The Honda Classic was certainly a mixed bag for World No. 53 Adrian Meronk.

The 29-year-old started the February tournament with a three-under 67, and eventually went on to a T-14, his best finish thus far on the PGA Tour. And yet, that may not be what he remembers most when looking back on his time at Palm Beach Gardens.

Following his opening round, Meronk discovered that his TrackMan and iPad were stolen from his locker at PGA National. Those personal items combined for around $15,000 of estimated value.

“I could track the (TrackMan) on the phone so the last seen location was like 600 yards away from the clubhouse in the buildings, so we showed that to the police,” Meronk said. “To be honest I was shocked. I didn’t even get mad because I didn’t even believe it.”

MORE: Meronk to build on stellar 2022 and drive into new year at Dubai Desert Classic

According to reports, security cameras caught a concession worker “wearing a black tank top” entering the locker room at 8:30 p.m., and eventually exiting with two bags after 14 minutes.

40-year-old Mather Archer returned the goods to the course after being contacted by police. Archer was then charged with burglary and grand theft and sent to Palm Beach County jail, despite declaring that he had mistaken the golf-training device for a laptop.

“It was a happy ending to the story,” Meronk stated. “Great job by the police.”

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Sunday’s final round of the Honda Classic started with an ‘eclectic’ leaderboard at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, before turning into a one-on-one showdown between veteran Chris Kirk, a four-time PGA Tour winner whose last victory came in 2015, and rookie Eric Cole, playing in just his 15th career tour event.

In the end, experience ruled the day, Kirk, 37, winning in a playoff with a birdie on the par-5 18th after making a bogey there 15 minutes earlier. Kirk finished with a closing one-under 69 for a 14-under 266 to grab his first win since the 2015 Crown Plaza Invitational at Colonial, some 179 starts earlier.

Cole, the 34-year-old son of PGA Tour winner Bobby Cole and LPGA Tour pro Laura Baugh, lipped out on a 15-foot birdie putt that would have extended the playoff to a second hole. While disappointed that his closing 67 wasn’t enough to win, the runner-up finish was far and away his best career showing.

The overall purse at PGA National is $8.4 million with Kirk earning $1.512 million (Cole took home $915,600, not bad when you consider his biggest pay day to date on tour had been $146,250 for a T-15 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am).

Here are the top prize money payouts this weekend at the Champion Course.

Win: Chris Kirk, -14, $1,512,000
P-2: Eric Cole, -14, $915,600
3: Tyler Duncan, -12, $579,600
4: Ryan Gerard, -10, $411,600
T-5: Ben Martin, -9, $288,120
T-5: Sepp Straka, -9, $288,120
T-5: Justin Suh, -9, $288,120
T-5: Shane Lowry, -9, $288,120
T-5: Ben Taylor, -9, $288,120
T-10: Dylan Wu, -8, $220,500
T-10: David Lingmerth, -8, $220,500
T-12: Zach Johnson, -7, $186,900
T-12: Cameron Percy, -7, $186,900
T-14: Brandon Wu, -6, $136,500
T-14: Jim Herman, -6, $136,500
T-14: Stephen Jaeger, -6, $136,500
T-14: Lee Hodges, -6, $136,500
T-14: Adrian Meronk, -6, $136,500
T-14: Ryan Brehm, -6, $136,500
T-14: Kramer Hickok, -6, $136,500

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Billy Horschel raced into the early Honda Classic lead with an opening five-under round of 65. It was a marked shift from his form coming into the event, which featured two missed cuts, a T-30 and a T-32 in his last four starts. The issue, Horschel explained earlier in the week, lay in his swing.

Knowing two of his season’s starts would feature newly increased purses, Horschel and his coach Todd Anderson went to work on his swing in the off-season, trying to find something a little extra. Noticing some inconsistencies in his accuracy, the pair worked on trying to keep Horschel’s upper body more centred at the top of his backswing by altering his set-up and combat his tendency of moving his upper body off the ball slightly.

But Horschel has not been loving the early returns and not feeling comfortable, so the Honda Classic presented the first lower-stakes opportunity to change strategies. They tried a different approach that helped his upper body stay more central in a more comfortable way.

“What Todd Anderson and I did on Monday going back to some of the old stuff felt really natural right away,” he said after his first round. “I’ve got to do golf swing maintenance, but I have to be smart about it.”

