Honda Classic venue & PGA National's Champion Course the best course on the PGA Tour?

Before the first group teed off at the Honda Classic, I wrote that the PGA Tour needs more courses like the renovated PGA National Champion Course. It turns out that the actual Tour players agree and then some.

“It’s the best course, the best test, we play on the tour,” fifth-place finisher Robert Allenby told TC Palm newspapers.

Champion, the best course on the whole PGA Tour? Sure, Allenby’s no doubt not including the venues for the majors and other non-PGA-Tour-run events. But that’s still some mad love.

Somewhere in the back swamps of the Sunshine State, TravelGolf.com’s own crazed Florida guru with mad scientist hair Tim McDonald might want to jot down a new contender for the 2007 Florida Top 10.

The thing that surprised me with the Honda is how much trouble the pros had with Champion Course. Only 12 players broke par for the tournament. Playing it just weeks earlier with the first cut of rough already pretty thick, a group that included two ordinary golfers, the worst golf playing golf writer in the world and PGA National Director of Golf Bob Coman didn’t have a crazy struggle with the course.

In fact, we didn’t even lose that many golf balls in the three-hole stretch dubbed the Bear Trap in typical modest Jack Nicklaus fashion. This has two par 3s over water sandwiched around a par 4 that doglegs around yet more water.

Which just shows how fair PGA National’s Champion is from the second set of marked tees (the tournament tees aren’t marked for public play) that most golfers will play it from.

In fact, in an upcoming review, I argue that it’s just better to be an Average Joe walking like a pro at PGA National’s Champion Course.