The key to taming the Honda Classic's Champion Course: Discipline, patience

Brooks Koepka is 15-over par in six starts.

Rory McIlroy has entered the Honda Classic nine times, won it and was a runner-up, and still he's 22-over.

Dustin Johnson? He's just waved the white flag. Given up trying to tame the challenging Champion Course at PGA National after three attempts, most recently in 2015, missing the cut twice and coming in a whopping 27-over overall.

"The thing with that golf course, it's hard from 1 to 18," said Charles Howell III, who will play in his 10th Honda Classic this week. "There's no break.

"It's one of those weeks when you get done, you're tired. It's like you were in a battle."

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The Champion Course at PGA National was the third most difficult course on the PGA Tour during the 2020-21 season. The course played 1.904 strokes over par behind Bay Hill at 2.106 strokes over par and Muirfield Village at 2.007.

Bay Hill, located in Orlando and home of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, is one week after Honda this season. Muirfield is home to the Memorial, hosted by Jack Nicklaus

It was Nicklaus who redesigned the Champion Course in 2000, and has made several tweaks since. The course, originally designed by George and Tom Fazio, opened in 1981.

Nicklaus' 2000 redesign was to help retain the Senior PGA Championship, which was held at PGA National for several years. The senior championship left and Honda relocated to PGA National from Mirasol in 2007. More changes were made to lengthen holes, add bunkers and more.

Suddenly, the course became a Bear to play.

"Golf was made to be challenging," Honda executive director Ken Kennerly said. "You got to be on your game here. You can't fall asleep for one hole."

Nicklaus, who lives about seven miles from the course in North Palm Beach, acknowledges the track can get tough, especially around this time when fronts can cause unpredictable winds.

But, he really has no sympathy for those not up for the challenge.

"It can get tough," Nicklaus said. "Do I like it? I personally do not care one way or another. All I want it to be is a fair test. I think it's a pretty fair test. Golf courses are getting so much easier for these guys they go out and shoot 6, 7, 8-under par every round and they get used to that. They get to a golf course they've got to play a little bit and all of sudden they don't like it.

"I'm sorry but that's ... the game of golf is always supposed to produce the best golfer that week, not necessarily the best putter. "

It takes discipline and patience

The average winning score at the Honda Classic in the 15 years it has been staged at PGA National is 8.9-under par. By comparison, the easiest course on Tour, the Pete Dye Stadium Course in La Quinta, Calif, home of The American Express, has had an average winning score the last five years of 24-under. The winner shot at least 30-under there twice in the last 15 years.

That will not happen on the Champion Course.

"A lot of courses you have a stretch where you can ease through a few holes and pick up some birdies," said Louis Oosthuizen, who enters Honda as one of the top ranked players in the world. "There are no holes you can ease through (at Honda). You've got to be on top of it the whole time.

"It's just a good tough golf course."

The course is a par 70 for the Honda Classic that can play as long at 7,045 yards. Because of the wind and the water, the unforgiving rough - recently reduced to 1.5 inches - and fast and firm greens, this is a course that is as much a mental grind as a physical challenge.

Which is why long hitters like Johnson, McIlroy and others must go against their instincts at times if they want to succeed. And, if you're wondering about Bryson DeChambeau, he gave it one shot in 2017, missed the cut with a two-day total of 144 and never returned.

Nicklaus was asked was kind of golfer fits Honda.

"Somebody who is disciplined and patient," he said. "You get aggressive with the golf course and the golf course will just eat you right up."

Or swallow your golf ball.

In all, water comes into play on 14 holes.

"There's a lot of water hazards so it's easy to make bogey," said Jupiter's Daniel Berger, runner-up in 2015 after losing a playoff to Padraig Harrington. "You got to keep it in the fairways. Since they redid the greens the greens have been tougher, a little firmer, a littler faster."

Michael Thompson, the 2013 champion, agrees. Thompson said he made peace with the course when he started to focus more on finding fairways, which meant backing down from a driver to 3-wood or 7-wood when necessary.

"I'm usually pretty good on harder golf courses where you have to be disciplined and you have to know where you want to hit it, certain sides of the fairway, parts of the green, where to be aggressive, where to not," he said. "That's exactly what PGA National is."

Stewart Cink has played Honda 11 times. His best finish is 19th, but he's never missed a cut. Cink, 48, voted Honda the best tournament on tour following the 2019 season.

