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Welcome back to the Monday Finish, where we’re changing our clocks to Eastern Standard Time, putting on our Mickey Mouse ears and dialing up Lynyrd Skynyrd on Spotify. It’s Florida Swing Season! Let’s get to it.

FIRST OFF THE TEE

Schedule Secrets: Jack tells all!

Among the benefits of being Jack Nicklaus is that you’ve accomplished so much in your personal and professional life that you aren’t worried about letting a secret or two slip.

So it was to our benefit that Nicklaus dropped a few hints about the 2024 schedule to the Associated Press over the weekend.

This week there was plenty of hand-wringing about the future of the Honda Classic, given its position on the schedule. Nearly every top pro skipped this week’s event because it’s sandwiched directly after two back-to-back designated events (the WM Phoenix Open and the Genesis Invitational) and directly before two more (the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players Championship).

But according to Nicklaus, there’s a good chance next year’s event draws a better field.

“Next year’s schedule are Pebble and L.A. are their elevated tournaments,” Nicklaus said. “Phoenix is not. Then they go to Mexico, then they come here. So, we will have players next year. And then they’ve got Bay Hill and Players. The tournament’s going to be just fine.”

His musings hardly constitute an official schedule release, but let’s dive into what Nicklaus says there.

1. The WM Phoenix Open won’t be elevated next year.

2. The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am will be elevated.

3. The Mexico Open will become a part of the West Coast Swing.

4. The Honda will still kick off the Florida Swing.

If Nicklaus is correct, the fallout will be pretty simple. The WM Phoenix Open will have a weakened — though still likely strong — field. The top pros will flock to Pebble Beach. The Mexico Open will follow the Genesis Invitational, sending some pros down the coast to Puerto Vallarta. Some top pros will take that as an off-week and the Honda (which will have a new sponsor next season) will draw a relatively stronger field as pros kick off their Florida Swing.

This makes sense geographically and it makes sense in the rhythm of the schedule. Nice work, gang.

WINNERS

Who won the week?

Chris Kirk’s bounce-back

By bounce-back, I’m first referring to Chris Kirk‘s performance in the Honda Classic’s playoff on Sunday evening. Kirk led for most of the final round until he pushed his approach shot into No. 18 in regulation and could only watch in horror as it bounced off the rocks and into the water, leading to bogey.

The playoff got off to an inauspicious start when his tee shot ended up directly behind a tree. But after he advanced that down the fairway to appropriate lay-up position, Kirk stuffed a wedge shot to kick-in range. That would prove to be the difference in his win.

But bounce-back would also be an appropriate term for Kirk’s personal life. In the immediate aftermath of his win he expressed just how thankful he was for his sobriety, referencing the spring of 2019, when he took time away from the game in order to get help for his alcohol abuse. He touched on the subject again in his post-win press conference.

“I owe everything that I have in my entire life to my sobriety. I wouldn’t be doing this for a living anymore. I probably wouldn’t have the family that I have currently anymore,” he said. “I came really close to losing everything that I cared about.”

Kirk has been in contention more and more lately; he finished third at the Sony Open and T3 at the American Express. It was gratifying to see the 37-year-old’s hard work rewarded with a victory.

Let’s include Marcel Siem as an add-on here; the 42-year-old German won the Hero Indian Open for his first DP World title in more than eight years. You could see the emotion spilling through here:

“This means a lot because two years ago I wasn’t even sure if I could still compete, and now I’m a winner again.”

Lilia Vu’s comeback

Before she erased a six-shot deficit with a final-round 64 to log the first win of her LPGA Tour career, Lilia Vu wasn’t sure it would ever happen. She’d made it to the top tour in 2019 with high expectations following an eight-win career at UCLA but found things more difficult than she expected. Every shot felt like life or death. She lost control of her mind and then her game. She fell back to the Epson Tour. She considered law school.

Now that feels like ancient history. Vu’s final round included one run of five birdies in a row as she chased down Thai pro Natthakritta Vongtaveelap en route to a one-shot win. So what was the difference?

“I think it was all a mindset change,” she said. “I feel like technically my golf game got better, too, but it was all mindset.”

Think positive, folks. Pair that with a world-class golf game and you, too, could set your sights on this year’s Solheim Cup.

