20. Lee Hodges