All the hype coming into the Honda Classic centered on the deepest field of the year, particularly at the top where seven of the top nine players in the world were committed. But after 36 holes, Rory McIlroy is the only one of those superstars to make a move at PGA National.
Rory McIlroy, de Jonge top 2014 Honda Classic leaderboard; Mickelson, Tiger no-show through 36 holes
Phil Mickelson heads home and Tiger Woods makes the cut on the number, starting the weekend in a double-digit deficit to leaders Rory McIlroy and Brendon de Jonge.
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McIlroy picked right up from his world-class 63 on Thursday with a 4-under round of 66 on Friday to set the pace at 11 -under (a full recap of Rory’s round here). He currently holds a one-shot lead over Brendon de Jonge, who’s caught fire with the putter and poured in more birdies than anyone else in the field so far. The Zimbabwean de Jonge got a putting lesson from his idol and countryman, Nick Price, at the start of the week and that’s paid off immediately through 36 holes in Palm Beach. Playing on almost a weekly basis, de Jonge regularly pops up on the leaderboard and has made tons of cash on the PGA Tour, but he has yet to win. This would obviously be the highlight of his career but with the way Rory is playing, it’ll be a challenge to keep up in the final pairing on Saturday.
The two biggest names outside of Rory this week are Tiger and Phil, and they’ve made no noise at all. Mickelson is trunk-slamming and out after two rounds, failing to get to even-par and make the cut. He’ll stay in the area and play down the road at Doral next week, but it’s not the showing Mickelson anticipated after stating this week that he felt healthy and comfortable again at what he considered to now be the “start” of his year.
Woods was not much better than his contemporary Phil, grinding to get to even-par and hanging on through every “loose” iron shot to make the cut right on the number (a full recap of Tiger’s round here). Tiger will be out first thing on Saturday morning, but it looks like he’ll avoid a pairing with Sergio Garcia, who made back-to-back birdies to finish his round at even-par one group ahead of Woods. It initially looked like the board would settle so that those two best friends would be out yet again in Florida, their last Saturday round in the Sunshine State setting off the closest thing we have to trash talk in golf. Tiger, however, has more important things to worry about after settling towards the middle-to-bottom of the leaderboard yet again.
Tiger has not come close to making an impact at the top of the board in three events so far this season, but we’ve seen him shoot 62 at this venue to make a big weekend charge before. His game doesn’t seem capable of that right now, and with more than 78 players getting through to Saturday, the possibility (albeit small) for a Missed Cut -- Did Not Finish result exists again. Repeating that ignominy from the Farmers Insurance Open would incite panic with the Masters just over a month away.