Charles Howell’s greenbacks

43-year-old Charles Howell III outclassed the rest of the LIV field in the first event of the circuit’s second season, shooting 16 under par to beat Peter Uihlein by four. He pocketed $4 million for the victory. Howell also led his Crushers GC team to victory, earning another $750,000 ($3 million split four ways) in the process. It would be disingenuous to suggest that the money was the only thing that mattered for Howell, though — the win meant plenty, too:

“I’ve played a lot of golf tournaments in my life, and I haven’t won a lot of them,” he said. “And you have the doubts and the feelings, will you ever win again?”

ALMOST-WINNERS

Still good.

Eric Cole finished second at the Honda, a career high for the 34-year-old PGA Tour rookie. It looked like he might be a winner, too, until his birdie putt at the first playoff hole did something rude:

Ryan Gerard played his way into this week’s event via Monday Qualifier — and then went on to finish T4. That was the best result for a qualifier since Doc Redman’s runner-up result at the 2019 Rocket Mortgage. Because he finished top 10, Gerard is into this week’s Puerto Rico Open, too.

And it’s been a little while since we’ve seen Jin Young Ko in top form. But the former World No. 1 finished the Honda LPGA Thailand with a round of 8-under 64, tied for the low round of the week. Ko’s T6 result was her best since finishing fourth at the U.S. Women’s Open last June. (It was her first top-10 since last July.)

“I cried a lot last year in front of my parents,” she said. “But, yeah, golf is a lot of ups and downs so we have to focus on my game and try to get better and better.”

NOT-WINNERS

Tough times.

Webb Simpson was in line for his best result in a long, long time when he opened with rounds of 71-70-66 to enter Sunday T31. Then he struggled to a Sunday 77 that included three double bogeys and just a single birdie, dooming him to T74. For years, we’d gotten used to Simpson as a mainstay near the top of the Tour, but it’s been a rough go of late: he had just one top-15 finish all of 2022 and now hasn’t logged a top 50 in his last 12 starts.

And thanks to the AP’s Doug Ferguson for this one: Phil Mickelson has never been outside the top 300 in the world rankings as a professional golfer until this week. When he won the 1991 Tucson Open as an amateur, he leapt to No. 164 in the world and never looked back — until now. Mickelson has primarily been competing on LIV, which still receives no points from the OWGR. He’s likely to continue falling until the Masters.

NEWS FROM SEATTLE

Monday Finish HQ.

Last week, pool reporters were summoned to the White House for a trip to Ukraine accompanying President Biden. But it’s apparently unwise to email state secrets like that one, so instead the email subject line read “Arrival instructions for golf tourney”. (More details here.)

Well, fellas, I frequently receive emails with subject lines almost exactly like that one, so it’s been stuck in my brain. And now I’ve had multiple vivid dreams in the last few days where I show up to a golf tournament’s media center only to be whisked away by helicopter to some unknown war zone.

WHAT’S NEXT

3 things to watch this week.

1. A Netflix star on the Drop Zone!

Geno Bonnalie, caddie to Joel Dahmen, won hearts and minds in his Netflix appearance. He joined us on this week’s Drop Zone, which includes one epic story from early in their time together. You can listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

2. Rory at Bay Hill.

It’s time for the World No. 3 to get in gear. First because he’s our best remaining hope to drive the green at No. 6. Second because he’s been absent thus far in terms of contending for designated events, a system he helped set up. I expect a better one this week.

3. Drive to Survive, Season 5

If you’ve already finished Full Swing, it’s the logical next step…

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The post ‘I thank God that alcohol won’t be part of it’: Chris Kirk opens up on his fight appeared first on Golf.

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All of this is a bonus to Chris Kirk. All of it. 

His win? 

His wedge to a foot? 

News

Chris Kirk hangs on to win the Honda Classic in a playoff over Eric Cole

By: Zephyr Melton

His mistake just a hole earlier? 

The fact that he’s playing golf for a paycheck? 

Bonus, bonus, bonus, bonus. All of it. And that’s it really. But it’s deep. Kirk, almost four years sober now after a battle with alcoholism, won the Honda Classic on Sunday, his first victory on the PGA Tour in nearly eight years, and folks wanted to dig into it. They wanted to know about the journey. They wanted to know how he felt now. And he was happy to answer. 

Because even that is a bonus. 

“Yeah, I owe everything that I have in my entire life to my sobriety,” he said. “I wouldn’t be doing this for a living anymore. I probably wouldn’t have the family that I have currently anymore. I came really close to losing everything that I cared about.

