After the double show of the Phoenix Open and the Genesis Invitational, the PGA Tour is back with the Honda Classic. Held February 23-26 in Palm Beach Gardens, it’s the first of four consecutive tournaments in Florida. The “West Coast Swing” opens with an appointment that will give away 8,400,000 dollars (of which 1,512,000 will go to the winner) and will see almost all the big names in the world take a break after the swing of emotions of the last period that saw first Scottie Scheffler and then Jon Rahm return to the throne of the world ranking.
Honda Classic, schedule
As for the Top 20, there will be only three players in the race: the South African Sungjae Im (eighteenth), the American Billy Horschel (nineteenth) and the Irishman Shane Lowry (twentieth), runner up last year. Defending his only title to date on the PGA Tour will be Austrian Sepp Straka.
Despite the absence of many champions, the stakes are high. The winner of the Honda Classic (if not already qualified) will earn the pass to play both The Players Championship (March 9-12) and The Masters (April 6-9), the first Major of 2023. Space is also in the field for Luke Donald (champion in 2006) and Zach Johnson, respectively captains of the Europe team and of the USA team at the Ryder Cup in Rome, which will take place from 29 September to 1 October on the ‘Marco Simone’ course.
In the roll of honor of the competition, which was played for the first time in 1972, golf legends such as Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller and McIlroy, among others, appear.
The PGA Tour became its own organization in 1968, when it split from the PGA of America, which is now primarily an association of golf professionals, such as instructors and club managers. Tournament players first formed their own organization, the Association of Professional Golfers (APG). Later, in 1968, the players abolished the APG and agreed to operate as the PGA “Tournament Players Division”, a fully autonomous division of the PGA, overseen by a new 10-member Tournament Policy Board. The name then officially changed to “PGA Tour” in 1975.
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