Irish Eyes Are Often Smiling at the Honda Classic

PGA National’s Champion course is a far cry from linksland, yet John Garrity marvels at the penchant of Irishmen to play well at the Florida stop.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — I’m not picking an Irishman to win the 42nd and final Honda Classic, but I wouldn’t be foolish if I did. Since 2005, pros with a brogue have triumphed three times at PGA National or the Country Club of Mirasol, with two runner-up finishes. This despite the fact that Florida courses resemble Irish courses about as much as Minnie Mouse resembles Liam Neeson.

Shane Lowry, the 2019 British Open champion, was last year’s Celtic Tiger. Two strokes ahead with five to play, he succumbed to a tropical downpour on the 18th hole and finished a stroke behind first-time winner Sepp Straka of Vienna, Austria. “Yes, if it didn’t rain, the probability was I might have made birdie and got into a playoff,” Lowry said on the eve of this year’s Honda Classic. “But it wasn’t a God-given right to win. It was a bad break, but they’re the breaks you get in golf.”

The skies were not kind to Lowry on the 72nd hole last year at the Honda :: Sam Navarro/USA TODAY Sports

Asked why he keeps returning to a tournament venue with more water hazards than the Dardanelles, Lowry was blunt. “I like tough setups. I dislike 25-under winning, so when I get a course like this, I feel like I can compete. I manage myself well around places like this.” He added, “I can’t say I particularly enjoy it. No one enjoys standing on that 17th hole with a crosswind and back-right pin and trying to hit a good shot in there.”

Unless, of course, there’s a potential first-place check and trophy at the end of the proverbial rainbow. (Supply your own pot-o’-gold trope.) Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy won the 2012 Honda Classic at the age of 22—despite Tiger Woods’s eagling No. 18 for a final-round 62—claiming the top spot in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. “It was probably one of my better Sunday performances,” McIlroy would say later. Two years on, he finished T2 at PGA National, losing to Russell Henley in a four-man playoff.

That said, the Irishman with the best Honda Classic record is Dubliner Pádraig Harrington, who won across the street at Mirasol as a PGA Tour rookie (2005) and again a decade later, when he beat Daniel Berger in a playoff (’15). These days, the 51-year-old, three-time major champion hoists trophies on the PGA Tour’s senior circuit, but he hasn’t forgotten his first impressions of Florida golf. “It was very alien to me,” he recalled after a Wednesday practice round at PGA National. “Florida golf, U.S. golf. It still, to this day, freaks me out when I see water down one side of the fairway. It’s just not what I grew up with. I’d rather see a pot bunker or something like that. It’s just a different way of playing golf.”

Harrington, already an established European Tour star, was more than familiar with Florida courses by 2005, having finished second at the ’03 and ’04 Players Championships. “At that stage I got somewhat accustomed to U.S. golf, and Mirasol was a good golf course for me. It was a links style course, and it was playing very hard and fast that week, very windy.” Wind, Harrington added, “plays into my hands”—as evidenced by his sudden-death playoff win over Vijay Singh and Joe Ogilvie, the first of his six PGA Tour titles.

Lowry, who must be considered a favorite in a field featuring only two top-20 golfers from the Official World Golf Ranking (as well as the new SI World Golf Rankings), echoed Harrington regarding Florida familiarity as a key to Honda heroics. “Yeah, it’s funny. When I started coming to the Honda Classic back in”—he hesitated—“I can’t remember what year I got my first invite—but obviously it’s bermuda [grass] and quite grainy, and I hated it. But now that I’ve moved down here, and I play on it every day, I’m used to it. I quite like playing Florida golf now.”

The lads in County Offaly, Ireland, will spit out their stout hearing that, but Lowry, 35, now resides in the tournament-golfer enclave of Jupiter, just up the road from PGA National. And if you’re looking for an odds-on favorite to survive PGA National’s “Bear Trap,” forget it; McIlroy, currently ranked No. 3 in the SIGWR (second proprietary mention), is taking the week off.

Harrington, though, entertained the possibility that his Celtic persistence and Dubliner’s daring—which helped him to four wins and 13 top-10s on the 2022 PGA Tour Champions—might be enough to bag a third and final Honda Classic title. “It’s nice to be a big fish in a small pond,” he said, enjoying his success on the senior circuit. “It’s freed up my golf somewhat, and hopefully I can take that to the regular tour. Physically I’m very capable.”

The pot o’ gold, Harrington seemed to be saying, can still be reached with a driver and 5-wood—if you can somehow ignore all that water.