The Honda Classic has battled its spot on the PGA Tour schedule for years, most recently sitting between two invitationals and two weeks before the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
That in itself was difficult to overcome. Add to it many golfers ducking the challenge of playing the Champion Course at PGA National — the third-toughest course on tour last season — and Honda’s field in recent years has been significantly impacted.
Now, that challenge of improving the field has gotten a lot more difficult thanks to the PGA Tour.
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Part of Commissioner Jay Monahan’s response Wednesday to the LIV Golf Series poaching a handful of PGA Tour players was to increase purse sizes at eight events in 2023. For Honda, two of those could not have been worse.
The Genesis Invitational, played one week before Honda, and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, held the week after Honda, both will see their purses increased to $20 million, up from $12 million. Already popular events — Tiger Woods hosts the Genesis and players continue to honor Palmer — both of these tournaments attract many of the top-ranked golfers every year.
Now, expect those fields to become even stronger.
Add to that The Players, which remains in its spot two weeks following Honda, and golfers could be more inclined to skip Honda. Few enjoy playing four consecutive weeks, and this gives them more reason to take off the week after Genesis and start their Florida swing in Orlando at Bay Hill and not in Palm Beach Gardens.
The Players already is a favorite with fields as strong as any major every year. Its purse will be increased to $25 million, up by $5 million.
Honda Classic executive director Andrew George said the event is monitoring the tour’s plans as it builds towards its 2023 event after completing its most successful year.
The tournament awarded a record-setting $6.45 million to more than 100 South Florida philanthropic organizations in 2022, breaking the previous record of $5.35 million set in 2020. Honda has surpassed $61.7 million in charitable contributions.
The tournament will lose one local star it always could count on to boost the field and its profile. Jupiter’s Brooks Koepka was passionate in helping out his hometown tournament and played every every year he was healthy since 2014.
Koepka, though, will be ineligible to play Honda or any other PGA Tour event for the foreseeable future after defecting to LIV Golf Wednesday. Anyone playing in an LIV event has been suspended by Monahan from participating in PGA Tour events.
Koepka’s highest finish at Honda was a tie for second with Rickie Fowler behind Keith Mitchell in 2019.
Jupiter’s Dustin Johnson, the highest-ranked player (No. 16) to join LIV Golf, attempted to play Honda three times in his career. He missed the cut twice and finished 46th. He is a combined 27-over par in his eight rounds and has not returned since 2015.
Charl Schwartzel of Palm Beach Gardens won the inaugural LIV event two weeks ago in London. Schwartzel, ranked No. 123, has entered Honda nine times, including the past four years. His highest finish is fifth in 2012.
The 2022 Honda, won by Sepp Straka, included three of the top 20 in the World Golf Rankings (none in the top 10) and 11 of the top 50.
By comparison, next week’s LIV Golf event being played at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club outside of Portland, Oregon, includes three in the top 20 (none in the top 10) and eight in the top 50.
Other tournaments receiving a purse boost as the tour adjusts to keep more players from jumping to the Saudi-backed league: WGC-Match Play and Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament both increased to $20 million from $12 million, and the St. Jude Championship and BMW Championship, both up to $20 million from $15 million. The WGC event is two weeks after The Players.
“Implementing substantial changes to our schedule gives us the best opportunity to not only drive earnings to our players but also improve our product and create a platform for continued growth in the future,” Monahan said Wednesday from the Travelers Championship in Connecticut.
From 2014 to 2018, Honda attracted, on average, about half of the top 20 golfers in the world at the time and more than half ranked in the top 10. The tournament has had one player ranked in the top 10 in the past three years combined, Koepka, who was No. 3 in 2020.
The 2023 Honda is Feb. 23-26.
Tom D’Angelo is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at tdangelo@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: PGA Tour increases purses to fight LIV Tour, Honda Classic squeezed out