“For that to have happened and worked out for me, obviously there were some decisions that I made, but mostly the grace of God and a lot of other people that really helped me along the way. But yeah, it’s something that’s constantly on my mind, so it’s pretty easy for me to see that winning the Honda Classic is kind of a bonus when literally every good thing I have in my life I owe to that.”

Before we get more into Sunday, though, let’s look back. In the golf circle, Kirk is a player. His game is complete. But if you’re looking just at resumes, the Georgia native is good there, too. In 2011, four years into his pro career, he won. From 2013 to 2015, he won three more times. In 2015, he played on the U.S. Presidents Cup team. 

News

Tour Confidential: PGA Tour power brokers, LIV Golf goals, mixed events 

By: GOLF Editors

And in May of 2019, he was done. He said he’d been battling alcoholism and depression for a while. He wouldn’t come back until November. In an excellent piece on the PGA Tour’s website (which you should take the time to read here), he described his breaking point this way:

“I was just fighting it and fighting it. Finally, after a couple of relapses, if that is what you want to call it, in April it was just like, ‘OK, I can’t do this anymore. I have got to change something because I am going to end up with nothing. …’

“It was when I realized I just really, truly do not have control over this, because I really wanted to not be doing it and I still was.”

In his return, there have been milestones. He made the cut in that first start back, at the 2019 Mayakoba Golf Classic. In January of 2021, needing a finish of third or better at the Sony Open to keep his Tour membership, he tied for second. He posted three more top 10s that year, and last season, he had another four. 

This year, Kirk’s been maybe better, with a third at the Sony in January, and a tie for third at the American Express a week later. At the Honda, the 37-year-old opened with a one-under 69. Then he shot a 62. And a 66. 

And now we’re back to Sunday, where Kirk opened the day with a two-shot lead. And he came to the 18th, after an entertaining back-and-forth with 34-year-old Tour rookie Eric Cole, up one. And then came the mistake we mentioned earlier. He got aggressive with his second shot on the par-5, his ball hit a rock short of the green and bounced into water, and he went to a playoff. But then came the wedge to a foot we also mentioned, and Cole parred, and Kirk birdied, and he’s a Tour winner again. 

Whew. We just ran through the past three years of his life in six paragraphs. But Kirk can do it better: He can kind of sum up how he got through it all in a word. 

Go back and read the first paragraph. 

All of this is a bonus to Chris Kirk. All of it. 

“Yeah, definitely still trying to wrap my head around it, for sure, but I’m just so thankful to be able to do what I do for a living,” he said. “I’m very thankful to have the life that I have, and to have the opportunity to compete on a stage like this, in a tournament like this, and to be able to pull it off is a huge bonus for me.”

It’s a message he plans to share, too. 

“It’s been amazing getting to connect with people and meet people that have — I couldn’t really put a number on it, but it’s been a lot of people that have reached out to me directly and said, I read your story or I heard your story and that made me decide that it was time.

“When I first came back to playing and was very open and honest about it, that was not in my mind at all. It was more — it was for me because I felt I had lived this life for a number of years where I was just lying to myself, lying to my family, lying to — hiding a lot of things. So the honesty of the process that I went through to get better just felt so good that I had nothing to hide, and so it was just the natural thing for me to do.

“But now on the back end a little bit, it’s been amazing. Like I said, it’s not something that I really saw happening, but to be able to connect with people and hear people that — for somebody to say, I got sober because of you, and my life has changed because of you, you can’t really describe how unreal that is with words.”

We’ll end things with how Kirk’s press conference ended. It started playfully. A reporter was curious whether Sunday night would be the first time Kirk would celebrate a PGA Tour win without alcohol, and he answered indirectly. He’d drink some Diet Cokes. 

He then had this exchange:

“What’s it like to do something that’s so different and says a lot about what you’ve gone through in your life?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t really think about it, to be honest with you,” Kirk said. “I mean, I just am so excited to celebrate tonight with my friends, and obviously wish that my wife and kids were down here with me, but I’ll get to see them on Wednesday. They’re coming down for Bay Hill next week. 

“It’ll be a lot of celebrating, and I thank God that alcohol won’t be a part of it.”

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Chris Kirk broke an almost 8-year winless drought on the PGA Tour with a sudden-death playoff victory over Eric Cole at the Honda Classic.

Take a closer look at the setup Kirk used to get the job done.

