Expert Picks: The Honda Classic

The 149th Open Championship, scheduled for July 16-19, was canceled Monday due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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The son of a legend, another young gun and a wily old veteran celebrating a milestone are among the Monday qualifiers for the OHL Classic at Mayakoba. Fresh on the heels of a former amateur standout Patrick Cantlay winning on the PGA TOUR another has given himself a chance at hitting the jackpot. Former U.S. Amateur Public Links champion and low amateur at the 2015 Open Championship Jordan Niebrugge shot 66 at the Iberostar Playa Paraiso Golf Course to take medalist honors and will now line up at El Camaleon Golf Club in Playa Del Carmen. The 24-year-old will play his 12th PGA TOUR event, his ninth as a professional this week. He’s made just three cuts in his previous 11 cracks at the big time, although one of those was an impressive T6 at St Andrews in the 2015 Open Championship. A quarter of his starts have come in majors as he’s also played the Masters in 2014 (MC), the Open Championship again in 2016 (MC) and the U.S. Open in 2017 (T35). The next two spots went to a pair of TOUR veterans with New Zealand’s Tim Wilkinson and American Ken Duke shooting 67 while the final spot went to Sean Jacklin after his 68. Duke, the 2013 Travelers Championship winner, will play his 300th TOUR event this week. The 48-year-old’s milestone week is his third start this season after missing the cut at the Safeway Open and Sanderson Farms Championship. Duke has 25 career Top-10s. He had 26 starts last season but finished 193rd in the FedExCup. Wilkinson has played in 158 TOUR events, including 22 last season where he finished 158th in the FedExCup standings. The 39-year-old has eight career top-10s on TOUR with his best finish being a T2 at the 2008 Valero Texas Open. Jacklin is the son of former English star Tony and although he has lived most of his life in the USA he plays under the country of his birth – Scotland.  After plying his trade in various places around the globe, including PGA TOUR – Latino America, the 25-year-old now gets the chance to make his PGA TOUR debut. Shriners Hospitals For Children Open qualifiers T41. Jim Knous 71-71-73-68 T63. Ryan Hogue 68-73-75-71 MC. Andres Gonzales 73-73 MC. Tom Whitney 71-76 2017-18 Monday Qualifiers Qualifiers: 12 Made Cut: 5 Top-10s: 1 Top-25s: 1

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JACKSON, Miss. – Holding a Sunday lead on the PGA TOUR is hard enough, especially for a rookie. It’s even more difficult when the strongest club in your bag breaks minutes before your tee time. Cameron Champ was warming up for the final round of the Sanderson Farms Championship when he noticed a squirrely ball flight on one of his tee shots. After one more shot, the club’s crown cracked open. An old driver got the promotion from the trunk to the staff bag. A slightly different swingweight required compensations to keep the club in the fairway. “I just tried to hit as many balls as I could on the range, just to get used to it a little bit,â€� he said. Champ, 23, overcame the obstacle to win the Sanderson Farms Championship by four shots, shooting a 68 in the final round to finish four shots ahead of Corey Conners. Champ already has a reputation for drives that are longer than a Ken Burns documentary. His prodigious length landed him on the cover of Golf Digest before his second PGA TOUR start. His win Sunday at the Sanderson Farms Championship proved that he’s more than a sideshow. After losing a four-shot lead on the front nine Sunday, he sank several crucial putts to hold off Conners on the closing holes. Champ’s driver was important this week – he led the field in driving distance, averaging an incredible 334 yards on the two measured holes at the Country Club of Jackson — but the shortest club in his bag also played a starring role. He finished second in Strokes Gained: Putting. He looked discouraged on the front nine, letting go of the club with one hand on the follow-through of several tee shots. He took solace in the fact that he’d dominated the Country Club of Jackson’s inward nine all week, making 16 birdies and no bogeys. He let an easy birdie opportunity pass when he failed to get up-and-down from in front of the green on the par-5 11th, though. Two holes later, Champ was staring at a 10-foot birdie putt. He knew that if he missed, Conners could take the lead for the first time Sunday. Champ pumped his fist after making his putt. It was the strongest emotion he’d shown thus far in the final round, but it was just a taste of what was to come. Conners then sank his own birdie putt to stay tied with five holes remaining. “I just felt like it was big,â€� Champ said, calling it his first realistic birdie opportunity since the sixth hole. “It gave me a little momentum going into the par-5, as well.â€� Once again, Champ was just short of the green on a par-5. He opted for the putter this time and it paid off with a birdie. After Conners failed to get up-and-down from a greenside bunker, Champ sank his 7-foot birdie putt to take a one-shot lead. They matched birdies on the next hole, a drivable par-4, after Conners’ eagle putt slid by the hole. Champ got up-and-down from short and right of the green, pitching over a greenside bunker to a green that ran away from him. Conners called their halve the turning point. “I knew if I made that one it would give me a lot of momentum going into the last three holes,â€� Conners said. On the next hole, Champ was the one who holed a crucial putt. His approach shot to the 479-yard, par-4 16th, the course’s hardest hole, was 30 yards shorter than Conners’. It was Conners who had the shorter birdie putt, though. Champ pumped his fist when his 38-foot putt curled into the hole. It gave him a two-shot lead with two holes remaining. “That wasn’t a putt I was trying to make,â€� he admitted. “I was just trying to just have good speed and get it down there for an easy par. Obviously, it had perfect speed and read it perfectly and just dropped in there.â€� Champ holed a 12-foot par putt at the next hole to maintain his two-stroke lead. He closed the tournament with a 7-foot birdie putt after an impressive recovery from the left trees. He holed all five putts that he faced Sunday from 5-10 feet. He holed nine putts from outside 10 feet this week. He gained more than nine strokes on the greens this week, including seven in the final two rounds. He saved his best for last, gaining 4.02 strokes on the greens in the final two rounds. “That’s definitely been a part of my game I’ve worked extremely hard on,â€� Champ said. “I’m just trying to slowly [develop] other parts of my game … because my ball-striking has been so good.â€� Champ is more than a long driver. He proved that Sunday at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

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