Honda Classic Recap: Mitchell Gets First Tour Win

When Rickie Fowler birdied the 18th hole to tie Brooks Koepka for the clubhouse lead late on Sunday afternoon at the Honda Classic, it sure looked as if we were headed for a heavyweight playoff, the kind we don't see every day. Or every year.

Sure, Keith Mitchell was also at 8-under, but he was in a bad spot in a fairway bunker on the par-5, 552-yard finishing hole. If the unheralded Mitchell made it a three-way playoff, so be it. Golf fans would still be treated to Koepka-Fowler. That looked like a near certainty after Mitchell took two more swings and still was 15 feet 6 inches from the hole, needing to make that birdie putt to win in regulation.

Consider all the factors at play: Mitchell is one of the worst putters on Tour, entering the week ranked 218th in strokes gained: putting. How bad is 218? The list goes only 220 deep. Putting from that distance had a Tour success rate of 21 percent. But when you factor in a horrible putter taking the biggest stroke of his life and trying to win his first career tournament, we'd guess rate that success rate drops under 10 percent.

"A life-changing moment right here if he can hole this," NBC's Paul Azinger said in his hushed golf voice.

By now you know where we're going. And where the ball is going: right in the bottom of the cup.

And now we know where Mitchell, a 27-year-old Georgia alum, is going: to the Masters. And the PGA. And The Players Championship. And other important tournaments, including next week's Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Gamers and golf observers of course knew of Mitchell, who is in his second year on Tour and was ranked 162nd in the world coming in. And they probably knew that he is a terrific ball-striker, great from tee to green. What they may not have known was that Mitchell had never won before, not on the Web.com Tour, not on the PGA Tour LatinoAmerica and certainly not in his first 39 PGA tour events.

Mitchell's resume did boast a runner-up, albeit in last year's Dominican opposite-field event, and also a T3 at the Byron Nelson Classic, plus a couple of other top-10s and some more top-25s. He was a horrible putter, but a season-long ranking of seventh in strokes gained: off the tee counts for a lot.

(Just to be clear, when we say a player "can't putt," or is a "horrible putter," please realize that if he ended up in our foursome this weekend he'd be the best putter any of us had ever seen. By far.)

Mitchell, beginning the day one shot off the lead, missed par putts of about 13 and 8 feet on Nos. 1 and 2. But he steadied to birdie twice before making the turn, then four more times in his final seven to complete his life-altering accomplishment. One of those birdies came at the start of the famed Bear Trap. Mitchell played a draw on the water-laden par-3 15th. That means the plan was to start the ball over the water and draw it in toward the hole. If it didn't draw, it'd would've been wet. And Mitchell would've been toast. That's confidence. Mitchell jumped almost 100 spots to No. 68 in the OWGR.

For the week, Mitchell ranked 38th in the field in strokes gained: putting. It's hard to win that way on the PGA Tour – just ask Tony Finau, who is sitting on one career win for more than three years. Of course, we're not comparing Mitchell to Finau, who is ranked just outside the top-10 in the world. But when you rank 12th in the field in strokes gained: off the tee, seventh in SG approach and sixth in SG around the green, as Mitchell did, and are playing in a relatively weak field in a tournament that is the furthest thing from a birdie-fest, you can win. Not often, maybe not twice. But you can win.

For the record, Mitchell has now inched up in the latest rankings to No. 205 in strokes gained: putting. So we can still call him a horrible putter.

But now we also have to call him a PGA Tour champion.

MONDAY BACKSPIN

Brooks Koepka
After complaining about slow play and Sergio Garcia and falling to No. 4 in the world, Koepka finally did some talking on the course. This was his fifth worldwide start of 2019, but he had yet to contend. Koepka's corunner-up was enough to move him past Justin Thomas back to third in the OWGR. It's always hard to tell whether Koepka cares, so it's sometimes easy to forget that when he does care, he's a threat to win.

Rickie Fowler
Fowler birdied three of the final four holes to electrify the PGA National crowd and, for a few minutes, appeared headed for a playoff. Since Fowler won at Phoenix just a month ago, we can't say that, "it's just another close call for Rickie." So with a recent win and a runner-up, you could say Fowler is the hottest player around heading into The Players in two weeks. Fowler won at TPC Sawgrass in 2015.