Driver: Callaway Paradym Triple Diamond (Fujikura Ventus Blue 6TX shaft), 9 degrees

3-wood: TaylorMade Stealth (Fujikura Ventus Blue 8TX shaft), 15 degrees

5-wood: TaylorMade Stealth (Fujikura Ventus Blue 8TX shaft), 18 degrees

Irons: Callaway Apex Pro 2021 (4-iron; Project X LZ 125 6.5 shaft), Callaway Apex MB 2018 (5-9; Project X LZ 125 6.5 shafts)

Wedges: Callaway Jaws Raw (46-10S and 50-10S degrees; True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S300 shafts), Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (56-10S degrees; True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S300 shaft), Titleist Vokey WedgeWorks (60T degrees; True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S300 shaft)

Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5

Ball: Titleist Pro V1x

Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet

Want to overhaul your bag for 2023? Find a fitting location near you at GOLF’s affiliate company True Spec Golf.

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Chris Kirk watched in despair as his ball caromed off the rocks and splashed into the water near the 18th green at PGA National. He held his club over his shoulders and hung his head. His hopes for a fifth PGA Tour title appeared sunk, along with his pearly Titleist ProV1X.

But, as the old adage goes, winning is hard. Journeyman Eric Cole was unable to capitalize on Kirk’s miscue in regulation, parring the 18th from the middle of the fairway at the par-5, which was only enough to force a playoff.

On the extra hole, Kirk would not make the same mistake twice.

This time, a pushed drive left him behind a tree and forced a layup to wedge distance into the finisher. With a short club in his hand, the daunting water was not a factor as Kirk spun a wedge inside a foot to card a birdie. Moments later, Cole’s birdie bid caught the left edge of the cup and stayed above ground, securing Kirk his first Tour win since 2015.

“I just have so much to be thankful for,” Kirk said shortly after the win. “I was obviously very very nervous today having not won in so long … Thank god it worked out.”

This Honda Classic win looked anything but assured for much of the day on a difficult PGA National layout. Kirk begun the day with a two-shot lead over his playing partner Cole, but the journeyman was able to pull even — and even take the lead — multiple times throughout the day.

Cole, a 56-time winner on the Minor League Golf circuit, had never registered a top 10 on Tour coming into Sunday. In fact, his first top 15 came earlier this month at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. But despite being in unfamiliar territory, the rookie never flinched as he went blow for blow with Kirk.

“I felt like I hung pretty tough, and I was really proud of that,” Cole said. “I played as hard as I could. I’m disappointed in the result, but it is what it is.”

Cole rode a hot putter on Sunday en route to a closing 67, missing just once inside 15 feet. However, that one miss came when it mattered most as he was unable to convert his 10-footer for birdie on the playoff hole.

“It was a good putt,” he said. “I hit a really good putt and just kind of caught that top edge. I must have hit it just barely too hard to take the break.”

The win is Kirk’s first win since the 2015 Crowne Plaza Invitational, and his first on Tour since taking a leave of absence from professional golf in 2019 to deal with alcoholism and depression issues.

“I’m so grateful for my sobriety,” Kirk said. “I’m so grateful for my family. I’m so grateful for everyone that’s supported me throughout the past three or four years especially. Thank you so much.”

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We’ve officially reached the final round of the Honda Classic, and there’s plenty on the line at PGA National.

Chris Kirk leads the way through 54 holes as he seeks his fifth PGA Tour victory, while a host of challengers lag behind. Eric Cole, who’s never recorded a top-10 finish, will play alongside Kirk, while rookie Justin Suh and major winner Shane Lowry play in the penultimate pairing.

A win would be life-changing for many of the golfers sitting in the top 10, with two years of status among the spoils they will enjoy. Along with the exemptions and status, there’s plenty of cash at stake, too. Over $8 million will be handed out Sunday, with $1.5 million going to the winner.

You can check out the complete payout breakdown below.

Honda Classic payout info, winner’s share

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Shane Lowry says he’s playing for a man he says was “great craic” — and playing well. 

Lowry revealed Saturday that his uncle, Jimmy Lowry, died Thursday morning, the day the younger Lowry started play at the Honda Classic. The news came to light after the Irishman’s third round, when a reporter asked him about the green-and-white ribbon that he had attached to the left side of his hat. 