There’s plenty of golf left to play this season, of course, and in golf’s newfound era of elevating certain events over others to grab maximum eyeballs, it’d be ironic if the game-changing moment for a player like Horschel came on one of its lower profile events.

Drive for show…

Joseph Bramlett prepares to hit his second shot on the eighth hole during the first round of the Honda Classic. Sam Greenwood

Joseph Bramlett has long been one of those “if only he could figure out X part of his game” guys. Off the tee, Bramlett has some wicked speed — he finished seventh on the PGA Tour in driving distance last season, and fifth in overall ball speed — yet he actually lost more than half a stroke with his driver. Translation: He hits the ball far, but everywhere.
Bramlett hit almost 60 per cent of his fairways during his first round, so it’s no surprise to see him co-leading with Horschel at five-under. It goes to show just how high the ceiling is for bombers with raw speed like Bramlett, and how indispensible it is rein it in.

A boring one-under round

Speaking of keeping your ball in the fairway and playing steady golf, Aaron Wise registered a crazy scorecard during his first round. The card reads one-under, but the round featured four water balls, a hole-out from the fairway for eagle, and zero two putts.

Quantity and quality

Sungjae Im. Eakin Howard

Finally, while most of golf’s top players are taking the week off before Bay Hill and the Players Championship rolls around, workhorse Sungjae Im is teeing it up at the Honda. Im has played a whopping 122 PGA Tour events over his past four seasons, and the Honda marks his 10th start already this season.
But more important than the quantity is the quality. After a T-4 and T-6 in the Farmers Insurance Open and WM Phoenix Open, respectively, his three-under 67 on Thursday leaves him T-7 heading into the second round. It’s noteworthy early season form for a man who tends to play well at the year’s first major coming up in April.

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Of course, not all one-under 69s are created equal. Mark Hubbard’s one-under 69 on Thursday? Solid, but forgettable. Three birdies, two bogeys, minimal chaos. Brice Garnett’s one-under 69? A little more eventful. Five birdies, two bogeys, one double bogey. Aaron Wise’s one-under 69? Well, his deserves some sort of award. A triumph.

Wise, one of the pre-tournament favorites, began his round with a bogey at the par-4 10th and then another at the 12th, where his approach found the water for his first of four water balls on the day. A birdie at 13 stopped the bleeding, but he gave it back at the par-3 17th, the final hole of the infamous Bear Trap. A par at the gettable par-5 18th saw him turn in two-over 37.

That’s when it all went a bit mad. Wise’s drive at No. 1 found the water down the left side, and after a drop he hit his third long and right of the green, then promptly chipped in for par. A birdie at No. 2 followed, only for him to give it back at the par-5 third, once again finding the water with his second shot. Another bounce-back birdie ensued at the fourth, only for Wise to miss badly right at the par-3 fifth, which led to him hitting his second shot into the water again, ultimately resulting in a double bogey.

Then, at the par-4 sixth, sitting at three over on his round, Wise found the fairway with his drive and then did this:

A hole-out and a handshake ?@AaronWise_ is all business @TheHondaClassic. pic.twitter.com/JQ21TRaygf

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 23, 2023

The subdued, business-like reaction says it all. Wise had already expended far too much energy on this roller-coaster of a round to that point to truly go crazy.

And he wasn’t done. The former AT&T Byron Nelson winner birdied two of his last three holes to post one-under, which has him inside the top 30 after Round 1.

Last Aaron Wise tweet until he lifts the trophy on Sunday. Here’s his day today.

4 water balls
Hole out par save on 1
Hole out eagle from 179 on 6
-1.47 T2G
-1.85 approach
+2.77 sg putting
105’11” of putts made (w/ two 0 putts!)
5 birds 1 eagle 4 bogs 1 double

Easy little -1

— Chris Murphy (@CS_Murph) February 23, 2023

Good news is Wise should, theoretically, have a much less mentally taxing weekend, because no round is going to be as mentally taxing as that one. Then again, at PGA National, mental warfare is the norm.

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Pierceson Coody was given a sponsor’s exemption into this week’s event at PGA National Resort, and for good reason. Coody is considered one of the rising stars in the sport, winning twice on the Korn Ferry Tour — including a win earlier this month at the Panama Championship — in less than a year since turning professional. Pierceson will now be joined in Palm Beach Gardens by his brother, Parker, after Parker qualified for the Honda through Monday qualifying.