Here’s the full leaderboard after 36 holes at the Honda:
| Place | Player | Score | Round 1 | Round 2 |
| 1 | Rory McIlroy | -11 | 63 | 66 |
| 2 | Brendon de Jonge | -10 | 66 | 64 |
| 3 | Russell Henley | -8 | 64 | 68 |
| T4 | Lee Westwood | -7 | 68 | 65 |
| T4 | Russell Knox | -7 | 70 | 63 |
| T6 | Jamie Donaldson | -6 | 65 | 69 |
| T6 | Ryan Palmer | -6 | 68 | 66 |
| T6 | William McGirt | -6 | 65 | 69 |
| T9 | Daniel Summerhays | -5 | 70 | 65 |
| T9 | Chris Stroud | -5 | 69 | 66 |
| T9 | Boo Weekley | -5 | 68 | 67 |
| T9 | John Senden | -5 | 72 | 63 |
| T9 | Thomas Bjorn | -5 | 69 | 66 |
| T9 | Luke Donald | -5 | 67 | 68 |
| T9 | Derek Ernst | -5 | 66 | 69 |
| T9 | Will MacKenzie | -5 | 67 | 68 |
| T9 | Brendan Steele | -5 | 69 | 66 |
| T18 | Jason Kokrak | -4 | 70 | 66 |
| T18 | Jhonattan Vegas | -4 | 70 | 66 |
| T18 | Mark Wilson | -4 | 67 | 69 |
| T18 | Chris Kirk | -4 | 69 | 67 |
| T18 | Rory Sabbatini | -4 | 65 | 71 |
| T23 | David Lingmerth | -3 | 69 | 68 |
| T23 | Adam Scott | -3 | 68 | 69 |
| T23 | Stewart Cink | -3 | 69 | 68 |
| T23 | Graeme McDowell | -3 | 70 | 67 |
| T23 | George McNeill | -3 | 70 | 67 |
| T23 | David Hearn | -3 | 67 | 70 |
| T23 | Billy Hurley III | -3 | 70 | 67 |
| T23 | Jamie Lovemark | -3 | 69 | 68 |
| T23 | Ben Crane | -3 | 69 | 68 |
| T23 | Zach Johnson | -3 | 67 | 70 |
| T23 | Keegan Bradley | -3 | 69 | 68 |
| T23 | Ted Potter, Jr. | -3 | 71 | 66 |
| T23 | Seung-Yul Noh | -3 | 69 | 68 |
| T23 | Troy Merritt | -3 | 68 | 69 |
| T23 | Brice Garnett | -3 | 66 | 71 |
| T38 | Nicholas Thompson | -2 | 68 | 70 |
| T38 | Josh Teater | -2 | 70 | 68 |
| T38 | Erik Compton | -2 | 70 | 68 |
| T38 | Tyrone Van Aswegen | -2 | 67 | 71 |
| T38 | Rickie Fowler | -2 | 69 | 69 |
| T38 | Trevor Immelman | -2 | 69 | 69 |
| T38 | Cameron Tringale | -2 | 69 | 69 |
| T38 | Matteo Manassero | -2 | 67 | 71 |
| T38 | Derek Fathauer | -2 | 67 | 71 |
| T38 | Andres Romero | -2 | 70 | 68 |
| T38 | Patrick Reed | -2 | 71 | 67 |
| T38 | Stuart Appleby | -2 | 69 | 69 |
| T38 | Freddie Jacobson | -2 | 69 | 69 |
| T38 | Hudson Swafford | -2 | 67 | 71 |
| T52 | Heath Slocum | -1 | 71 | 68 |
| T52 | D.A. Points | -1 | 70 | 69 |
| T52 | Ken Duke | -1 | 68 | 71 |
| T52 | Y.E. Yang | -1 | 71 | 68 |
| T52 | Mark Calcavecchia | -1 | 69 | 70 |
| T52 | Matt Every | -1 | 66 | 73 |
| T52 | Chesson Hadley | -1 | 73 | 66 |
| T52 | Brooks Koepka | -1 | 71 | 68 |
| T52 | Camilo Villegas | -1 | 71 | 68 |
| T52 | Martin Flores | -1 | 69 | 70 |
| T52 | Carl Pettersson | -1 | 72 | 67 |
| T52 | Brian Harman | -1 | 67 | 72 |
| T52 | James Driscoll | -1 | 68 | 71 |
| T52 | Tim Wilkinson | -1 | 70 | 69 |
| T66 | Charlie Wi | E | 69 | 71 |
| T66 | Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano | E | 71 | 69 |
| T66 | Scott Brown | E | 71 | 69 |
| T66 | Nick Watney | E | 71 | 69 |