Rules

Honda Classic leader was dead. Then he received the ‘lottery of relief’

By: Nick Piastowski

“Yeah, my dad’s brother, unexpected,” Lowry said. “It’s a very sad week for our family. To be honest, I wanted to go home on Thursday when I heard the news. A lot of people talked me out of it.

“I’m here now. I’m trying to play for him and play for his wife and his kids and my cousins and my uncles and my aunts and everyone at home because we’re a very close family and very proud of our name and very proud of where we come from. Green and white is just where he’s from — that’s Ferbane in Offaly, in Ireland — and said I’d wear it. Yeah, hopefully I can go out and make him proud tomorrow. Everyone keeps telling me how proud he was of me over the last number of years, and hopefully I can do him another day proud tomorrow.”

Through three rounds at the Honda, Lowry was tied for fourth, four shots behind leader Chris Kirk. On Thursday, he shot a two-under 70 and followed it up with another 68, and a third-round 65. 

After the latter round, Lowry was asked to describe his uncle, who is the brother of his dad, Brendan. 

“He’s two years older than my dad, so he’s 66,” Lowry said. “He’s just a great man. He loved working. He loved hard work. He loved hardship. He was big into Gaelic games at home. He didn’t necessarily play at the highest level, but he was very involved and loved in the community, and he was just a great man. He was great craic, and I loved him.

Tournaments

2023 Honda Classic: How to watch, TV schedule, streaming, tee times

By: Kevin Cunningham

“It’s a very sad day for our family. Yeah, it’s just quite sad, and it’s quite hard. It’s been a difficult week. It’s been very difficult not to be there at home for my dad because my dad is a big softy and he’ll take this quite hard. But I’ll see him in a couple of weeks when he comes out here, and yeah.”

Notably, Lowry is in the middle of a stretch that will see him play eight tournaments in nine weeks. During last year’s final round at the Honda, Lowry was caught in a rainstorm on the par-5 finishing hole, parred it and finished a stroke behind winner Sepp Straka. 

On Saturday, a reporter asked Lowry if he would take anything from that day to this year.

“I just hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” he joked. 

“No, look, this golf course, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You just need to stick in as long as you can. There’s not many holes where you can stand up, and you don’t want to be complacent but take it easy on them. Every hole is a bit of a disaster hole, or a lot of holes are a bit of disaster holes. You just need to be very cautious and aggressive to your targets and just go out there and give it your best, and if that’s good enough at the end of the day, you hope to be standing here with the trophy.”

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Chris Kirk knew what he had just received. But his adjective maybe needed some work. 

“Definitely a good break,” he said. 

Definitely. Of course, these are not foreign, and we all should get them, considering how often their awful cousins — the bad break — visit. That being said, “good” may not do the most complete job in describing the fortune that came to Kirk during Saturday’s Honda Classic third round. It was more than that. Kirk is a soft-spoken, gentle soul, though, so we’ll try to help. 

Was it helpful? Yes, as he was able to drop his ball about 25 yards away from the complete hell where it had landed, and it was now in a much, much happier place. Was it life-changing? That’s still to be decided — there’s still one round to be played — but the break led to a birdie on PGA National’s closing hole, and he now moves into Sunday’s final round with a two-shot cushion. And he hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since May of 2015. 

“It’s like he’s won the lottery of relief on this drop,” announcer Dan Hicks said on the NBC broadcast.  

Possibly. Let’s start from the beginning. Up one coming to the 555-yard, par-5 18th, Kirk found the fairway with stroke one, then ripped a fairway wood past and to the left of the green and the back bunker. But it came to rest against the grandstand, underneath what appeared to be a souvenir bag. 

It’s here where we’ll pause to try to paint the shot he would have had, had the seating not been there. He was 25 yards away from the hole. His ball was in thick Bermuda. There was the bunker, between him and the flag. The green sloped toward it. 

Then, under the guidance of an official, he picked up his ball and started walking to the right. If you’re familiar with professional golf and seating, you’ve seen this before, but here’s a quick explanation, just in case. Kirk was getting relief from a temporary immovable obstruction — and the USGA offers a wonderful breakdown of it all here — but he couldn’t get the relief if he moved closer to the hole, or if the TIO was still affecting his swing. 

So he moved his ball to the right. And the path took him away from the bunker. And to a spot with more grass to work with. But away from the thick grass, too. In the end, it traveled the 25 yards noted above, and he had about a 30-yard shot. 

