After being among the leaders the whole way — he had the outright lead for a short period about half-way through — Brendan Steele had more trouble in the Sunday/Monday fourth round at The Honda Open in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He didn’t play poorly; he hit every green on the front nine in regulation, but none of the birdie putts would drop, so he posted nine straight pars. He picked up three bogeys on the back nine against only one birdie, which came with a 12-foot putt at the par-3 13th.
The Idyllwild native finished the final round on the PGA National course at 2-under-par for the tournament in a tie for 11th. He picked up 62 FedExCup points to bring his season total to 471, and he won more than $129,000 in official prize money.
Steele’s tournament stats: He hit 63 percent of the fairways with drives averaging 298 yards, second in the field in that latter category. He reached two-thirds of the greens in regulation and needed 1.708 putts per green. He picked up 8.736 strokes tee to green, but gave back 0.404 strokes putting (or 0.101 depending upon which pgatour.com webpage you’re looking at).
Steele is taking this week off.