Well, technically, Tuesday qualifying, as Parker had to return to Tesoro Club to beat out four others in a playoff.

The Coody brothers, the grandsons of 1971 Masters champion Charles Coody, are best known for leading the University of Texas to a NCAA national championship last summer, giving the Longhorns programme its fourth national championship in school history. They also both suffered the same freak injuries last year, breaking their arms during a training session in Austin.

Despite their similarities, the Coody brothers are on a bit of a different professional trajectory at the moment. Pierceson’s KFT victories have him on the precipice of securing his PGA Tour card and is inside the top 300 in the World Ranking, while Parker currently has just conditional status on the minor-league circuit. Conversely, a good week from Parker could put the brothers back on equal footing.

The DP World Tour already has an established pair of identical twins in Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard — who have six DPWT titles between them — while the Ladies European Tour had a brief twin encounter when Leona Maguire’s sister Lisa fleetingly entered the pro ranks before retiring and turning to dentistry.

Other notables in this week’s Honda Classic field include Sungjae Im, Billy Horschel, Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka.

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By Shane Ryan
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla.—What can you say about Sunday at the Honda Classic except that it was our latest lesson in the wild unpredictability of professional golf? What looked like a serene runaway in the Florida sunshine around 2 p.m. on Sunday turned into a dark, rain-soaked melee in which the palm trees bent to the wind, the umbrellas faltered in the onslaught, and a timely rain propelled 28-year-old Sepp Straka to his first PGA Tour win, and the first tour triumph ever for an Austrian golfer.

“It’s hard to take, to be honest,” runner-up Shane Lowry said afterwards. “It felt like I got the tournament stolen from me … that’s as bad a break as I’ve ever gotten.”

Lowry made sure to congratulate Straka and gave him a fist bump in the loud scoring area when his interviews were done, so these were not sour grapes. He was only engaging in a favourite pastime of golfers the world over: lamenting the vagaries of the universe. And he wasn’t wrong.

Straka, who birdied three of the final five holes in shooting four-under 66 to beat Lowry (67) by one, may have been the beneficiary of the meteorological whims, but nobody can say he didn’t seize the moment.

Daniel Berger went into the fourth round with a look of invincibility, holding a five-shot lead (tied for the largest ever in this famously tight tournament), and had played such steady, repetitive, error-free golf that it seemed impossible for anyone to catch him. And in fact, that was right—nobody caught him. Instead, he succumbed to the gravity of the field, and within five holes, his lead was gone. Berger, who shot 74, gamely faced the media in the aftermath of his collapse, but he was not in the mood for philosophy.

“Didn’t play well, so I didn’t win the golf tournament,” he said. “I don’t think I made a single putt today. I don’t know what happened. Just didn’t feel good over the putter today.”

Mike Ehrmann
Shane Lowry plays his shot from the 16th tee during the final round of the Honda Classic.

The stats bore him out. In a field of 73 players, Berger ranked 73rd in strokes gained/putting, with an abysmal -3.807 number. The trouble started early, with a double bogey on the par-5 third and two more bogeys on 5 and 6.

At that point, a story began to emerge, and the story was about Lowry as predator and Berger as prey. Lowry had fought his way into the final group with a field-best 67 on Saturday, and he said he simply wanted to put some pressure on Berger from the start. He got his wish on the first, burying a 15-foot birdie, and again on the fourth, when a laser-like approach left him a gimme birdie. Before long, Lowry held the lead, and though Berger tied him before the turn, a 13-foot birdie for Lowry on 11 followed by a Berger three-putt on 12 put him in front of his playing partner for good.

At that point, Straka was not yet in the discussion. He started out at six under, just like Lowry, but a missed two-footer on the first hole cost him a shot, and left him, in his own words, “pissed off.” He responded with two straight birdies, but a back-and-forth front nine kept him well behind the leaders, and by the time he reached the 14th hole, he sat at seven under. That’s when the charge began, and the putts began to drop: 10 feet for birdie on 14, and 18 feet for birdie on 16.