Ryan Palmer
Palmer teed off early, shot a lights-out 7-under 63 in calm conditions to post 7-under, and it was hours before he was eliminated from contention. Better late than never. One of the worst things about golf, albeit completely uncorrectable, is that players play in different conditions. The wind picked up in the afternoon, making scoring harder. But thankfully not hard enough to prevent three players from overtaking Palmer. For Palmer, though, it's extends his winless stretch, which now exceeds nine years (2010 Sony). Still, this was his third top-10 already this season, and the 42-year-old appears headed for his best year since 2014.

Vijay Singh
Apologies to third-round leader Wyndham Clark, but the top of the leaderboard looked so bad at the start of Sunday that the big selling point when NBC went on the air was Singh trying to become the oldest winner ever on the PGA Tour. He promptly bogeyed the first hole. Still, the 56-year-old Singh didn't go away. For 70 holes, he played as if he had found the fountain of youth. On the 71st, his ball found water. Singh wound up solo sixth, three strokes behind Mitchell, his best showing on the PGA Tour in almost three years. Singh of course is not a viable fantasy option. But as NBC showed us, he still can be a compelling story.

Lucas Bjerregaard
Bjerregaard shot a 67 on Sunday to race up the leaderboard and wind up tied for 12th. That was vitally important to the 27-year-old from Denmark, as it moved him to exactly No. 50 in the world and, thus, into The Players in two weeks. Of the wave of younger Europeans – Eddie Pepperell and Matt Wallace, to name two – Bjerregaard may have had the fewest reps Stateside. So even though the Honda field was light, it was a good sign for him. It was a lot better than his T69 the week before at the WGC-Mexico.

Emiliano Grillo
Grillio was a popular DFS choice for the Honda. We're not sure why. He had not played well so far in 2019. He opened nicely with a T22 at the Sony, but since then went T52-T33-T58 before missing the cut at PGA National. The problem is putting, and his numbers are somehow worse than Mitchell's. Grillo is now ranked 216th in strokes gained: putting. We may have been fooled by Grillo finishing last season No. 10 in putting. But it appears to have been an aberration, as he was 139th the year before. His wedge game isn't much better, as he's currently ranked 187th in strokes gained: around the green, and it has never been inside the top-140.

Alex Noren
Noren has opened 2019 MC-T44-T62-MC, with the last trunk slam at PGA National. Noren had a terrific 2017-18 season, his first on the PGA Tour. But now he's ranked outside the top-180 in multiple strokes-gained categories: off the tee, approach, putting, tee to green and total. In short, his game has done a complete 180. He was third in putting last season, 215th now. He's fallen from 19th in the world at the start of the year to 29th, a precipitous drop in such a short time. In 13 worldwide events since winning the French Open midway through last year, the 36-year-old Swede has just one top-10.

Kyle Stanley
Stanley began 2019 with T22 at the Sony. Since then: MC-MC-MC-T58-MC. For a stretch, one of the steadiest tee-to-green players, Stanley is ranked 175th in strokes gained: off the tee, 190th in SG approach and 186th in SG tee to green. A year ago, those numbers were 33, 51, 37. Two years ago, 7, 14 and 12. That's some serious decline, especially for someone who is only 31.

Brendan Steele
One more player who's fallen off the golf map: Steele is on a stretch of MC-T57-MC-MC-MC-MC. Another good tee-to-green player in the past, Steele, 35, is ranked 162nd in strokes gained: approach and outside the top-200 in SG around the green, putting and total.

Kurt Kitayama
The 26-year-old from Chico, Calif., has been playing internationally and, late last year, won a tournament in South Africa tri-sponsored by the European, Asian and Sunshine Tours. It was a very weak field. Now, Kitayama has won again, taking the Oman Open, a full-fledged Euro event. Again, the field was not great, but winning twice in a short time cannot be totally dismissed. Kitayama is on the verge of reaching the top-100 OWGR (105th). In Oman, he bested a field that included Thomas Pieters, Joost Luiten, Paul Dunne, Andy Sullivan, Chris Wood and George Coetzee.