The winning strokes here doubled in half a decade. One can say that the legendary Bear Trap is losing its bite. And the PGA Tour is taking the heat for a course setup that has suddenly become too soft and too easy. While fans and golfers slam the scoring records at PGA National, Billy Horschel is stepping up to explain why the Tour is actually powerless to fix the problem.

“Unfortunately, not the Tour’s fault. Owners of PGA National do it. Tour has tried to state why it shouldn’t be overseeded, but at the end of the day, it’s out of their hands,” the 8x PGA Tour winner wrote on X. “One thing going forward that we need to do is make sure we have complete control of the setup of all Tour courses.”

The dramatic shift in scoring makes the need for total control obvious. When Sungjae Im won here back in 2020, he only scored a total of 6-under-par. And from 2006 to 2023, only 11 total golfers shot 10-under or better for the week. Then the tests loosened. In the 2024 season, the leaderboard bloomed when 38 golfers reached double digits under par. And in 2025, Jake Knapp shot a record round of 12-under 59 (only the 15th sub-60 score in PGA Tour history) at the final round of the event.

Ownership reality matters because owners run resorts for guests and members, not just tournament weeks. The Champion Course was sold to a private equity and hospitality group in 2025, a deal led by Henderson Park in partnership with the Salamander Collection and South Street Partners.

This private group wants the grass to look perfect and green for their guests and overseeds it with ryegrass to make the course look like a ‘lush green carpet,’ making the ground much softer and slower for the pros during the week. While it looks great on TV, it removes the competition that fans simply dislike.

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The only venues where the PGA Tour maintains the highest level of authority are those within the TPC (Tournament Players Club) network. However, even within this network, the Tour’s control varies. Only about 35% of the 30 TPC courses (like TPC Sawgrass or TPC Boston) are fully owned and operated by the Tour, while the majority of TPC venues are private or resort properties that operate under licensing agreements.

Daniel Berger, who shot a bogey-free 63 to open last year and still found himself four shots off the lead, said at the time, “I thought I played well, but then someone shot 59. Clearly, the course was not the old Bear Trap that we’re used to.”

Jack Nicklaus made this course tricky because he feels that making courses too easy ruins the spirit of the game. Several others, like Joel Dahmen and Michael S. Kim, also criticized the change, saying they really miss the old and difficult version of this course.

While the overseeding remains, Horschel pointed out one positive adjustment for the most recent edition of the tournament.

“At least this year, the rough is longer than it has been the last couple of years. A little more penal for missing fairways,” Horschel noted.

And reports show the rough was increased to 3 inches, up from 2.5 inches in 2024, in an attempt to restore some of the course’s bite for players who fail to find the fairway. But the soft grass is not the only big problem the $9.6 million Florida event is facing.

The other trouble the Cognizant Classic faces

The event is struggling with a wave of withdrawals and the absence of the game’s biggest names. As of now, Adam Scott, the Genesis winner, Jacob Bridgeman, and Ben Griffin all withdrew from the Cognizant Classic on Monday. The field keeps shrinking. And it leaves the tournament without any top ten players for the first time. Ryan Gerard, who sits 26th in the ranking, is the highest-ranked player competing in the field this week.

This happens because the event is currently sandwiched between two massive signature events with huge purses. Players just finished in the Genesis Invitational and must now prepare for the API 2026 at Bay Hill and The Players Championship in the coming weeks. Most golfers skip playing four or five weeks in a row until it’s very necessary. They choose to miss the mid-tier events so they can be fresh for the upcoming signature events.

Justin Thomas called the current situation a real bummer because he still loves playing at this event but needs to skip it because of the odd scheduling.

“It’s a bummer. It’s one of those events that has fallen at an unfortunate time in the schedule,” JT told the media. “I think it’s both a great thing and a bad thing about our schedule: the number of great golf courses that we go to. It’s a great problem to have, but it is; it’s just one of those things, the way that guys need to play certain events or feel like they give themselves the best opportunity to win and make as many points as possible. It’s just kind of where it falls, kind of thing.”

Has the Bear Trap truly lost its bite? Let us know in the comments below.