It’s simple, and yet strange. And yes, pros are fully aware of the play.

“What a break,” analyst Paul Azinger said on the broadcast. 

“It’s kind of a double-edge sword, Zing,” Hicks continued.” You want to bring as many people close to the action in the game of golf, but with these structures getting bigger and seemingly more closer, we’re seeing some guys get some breaks. And not just relief from the stands. But significantly better angle here for Kirk, who went way long.” 

“Players are smart and strategic, and they know you can bail left into that grandstand and get a drop,” Azinger said.

“And Dan, like you said, it’s only the angle, but where his ball was, that whole area back there is Bermuda,” analyst John Wood said. “You can’t get good contact. It’s going to come out and release. Where he’s going to end up is all fairway cut. … He’s going to be able to nip something if he wants.”

After his drop, Kirk one-hopped a chip into the upslope toward the green, and his ball finished 6 from the hole. He made that, he finished with a four-under 66, and he’ll start Sunday with the two-shot lead. 

“That was well executed,” Azinger said on the broadcast, of the chip. 

News

He'll earn his first PGA Tour paycheck on Sunday. He can thank 'Dr. Chipinksy'

By: Nick Piastowski

“If you’re going to be 25 yards away from where you were, you might as well take advantage of it fully,” Hicks said. 

“And Zinger, I’m just looking at where his ball was,” Wood said. “If he would have had to play from up top and go over that bunker and land onto a downslope, 30 feet would have been pretty good.” 

“We knew when he hit that shot he was going to be in deep trouble back there,” Azinger said. “But what a terrific break. Like Dan said, it’s like a lottery of relief.”

Kirk, as we mentioned at the start, agreed. Afterward, he was simply asked: How big was that ruling? 

“Yeah, definitely made that a much more doable shot,” he said. “It was a shot that I could have gotten up-and-down for sure hitting a flop shot from the rough over the bunker, but thankfully where I dropped was much more straightforward. The lie was clean, but that grass right there was kind of sandy and straight into the grain. That was why I chose to hit that kind of low driving shot, just to give myself a little better chance at some good contact. That was one where if I try to hit more of a higher pitch and land it on the green, I could have hit it right in front of myself.

“Definitely a good break, but executed a great pitch shot there and drained the putt, which was a nice way to finish.”

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Trace Crowe says his buddies call him Dr. Chipinsky. And if your buddies call you Dr. Chipinsky, then you damn sure better be Dr. Chipinsky. 

But first, let’s talk about Mr. Crowe. 

He’s been a pro for about three years now. But the 26-year-old’s really been into golf, in general, for only a little over a decade. The Crowes of South Carolina liked their hoops. Then you start seeing Tiger Woods do his thing, and here we are. 

“He made you motivated to go practice and stuff like that,” Crowe said last year in a video filmed by the Korn Ferry Tour. 

News

2023 Honda Classic tee times: Final-round pairings for Sunday

By: Zephyr Melton

“… Grew up playing all kinds of sports. All of my family is a basketball family. But we grew up on the golf course, and I always thought golf was pretty boring. And then I just started falling in love with the game, living there, from practicing, going out and being on your own and just getting better and working at it. 

“I fell in love when I was like 14 and I’m still in love with the grind still today. I just love getting better and the opportunity to when you play good and seeing your hard work pay off.” 

Let’s talk about that grind now. It’s been one. 

A former star at Auburn, he’s tried to make a living out of the game. A break came last year, when he made 17 starts on the Korn Ferry Tour. He made nine cuts, and you can do the other math. He finished 138th on the season points list. He made $38,024. There’s more, though, of course. 

On Monday, he shot seven-under to win the Honda Classic qualifier, and he was in his second-ever event on the big circuit, in 2017, while at Auburn, he played in the Barbasol Classic and missed the cut. This was his shot, though. During Thursday’s first round, he shot a two-over 72. That’s OK. PGA National is no joke. But he had work to do. And on Friday, Crowe carded two birdies and two bogeys before coming to the par-4 9th, his closing hole, and he probably needed a birdie to make the weekend cut. 

Let’s talk about Dr. Chipinsky now. 

He drove down the right side on 9. And then he hit short of the green, also on the right side.  

And then Chipinsky chipped in. On the 51-foot miracle, his ball landed about a foot onto the green, it took four bounces and rolled the rest of the way before falling. In the background, his playing partners, Sam Stevens and Nico Echavarria, each raised an arm. Crowe/Chipinsky fist-bumped his caddie, Jared Burgoyne.

