PGA Tour takes kinder, gentler approach with Champion course for Cognizant Classic
PALM BEACH GARDENS — When the Cognizant Classic in the Palm Beaches ends on Sunday, there will be talk about the two champions — the player who leaves with the big check and the course, fittingly, called The Champion.
The winner, we can’t predict. The course, we know like an old friend.
The Champ, as most call it, has been home to a Ryder Cup (1981), a PGA Championship (1987), 19 Senior PGA Championships (1982-2000) and Thursday will mark the 18th consecutive year a PGA Tour event has been played on PGA National’s signature course.
The course gradually earned a reputation as one of the toughest tests in non-major golf, especially when designer Jack Nicklaus introduced the brutal Bear Trap. Too tough, perhaps, as several top players such as Dustin Johnson and later former Honda Classic champions Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy started skipping the event in large part because they believed the course had become over-the-top difficult (as well as not fitting into their schedules).
The PGA Tour took notice and started taking a kinder, gentler approach with the Champion to get more top players back in the field. The 4-inch rough was cut almost in half a couple of years ago, and the yardage on the Bear Trap par-3s (Nos. 15 and 17) was shortened, which also created a buffer between players and fans.
The softening continued this year when the par-4 10th hole was converted to a par-5, which is how it plays for the members. Also, bunkers were removed from the fairway on the par-4 sixth hole (another normal par-5) and the rough was cut from 2½ inches to 2¼ inches on Tuesday.
“This year it’s a lot more benign of a setup,” said McIlroy, the 2012 champion who hasn’t played here since 2018. “The rough has been cut back. There have been a couple of bunkers taken out. The greens are soft at the minute. Maybe it’s not quite the test that it was 10 years ago.”
Chris Kirk, Eric Cole shared tournament record in 2023
It wasn’t much of a test last year as calm conditions enabled winner Chris Kirk and runner-up Eric Cole (who lost a playoff) to share the tournament record at 14-under 266. With favorable conditions forecast through the weekend, expect to see lots of red numbers on the leaderboard of the now-par-71 course after the change to the 10th hole.
“I think (No. 10) is going to be obviously a scoring opportunity because it’s going to be a shorter par 5,” said Jupiter resident Daniel Berger, who lost a playoff to Padraig Harrington here in 2015. “It’s just another birdie opportunity on a course that doesn’t have a lot of birdie opportunities.
“I like it to be as challenging as possible and kind of weed out some of the other players that are unfamiliar with the course. But it’s always a great event, and when you have a finish like the Bear Trap, there's always a big number waiting to happen no matter how well you’re playing. That’s what I think makes the tournament so exciting.”
Another former champion, Camilo Villegas of Jupiter, agreed the degree of difficulty of the Champion played a role in some of the top players skipping the tournament. It doesn’t help, he added, that the Champion is a tough test in a stretch of difficult courses on the PGA Tour.
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Villegas admitted he was told to skip the event last year by his new instructor, Jose Campra, because they were working on a swing change. Campra didn’t want his player to lose more confidence.
“He says, ‘I don't want you to play the Cognizant,’ ” Villegas said. “I’m like, ‘How am I not going to play the Cognizant? I'm past champion here. It’s home. It’s such a special place for me.’
“He goes, ‘Well, trust me, I don't think you're ready to play there.’ There was a concern in him of like, man, that's a tough golf course and you got to be in control to play out here.”
His instructor was correct: Villegas shot 80-71 and was back home for the weekend.
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Villegas, who won on the PGA Tour last year for the first time since 2014, believes making the course more playable was the correct decision. But he insists it won’t be a pushover.
“The place will play tough, trust me,” he said. “Seems like we’re going to have good weather the rest of the week, but it will blow one or two days, trust me.”
The Champ has been delivering blows to the world’s best players for more than 40 years. That won’t change this week, McIlroy said.
“You still got to hit the shots," he said, "and the hazards are in the same places.”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: PGA Tour takes kinder, gentler approach with Champion course for Cognizant Classic