Coming to the final hole, the famous par-5 with the car floating on the water, he was tied for the lead. It was his good fortune that he managed to get off his drive—a 334-yard beauty down the right side of the fairway—just before the rains fell. The skies opened as he marched down the fairway, and his playing partner, Kurt Kitayama, seemed loath to hit his own second shot. Barring any lightning, though, there was no choice. Both players reached the green in two, and when Straka’s 47-foot eagle putt stopped nine inches from the hole, he had the critical stroke he needed. With only Lowry and Berger threatening, he took shelter from the rain at 10 under.

His fortune in staying dry on the 18th tee wasn’t shared by Lowry and Berger, who stepped up amid a downpour. Berger, at eight-under, managed to keep his drive in the fairway, but Lowry, at nine-under and needing a birdie, flew his drive into the left through. Berger was forced to take dead aim from 253 yards, sent his 3-wood into the water, and Lowry hit a weak third shot to 43 feet and missed the birdie putt. Straka’s victory was secure, and along with the security of tour status, he also locked down his first-ever Masters berth.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “It’s a lifelong dream of mine just to be heading to Augusta in a month or so. It’s still surreal.”

With his mother in the audience, Straka fielded questions about his background. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and sounds fully American despite spending the first 14 years of his life in Austria. His father is Austrian (he watched the final round from home, and got a phone call from his son moments after the finish), and his American mother now lives in Valdosta, Ga. As Golf Digest’s Max Adler wrote in 2019, the parents met when his mother—who first traveled to Austria with a boyfriend, and stayed on after the relationship failed—sold a golf glove to her eventual husband in an Austrian pro shop. Sepp, whose given first name is Josef, considers himself something more than a blend.

“I have a good friend in Austria, Clemens,” he said. “I used to always say that I was 50-50—50 percent Austrian, 50 percent American. He was, like, ‘No, you’re 100 percent Austrian and 100 percent American,’ which is very accurate. I feel a connection to both countries and it’s definitely split.”

Straka represented Austria in last summer’s Olympics in Japan, opening with a 63 to take the lead before eventually tying for 10th.

As a child, his loyalties were initially divided between soccer and golf, and when asked about the veracity of a story that he chose golf simply because there was less moving around, he laughed.

“Well, I was a goalie so there wasn’t that much going on anyways,” he said. “But, yeah, my brother and I kind of made that move together. We did a summer camp, and he really decided that we were going to start playing a little more golf. That’s kind of how we got into it.”

The brother is his twin Sam, who was considered the more promising prospect when they were young, and the camp was at Fontana Golf Club in a small town south of Vienna called Oberwaltersdorf. That experience changed everything and led back to Valdosta, and Athens (the one in Georgia), and finally here to Palm Beach Gardens, where the welcome rain fell and Straka soared.

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By Tod Leonard
We’ve all probably got golfer friends who think they’re just a little bit cheekier than the rest of us. On a tight runway, they’ll putt with a fairway wood from 40 yards. Our favourite, though, is using a putter in a bunker when the lip is seemingly low. (Forgive us, please, for the quiet chuckle when it doesn’t work out.)

Lee Hodges was that guy on Sunday in the Honda Classic in Florida, and his bravado—or was it just overthinking?—probably cost him thousands of dollars while he contended for a sizeable paycheck.

Hodges was looking at a possible second top-10 finish of the PGA Tour season when he arrived at PGA National’s par-3 15th. He pulled his tee shot into the left greenside bunker, and though we didn’t see on the NBC broadcast how Hodges’ discussion with his caddie went in choosing the shot, we do know it was a delicate proposition—a downhill lie to a downhill slope on the green with water behind it. Pretty much everyone’s worst nightmare.

Hodges opted to use his putter but didn’t try to roll the ball out. He took a half-swing and the ball came out just as you might expect—low and much too quick. It rolled across the green and slowed down—but not enough to keep it from toppling over the bank and into a couple of inches of water and mud.

? File this under: Things you don’t usually see. pic.twitter.com/myAPphpe14

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 27, 2022

Adding to the ignominy, Hodges had to hike up his right pant leg, take off his shoes and socks and step into the goop. Considering the lie, he handled that OK, but still left himself an 18-footer for bogey. He missed it and made double. Damn you, Bear Trap.

To Hodges’ everlasting credit, he steadied himself after that with three pars, shot even-par 70 and did get that top-10—with a tie for ninth.