A buddy recorded it and yelled, “Do it, do it, let’s go, Trace! Come on! Woo!’” Crowe shared the video to his Instagram story and wrote: “Dr. Chipinsky to make the weekend @thehondaclassic time to get (fire emoji).” 

Crowe made his first PGA Tour cut. He’ll cash a nice check; on Saturday, he shot a 70. The Tour also shared his buddy’s video, and they did a short interview with him. 

“Me and my caddie were like, dude, we gotta make this, or we’re going home,” Crowe/Chipinsky said. “I was playing with Sam Stevens. Played with him a good bit last year. And he had his arm out like 6 feet out, and I was like, it must be good.”

Asked a narrator: “I think on Instagram they called you Mr. Chipinsky?”

“I said that, yeah,” Crowe/Chipinsky said. “I put Walter Chipinsky and yeah. Yeah, it’s what me and all my boys say back home. Yeah, when it went in, it was hype. It was cool, man, just to get a chance to play the weekend here and just to play tournament golf at this level. 

“It’s awesome.”  

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The post 2023 Honda Classic tee times: Final-round pairings for Sunday appeared first on Golf.

The post 2023 Honda Classic tee times: Final-round pairings for Sunday appeared first on Golf.

The 2023 Honda Classic concludes on Sunday with the final round at PGA National Resort in Florida. You can find full final-round tee times for the tournament at the bottom of this post.

Featured final-round pairings

Chris Kirk will be the man to beat entering the final round at PGA National. The PGA Tour veteran holds a two-shot lead as play concludes Saturday as he looks to claim his fifth career victory. The 37-year-old posted a four-under 66 on Saturday, featuring six birdies and just two bogeys.

Playing alongside Kirk in the final round will be the journeyman Eric Cole. The 34-year-old rookie has never finished inside the top 10 on Tour and has just one top 15 to his credit. He fired a four-under 66 in Round 3 and enters Sunday looking for what could be a life-changing victory. The duo tees off at 1:35 p.m. ET.

The penultimate group will feature Justin Suh and major-winner Shane Lowry. Suh, a 25-year-old from California, has never won on Tour while Lowry looks for his third Tour victory. They will go off at 1:25 p.m. ET.

You can stream Sunday’s final round via PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ or watch the action on Golf Channel and NBC.

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Browse the complete final-round tee times for the 2023 Honda Classic below.

2023 Honda Classic final-round tee times (All times ET)

Tee No. 1

6:50 a.m. – Cody Gribble, Tyson Alexander
7 a.m. – J.B. Holmes, Geoff Ogilvy
7:10 a.m. – Anders Albertson, Joseph Bramlett?
7:20 a.m. – Pierceson Coody, Kyle Stanley
7:30 a.m. – Kevin Tway, Jason Dufner
7:40 a.m. – Vincent Norman, Trevor Cone
7:50 a.m. – Trace Crowe, S.H. Kim
8 a.m. – Jhonattan Vegas, Aaron Wise
8:10 a.m. – Min Woo Lee, Akshay Bhatia
8:20 a.m. – Bill Haas, Ryan Armour
8:30 a.m. – J.T. Poston, Mark Hubbard
8:40 a.m. – Harry Hall, Zac Blair
8:55 a.m. – Brandon Wu, Brandon Matthews
9:05 a.m. – Padraig Harrington, Will Gordon
9:15 a.m. – Kevin Chappell, Augusto Nuñez
9:25 a.m. – Carson Young, MJ Daffue
9:35 a.m. – Scott Harrington, Dylan Fittelli
9:45 a.m. – Sungjae Im, Harrison Endycott
9:55 a.m. – Erik Barnes, Jimmy Walker
10:05 a.m. – Trevor Werbylo, Matthias Schwab
10:15 a.m. – Brett Drewitt, Jim Herman
10:25 a.m. – Kelly Kraft, Tano Goya
10:35 a.m. – Danny Willett, Taylor Pendrith
10:45 a.m. – Stephan Jaegar, Lee Hodges
11 a.m. – Webb Simpson, Garrick Higgo
11:10 a.m. Adam Schenk, Zach Johnson
11:20 a.m. – Andrew Novak, Adrian Meronk
11:30 a.m. – William McGirt, Billy Horschel
11:40 a.m. – Dylan Wu, Christian Bezuidenhout
11:50 a.m. – Kevin Roy, Ben Griffin
12 p.m. – Adam Svensson, Robby Shelton
12:10 p.m. – Davis Riley, David Lingmerth
12:20 p.m. – Ryan Brehm, Kramer Hickok
12:30 p.m. – Chesson Hadley, Matt Wallace
12:45 p.m. – Ben Martin, Ryan Gerard
12:55 p.m. – Cameron Percy, Brice Garnett
1:05 p.m. – Tyler Duncan, Sepp Straka
1:15 p.m. – Ben Taylor, Byeong Hun An
1:25 p.m. – Justin Suh, Shane Lowry
1:35 p.m. – Chris Kirk, Eric Cole