| T66 | Charles Howell III | E | 72 | 68 |
| T66 | Davis Love III | E | 69 | 71 |
| T66 | Justin Hicks | E | 70 | 70 |
| T66 | Paul Casey | E | 72 | 68 |
| T66 | Brian Stuard | E | 72 | 68 |
| T66 | Vijay Singh | E | 69 | 71 |
| T66 | Sergio Garcia | E | 72 | 68 |
| T66 | Tiger Woods | E | 71 | 69 |
| T66 | Luke Guthrie | E | 67 | 73 |
| T66 | Jeff Overton | E | 69 | 71 |
| CUT | Angel Cabrera | -- | 69 | 72 |
| CUT | Phil Mickelson | -- | 70 | 71 |
| CUT | Matt Jones | -- | 73 | 68 |
| CUT | Ricky Barnes | -- | 70 | 71 |
| CUT | Jason Allred | -- | 75 | 66 |
| CUT | Morgan Hoffmann | -- | 71 | 70 |
| CUT | Harrison Frazar | -- | 70 | 71 |
| CUT | Scott Langley | -- | 70 | 71 |
| CUT | Spencer Levin | -- | 71 | 71 |
| CUT | Chad Collins | -- | 72 | 70 |
| CUT | Mike Weir | -- | 72 | 70 |
| CUT | Robert Allenby | -- | 70 | 72 |
| CUT | Sean O'Hair | -- | 72 | 70 |
| CUT | Jason Millard | -- | 71 | 71 |
| CUT | Mark Silvers | -- | 75 | 67 |
| CUT | Bo Van Pelt | -- | 73 | 69 |
| CUT | Jason Bohn | -- | 70 | 72 |
| CUT | Thorbjorn Olesen | -- | 70 | 72 |
| CUT | Martin Kaymer | -- | 72 | 70 |
| CUT | Tim Clark | -- | 72 | 70 |
| CUT | Tommy Gainey | -- | 66 | 76 |
| CUT | Lucas Glover | -- | 69 | 73 |
| CUT | Greg Chalmers | -- | 72 | 70 |
| CUT | Brendon Todd | -- | 71 | 71 |
| CUT | Padraig Harrington | -- | 68 | 74 |
| CUT | Stephen Gallacher | -- | 72 | 71 |
| CUT | John Peterson | -- | 75 | 68 |
| CUT | Jeff Maggert | -- | 71 | 72 |
| CUT | Kenny Perry | -- | 69 | 74 |
| CUT | Robert Garrigus | -- | 73 | 71 |
| CUT | Steven Bowditch | -- | 71 | 73 |
| CUT | David Lynn | -- | 69 | 75 |
| CUT | Jerry Kelly | -- | 71 | 73 |
| CUT | Charlie Beljan | -- | 72 | 72 |
| CUT | Johnson Wagner | -- | 72 | 72 |
| CUT | J.J. Henry | -- | 76 | 68 |
| CUT | Woody Austin | -- | 70 | 74 |
| CUT | Jose Coceres | -- | 72 | 72 |
| CUT | Tim Herron | -- | 72 | 72 |
| CUT | Peter Uihlein | -- | 73 | 71 |
| CUT | Retief Goosen | -- | 72 | 73 |
| CUT | Michael Thompson | -- | 74 | 71 |
| CUT | Peter Hanson | -- | 73 | 72 |
| CUT | Brian Davis | -- | 74 | 71 |
| CUT | Kyle Stanley | -- | 71 | 74 |
| CUT | Roberto Castro | -- | 73 | 72 |
| CUT | Billy Horschel | -- | 73 | 73 |
| CUT | Jim Renner | -- | 72 | 74 |
| CUT | John Rollins | -- | 71 | 75 |
| CUT | Ryo Ishikawa | -- | 76 | 70 |
| CUT | J.B. Holmes | -- | 70 | 76 |
| CUT | James Hahn | -- | 69 | 77 |
| CUT | Charl Schwartzel | -- | 74 | 73 |
| CUT | Geoff Ogilvy | -- | 71 | 76 |
| CUT | Stephen Ames | -- | 73 | 75 |
| CUT | Briny Baird | -- | 79 | 70 |
| CUT | Henrik Stenson | -- | 73 | 76 |
| CUT | John Merrick | -- | 73 | 77 |
| CUT | Jesper Parnevik | -- | 76 | 75 |
| CUT | Alan Morin | -- | 70 | 81 |
| CUT | Ben Curtis | -- | 73 | 79 |
| CUT | Troy Matteson | -- | 75 | 78 |
| CUT | Darren Clarke | -- | 77 | 78 |
| WD | Hideki Matsuyama | -- | 70 | -- |
| WD | D.H. Lee | -- | 72 | -- |
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