Listen Now! Cognizant Classic: New sponsor, improved field, what happened with Charlie Woods
In recent years, the Honda Classic golf tournament struggled to attract golf’s best players.
Golf’s Florida swing includes the Arnold Palmer Classic, the Valspar Championship and The Players Championship, so the Honda often suffered from players sitting out to rest for the aforementioned tournaments.
After 42 years, Honda and the PGA Tour separated, leaving the tournament looking for a new title sponsor.
Enter Cognizant.
Cognizant is an American multinational information technology services and consulting company based in New Jersey.
The new sponsor has helped generate more revenue, leading to a bigger purse for the tournament held in Palm Beach Gardens at PGA National Resort and Spa.
With that, as well as an extra week between all of Florida's big golf events, more top-ranked golfers will be joining the tournament this year.
Rory McIlroy, Tom Kim, Shane Lowry, Matt Fitzpatrick Justin Rose, are in
Who else will be joining the Cognizant field?
Who will be favored to win?
And what do we need to know about this course?
To answer all those question and more, Tom D’Angelo of the Palm Beach Post will be this week’s guest on “The *State* of Florida Sports Podcast,” powered by the USA Today Network.
Tom has been traveling around the country covering golf tournaments this year.
He recently was in California for the Genesis Classic. And now he’s back home covering the tournament in his own backyard.
"It's been at least 6 or 7 years that the fans haven't seen a field quite like they're going to see this year (at the Cognizant)," Tom says during the podcast. "This is by far since 2017 the most top 50 players they've had. They had 20 in 2017."
In addition to the tournament, Tom will talk about Tiger Woods’ son Charlie, who attempted to qualify for the Cognizant last week at age 15. He attracted quite the attention, with people even approaching him on the course while he was going from one hole to the next.
"I don't know if there's any blame to go around, but it is a qualifier, so they're not putting ropes around an entire course for a qualifier," Tom said. "One woman came up with a book, one of Tiger's books, and demanded Charlie sign it. Well, Charlie was walking up to the green to putt."
Tom will also tell us about the course itself, and why it’s such a great host venue.
We'll tackle that, and so much more.
If you love golf, then you have to check out this podcast.
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Walters can be reached at twalters@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Golf expert talks about better field for 2024 Cognizant Classic on podcast