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By E. Michael Johnson
As Rickie Fowler continues to search for answers on the course, he also appears to be seeking the right equipment combination to jumpstart his game. We identified some key changes made by players atop the leader board—plus Fowler’s change—at the Honda Classic last week in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Fowler continues to mix it up

Rickie Fowler has shuffled up his bag in a pretty significant way over the past couple of events. At the Players, Fowler changed irons, going from his RF Rev 33 prototype blades to Cobra’s King Forged CBs in his 5-iron through pitching wedge, in addition to using the company’s AMP Cell Pro CB 4-iron and a Cobra King F9 4-iron more as a utility iron. According to Cobra, Fowler felt the irons, which had more offset, would help him with his start line.

At the Honda Classic, Fowler switched up the driver, too, changing to a Cobra Radspeed XB Palm Tree Crew edition driver. The XB head has a higher moment of inertia, making it a touch more stable. “Typically, Rickie hasn’t liked that feeling,” said Ben Schomin, PGA Tour rep for Cobra. “But so far his misses have been a little tighter.” Fowler, who has been known to apply generous amounts of lead tape to certain clubs, did so with this driver as well, adding weight up front and to the sides on the sole of the driver.

RELATED: Rickie Fowler responds to Nick Faldo’s Masters/commercial dig

Fowler made the cut at PGA National, but a third-round 78 sent him way down the leader board. He finished T-65.

A couple of Wise decisions

Jared C. Tilton

Aaron Wise shook up the long and short end of his bag, putting in a 9-degree TaylorMade SIM2 driver with a Graphite Design Tour AD DI 6X shaft and an Odyssey Toulon Las Vegas mallet putter at the Honda Classic. Both moves worked well as Wise got off to a fast start before settling for a T-13 finish.

The putter, in particular, was working well in the early rounds. Wise, who ranked T-4 for the week in putts per green in regulation, made an impressive 230 feet of putts during the first 36 holes, leading to rounds of 64-64.

“We have been working on things for a while, and the stroke felt really good,” Wise said after the second round. “Obviously, the putter change might have just clicked it into the next gear. But overall, my technique’s felt good for a while. It was just finding a putter that suited my eye and I felt comfortable with and so far, it’s been working great.”

RELATED: Aaron Wise’s shocking three-putt from three feet on Sunday at PGA National

McCarthy’s driver switch

Jared C. Tilton

Denny McCarthy got our attention with a hole-in-one at the Players, but his T-3 finish at the Honda Classic was more lucrative. McCarthy made a driver change at PGA National, opting to go to a 10.5-degree Titleist TS2 with a Fujikura Ventus shaft, giving his TSi3 a break for now.

For the week the move worked. McCarthy hit 73.21 percent of his fairways (41 of 56) to rank T-7 for the week—an important stat to do well on given the number of water hazards on the Champion course, where finding fairways is key to success.

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By Christopher Powers
Two weeks ago, golf fans were treated to Every Shot Live technology at the Players Championship, a glorious invention that allows you to see (and hear) whoever you want, whenever you want at the click of a mouse. Monday’s annual Seminole Pro-Member will be a little different, featuring exactly zero shots live.

That’s a shame, because golf fans would pay top dollar to tune in to what remains the most exclusive and elite member-guest in all of golf. Of course, that exclusivity is precisely the reason we don’t get to watch it, though we do get to hear and read all the legendary tales the event has produced over the years.

Every year, on Sunday evening after the Honda Classic, we get a glimpse into how strong the field is in the Seminole Pro-Member when someone playing in it reveals the tee times and pairings. That someone this year was Korn Ferry Tour pro Michael Miller, who posted the groupings to his Instagram account Sunday night. Any particular pairing jump out at you?

For us, it’s the 9:12 a.m. off No. 1, which features Bryson DeChambeau (guest) and member Tom Nelson, and Matthew Fitzpatrick (guest) and member Jimmy Kenny. You may recall, these two have a bit of recent history.

In October, Fitzpatrick struck first by claiming DeChambeau had made a “mockery of the game,” at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, though he did also give him credit for taking advantage of his length. But it was quite obvious in the Englishman’s comments that he was concerned with where the future of the sport was going. “We’re going to see people going harder and harder at it,” Fitzpatrick added. “Look at the college kids coming out now, Matt Wolff, Viktor Hovland. They just smash it, basically. Matt is a great player, but it seems to me the game is smash it and get after it and play the next one from wherever it is.

