Billy Horschel 'disappointed' in PGA Tour for state of Honda Classic

When Honda ends its 42-year run as a title sponsor on the PGA Tour this week, not a single top 10 player in the world will be competing at one of the tour's most iconic venues.

That's largely because the Honda Classic is wedged between the Genesis Invitational, one of the new "elevated" events this year, and the Players Championship.

The "Florida Swing" will kick off at PGA National on Thursday with noted tour grinder Sungjae Im as the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 18. He also earned his first tour title at the event three years ago.

Florida native Billy Horschel is right behind Im at No. 19. Horschel will play five consecutive weeks after refusing to drop South Florida's lone remaining tour event from his schedule.

"I'm sort of disappointed in the PGA Tour in the sense that - I'm not going to say they didn't prioritize the Honda Classic, they prioritize every sponsor that we have," Horschel said Wednesday. "It's always tough when you've got 47 different sponsors on the PGA Tour and you have 'X' amount of partners on the PGA Tour to always please every one of them.

"But when I was out on tour early in my career, this was a hot event. You had top 20, all top 20 players in the world playing here. This was an event to play at.

"Then eventually over the years it's sort of been relegated to not as strong of a field anymore, due to reasons - scheduling being the biggest thing, where the tournament fell."

Honda announced last year that it would be ending its run as the title sponsor of the event. A new sponsor has not been finalized, but Horschel said he has been promised by the tour that the event will remain on the schedule at PGA National.

Horschel is one of dozens of tour pros who live in South Florida, and he believes