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The post 2023 Honda Classic tee times: Round 3 groupings for Saturday appeared first on Golf.

The post 2023 Honda Classic tee times: Round 3 groupings for Saturday appeared first on Golf.

The 2023 Honda Classic continues on Saturday with the third round at PGA National Resort in Florida. You can find full Round 3 tee times for the tournament at the bottom of this post.

Featured grouping for Round 3

At the Honda Classic’s halfway point, 25-year-old pro Justin Suh leads the way at 10 under par, one shot clear of his closest competitor, Tour veteran Chris Kirk, who is nine under.

Suh is somewhat of a Tour newbie, with only 37 events on his resume. He only has one career Top 10 — a mark he’ll be looking to improve upon with continued solid play this weekend. Kirk, however, will be a tough competitor to beat. His second-round 62 was the low score of the day, and he has four career wins under his belt. The leading duo will tee off at 12:30 p.m. ET, joined by Monday qualifier Ryan Gerard.

You can stream Saturday’s third round via PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ or watch the action on Golf Channel and NBC.

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With an ESPN+ subscription, you gain access to PGA Tour Live, where you can stream the best PGA Tour events live from wherever you want.

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Browse the complete third-round tee times for the 2023 Honda Classic below.

2023 Honda Classic Round 3 tee times (All times ET)

Tee No. 1

7:30 a.m. – Brett Drewitt, Pierceson Coody
7:40 a.m. – Geoff Ogilvy, Zac Blair, Kyle Stanley
7:51 a.m. – Webb Simpson, Garrick Higgo, Jhonattan Vegas
8:02 a.m. – J.T. Poston, Aaron Wise, Jim Herman
8:13 a.m. – Trevor Werbylo, Trace Crowe, S.H. Kim
8:24 a.m. – Anders Albertson, MJ Daffue, Vincent Norman
8:40 a.m. – Ryan Brehm, Matthias Schwab, Trevor Cone
8:51 a.m. – Kevin Chappell, Augusto Nuñez, Cody Gribble
9:02 a.m. – Tyson Alexander, Robby Shelton, Kevin Tway
9:13 a.m. – Kevin Roy, Ben Griffin, Mark Hubbard
9:24 a.m. – Bill Haas, Padraig Harrington, Stephan Jaegar
9:35 a.m. – Kramer Hickok, Ryan Armour, Lee Hodges
9:46 a.m. – Dylan Wu, Erik Barnes, Will Gordon
10:02 a.m. – Danny Willett, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Brandon Wu
10:13 a.m. – Jimmy Walker, William McGirt, J.B. Holmes
10:24 a.m. – Joseph Bramlett, Billy Horschel, Brandon Matthews
10:35 a.m. – Harry Hall, Davis Riley, Jason Dufner
10:46 a.m. – Andrew Novak, Sungjae Im, Taylor Pendrith
10:57 a.m. – Harrison Endycott, Sepp Straka, David Lingmerth
11:08 a.m. – Min Woo Lee, Cameron Percy, Kelly Kraft
11:24 a.m. – Shane Lowry, Adrian Meronk, Scott Harrington
11:35 a.m. – Adam Svensson, Akshay Bhatia, Dylan Frittelli
11:46 a.m. – Carson Young, Adam Schenk, Chesson Hadley
11:57 a.m. – Matt Wallace, Zach Johnson, Byeong Hun An
12:08 p.m. – Brice Garnett, Tyler Duncan, Tano Goya
12:19 p.m. – Ben Taylor, Ben Martin, Eric Cole
12:30 p.m. – Justin Suh, Chris Kirk, Ryan Gerard

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