“In my opinion, it’s not a skill to hit the ball a long way. I could put on 40 pounds. I could go and see a bio-mechanist. I could gain 40 yards; that’s actually a fact. I could put another two inches on my driver. But the skill is to hit the ball straight. That’s the skill. He’s just taking the skill out of it in my opinion.”

RELATED: Pebble Beach’s short course designed by Tiger Woods is ready to open

DeChambeau was made aware of Fitzpatrick’s comments the next day at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, and he took them in stride, even offering to “help out” his fellow former U.S. Amateur champion.

“I appreciate that comment,” DeChambeau said. “It’s a compliment to me honestly. A year ago, I wasn’t hitting in anywhere near as far as I am today. It took a lot of work, a lot of hours to work through the night to figure out a lot of this stuff.

“I would say it actually takes more skill to do what I’m doing, and albeit I may have—my fairway percentages are a little bit down, I still believe I’m hitting it straighter than what I was last year with the distances that I was hitting back then. So I actually appreciate those comments. I think he’s looking out for certain set of players, and I appreciate that.”

DeChambeau went on to add that other pros may see a distinct advantage in what he was doing, and, as Rory McIlroy recently admitted, the Mad Scientist’s methods may have influenced him and other pros. Fitzpatrick has not joined the revolution, instead sticking to what he does, which has worked out nicely in 2021, as he’s finished T-17 or better in five straight starts worldwide. Of course, DeChambeau’s way is working out, too.

Since they traded verbal barbs in October, neither DeChambeau nor Fitzpatrick has spoken much more on the matter. On Monday, however, the subject could be unavoidable given they are playing in the same group. Funny enough, they almost got paired together twice on the weekend at TPC Sawgrass, where we would have been able to see and hear everything. This time, though, it will be left to our imaginations.

RELATED: Watch pro shockingly three-putt from three feet at the Honda Classic

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By Dave Shedloski
Type the name Matt Jones into the Google search engine and out spits a list of suggestions from the tech behemoth that indicates the guy might be a great golfer, but it’s his good fortune enjoying betrothment to a certain former Miss Idaho that stirs perhaps the most interest in the Australian native.

That shortlist of search suggestions, in order:

• Matt Jones
• Matt Jones golf
• Matt Jones PGA
• Matt Jones wife
• Matt Jones golfer wife.

So she has a lot of fans. So what? He also happens to own a beautiful short game, a lovely putting stroke and, well, truth be told, boyish good looks that informs all the jealous souls on the internet that he wasn’t punching above his weight class in marrying California native Melissa Weber, the aforementioned Idaho princess.

What Jones didn’t have was a lot to show for his talents, but he changed that on Sunday by waylaying the field at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Thanks to an opening 61 on Thursday and an impeccable closing two-under 68n on the breezy Champion Course at PGA National, Jones posted a five-stroke victory and ended a winless streak on the PGA Tour that stretched to nearly seven years.

Mind you, that’s not to say the man hasn’t won since his only other tour victory at the 2014 Shell Houston Open. Jones did capture the 2015 Australian Open, beating countryman Adam Scott and then-World No. 1 Jordan Spieth, both Masters champions, by a stroke. And he added a second victory in the championship in 2019, edging former British Open winner Louis Oosthuizen by one shot.

Still, his professional home is on the PGA Tour, and the 40-year-old got teary-eyed after touring the tricky Jack Nicklaus-designed layout in 12-under 268, five strokes better than rookie Brandon Hagy. A second trip to the Masters awaits and he’ll play in the PGA Championship, too. Also, there’s a two-year exemption attached to the win, not to mention a $1.26 million windfall.

Now 49th in the world, Jones’ trophy case just got a lot more attractive.

“It means the world,” Jones said after a frenetic week in which he led by three after the first round, trailed by three after the second and then re-emerged with a three-stroke cushion after 54 holes thanks to a nifty, scrambling 69 on Saturday. “Seven years between wins, it’s been a battle. I’ve had ups, I’ve had downs, but to win a second time on this golf course in these conditions that we faced all week is, it’s phenomenal.”