"Your long game is really tested because there's penalty shots all over the place and there's water," he said. "You just have to really be disciplined and have the proper expectations and have patience.

"On that course, if there's no wind it takes discipline. If there's a lot of wind, which there almost always is, it takes not only discipline but it takes really good executing."

Toughest 10th hole on Tour

Some of the more challenging holes:

• No. 4, a short par 4 but tricky because the fairway ends at about 260 yards and the green is narrow.

• No. 5, a 217-yard par 3 that was the second most difficult fifth hole on Tour last year with an average score of 3.276.

• Nos. 6 and 10, two long par 4s that once were par 5s.

• No. 11, a long par 4 that requires a near-perfect second shot with water all around the green.

The 508-yard No. 10 is the toughest 10th hole on tour with an average score of 4.304. Last year, players hit the green in regulation 37.8 percent of the time.

"It's a hole you know if you make three of four pars on for the week you're doing pretty good," said Jupiter's Denny McCarthy, who is playing Honda for the fifth straight year. "If you play it one over for the week, you're probably gaining strokes on the field."

But No. 10 goes as the wind blows. A prevailing wind makes it easier than gusts from the north or northeast.

"And if the wind direction is the wrong way 500 yards straight into the wind is no bargain," Cink said.

Then there's the most famous stretch perhaps on the PGA Tour. Holes 15-17 make up the iconic Bear Trap, named after Nicklaus, who was dubbed the Golden Bear early in his career. It's where many a tournament has been lost. Harrington, a two-time Honda champion including 2015 when it was played at PGA National, once said he starts thinking about those three holes "the night before."

The Bear Trap starts with a 179-yard par 3, followed by the 434-yard par 4 16th before the par 3 17th that has mercifully been shortened from 190 yards to about 165. Water comes into play on all three.

The Bear Trap is tied for the fourth toughest three-hole stretch on Tour since 2007 (non-majors). Since then, 1,604 balls have been hit in the water and 511-of-582 players (87.8 percent) are over par on the Bear Trap in their career.

Last year, the Bear Trap played a combined 230-over par.

“It's not about length," Nicklaus once said. "It's about precision. It's about guts.”

The Bear Trap according to The Golden Bear himself: "15 is a short hole but a tough hole. 16 isn't really a tough hole, just put it in the fairway somewhere with a long iron and its a 7- or 8-iron to the green. 17 you got to be a little careful with it, you can't hit it short or right."

Too tough a challenge for some

Honda's fields have suffered in recent years. But is that because it's in a tricky spot on the schedule surrounded by so many prestigious events - or because it's a course some have decided is too tough a challenge?

Nicklaus believes it is a combination. He once said that he would not actively recruit players to play the tournament in which a portion of the proceeds benefit the Nicklaus Children's Health Care Foundation because he did not like being recruited to play in tournaments during his career.

When Thompson was asked if players avoid Honda because it's a difficult course, he said: "Yeah. Absolutely." Before adding it also is in a difficult spot in the schedule.

"The harder the golf course, the harder the mental grind," he said. "Part of managing our games throughout the year is taking time off and resting, not necessarily our bodies, but our minds, because the Tour demands everything of you."

But not everyone shies away from a challenge. Locals such as Koepka, Berger, Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, and others, are always there to support their local tournament despite the difficulty of the course.

Yet, half of the top eight players in world rankings - No. 3 Patrick Cantlay, No. 5 McIlroy, No. 6 Johnson and No. 8 Justin Thomas - reside in northern Palm Beach County and none of them have played Honda since 2019. Cantlay has never been up for the challenge and Thomas won the 2018 tournament and has played one time since.

"What I love about PGA National is you get such a variety of tee shots, you're not always hitting driver," said Jupiter's Fowler, the 2017 champion who will make his 13th consecutive Honda start. "You've got irons, driving iron, 5-wood, 3-wood, driver. It's all about getting in play off the tee and from there, that's where the challenge begins."

Billy Horschel, a Florida native who lives in the Jacksonville area, believes the course is right for him. But he knows it's not for everyone.

"I love that golf course; it fits my game to a tee," he said. "You've got to have control of your golf ball, you've got to think your way around it.

"If you're not controlling your golf ball, you can be made a fool out there."

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jack Nicklaus says Honda Classic PGA National Champion Course tests pros