He played phenomenally to do it. And quite out of character.

Jones entered the week ranked 112th in stroke gained/tee-to-green with an average of -0.12, but stays competitive with his short game and putting. But on one of the most penal courses on the tour, where water lurks on 16 of 18 holes, Jones led the field in the category at +3.575. He hit 11 fairways and 17 greens in regulation on Sunday. No wonder he said he felt as calm as ever. Or maybe feeling calm enabled his ball striking.

Whatever. Something clicked, starting with that 61. Jones is no stranger to going low, posting 64 or better 20 times since he joined the tour in 2008. The key is sustaining it. Which he did.

“That’s the best I’ve hit it from tee to green for … ever,” he beamed. “And to be able to do it on this golf course is amazing. I mean, you have to do it out here to have a chance and I did it.”

Jared Tilton
Matt Jones drives from the 14th tee during the final round of the Honda Classic.

A bit of range work while connecting with swing coach Gary Barter through FaceTime did wonders. Jones struck the ball decently at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, another tough track, but missed the cut, and then he ended up T-55 at the Players. But he felt something brewing, even though he made no significant changes.

“It’s probably just golf being what golf is,” he said. “[At] Players last week, I told my coach and I told my friends, something’s coming, it’s getting closer. I worked on the range through FaceTime with my coach back in Australia, and we just started to get a feel for things and started to get the body and the club working together and it worked all week. I told a friend earlier that I like my chances this week.

“I really played amazing golf all four days,” he added.

Easily the most telling and consequential facet of Jones’ final round was his ability to engineer a few mental U-turns whenever he ventured down the three-putt alley that sidetracked Aaron Wise—the second-round leader and, at one point Sunday, the biggest threat to Jones when he surged within a stroke—and a host of others, including Sungjae Im, C.T. Pan, Robert Streb and, if we’re leaving anyone out, it’s only because we’re nearing our word count.

The scruffy-faced Aussie uncharacteristically blew a four-footer at the 11th and then bucked up and sank birdie putts of 19 and 10 feet on the next two holes to stretch his lead to five strokes. Another three-putt at No. 14 he erased with a 16-foot birdie dagger at 16, and Jones was able to waltz home with the second-largest winning margin on the PGA Tour this season and tied for the largest in Honda Classic history.

Jones became the seventh player in the last 12 months to go Rip Van Winkle on the competition, reawakening to break a PGA Tour victory drought of six years or more, joining Stewart Cink (11 years), Michael Thompson, Brian Gay, Harris English, and Martin Laird (seven years each), and Streb (who let six years elapse between RSM Classic wins).

“It was worth the wait to win again in these conditions,” he said. “You can’t get a tougher golf tournament to win on. It’s something I can build on for the future, hopefully.”

Speaking of futures, a few others saw theirs get a little brighter by surviving the final-round melee.

One was Camilo Villegas, who closed with a 69 to tie for eighth at five-under 275. Making a comeback from a shoulder injury, Villegas, winner of the 2010 Honda Classic, needed at least a three-way T-3 finish to remain on a Major Medical Extension. He didn’t get it, but he earned enough points to play the remainder of the season with conditional status for players in the 126-150 category in FedEx Cup points.

Another was Hagy, who holed out on 18 for birdie several hours before the leaders, carded a 66 after a disheartening 76 on Saturday, and watched his seven-under 273 hold up against everyone except Jones. His career-best runner-up finish, coming on his 30th birthday, enabled him to jump 101 spots in the FedEx Cup standings to 78th.

Nice work for a player ranked 348th in the world, considering that he was home in Arizona Tuesday, was the second-last alternate to get in the field and didn’t squeeze in a practice round. Like Jones, Hagy also benefitted from some slight swing adjustments.

“I was pretty far down the FedExCup coming into this week, but this is a good week for me to set up the rest of the season,” said Hagy, who would have lost his card after finishing 152nd in the points standings last season but got a reprieve because the schedule was lengthened by the pandemic. “I feel like I made some good adjustments that I applied this week and I look forward to putting them into play the rest of the season.”

The only one who had more to look forward to was the winner, who was planning an early arrival to Augusta National Golf Club after missing the cut in in his only other Masters appearance. Yep, life just got more beautiful for Matt Jones. Don’t be jealous.

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