South of the Border
Mexico Open | Stats, Trends & Things You Don't Need To Know
Vidanta Vallarta
Par 71 - 7,456 Yards
Scorecard
Long Par 4s
The tournament staff did a nice job of taking a resort course (par-73) and making it a passable PGA TOUR stop (par-71). They did this by stretching out some of the Par-4s to around 500 yards. There are (4) different Par-4s that are 495 yards or longer. Here are the best players in this field on such holes, min. 20 holes:
Strokes Gained Tropical
The TOUR heads to a tropical location a few times a year. These events are often resort courses with wind as the only defense and most of them have paspalum greens (or paspalum throughout). Here are the best Tropical Players in the field (min 12 rounds).
Chad Ramey +2.50 (12 rounds)
Wyndham Clark +2.30 (12 rounds)
Danny Lee +2.29 (12 rounds)
Andrew Putnam +2.24 (12 rounds)
Alex Smalley +2.06 (16 rounds)
The Heavy Favorite
After Daniel Berger withdrew on Monday morning, Jon Rahm was moved to +350 to win the Mexico Open. That’s not a typo. That’s 3.5-1 for Rahm to win, implying that he will win this event 22% of the time.
To put that in perspective, Patrick Cantlay was also +350 to win recently. But that was the TOUR Champion — a field of 30 golfers and he started with a two-shot lead.
The shortest full-field winner since the start of 2021 was Jon Rahm at the U.S. Open (+1000). I went back even further and only found (3) PGA TOUR winners at +350 or shorter.
Dustin Johnson (+350): 2020 Tour Championship — started at 10-under.
Jordan Spieth (+350): 2015 John Deere Classic
Rory McIlroy (+350): 2015 Wells Fargo Championship
It’s worth noting that Jon Rahm was +350 or +400 (depending on site) for the Fortinet Championship this season and he was $12,100 on DraftKings that week. He’s “only” $11,300 this week.
Top Heavy Is A Nice Way To Describe…
… this field. The OWGR has released their Strength of Field this week — 151. That’s the weakest non-alternate field since last year’s Bermuda Championship. Here are the best players with a SOF under 200 over the last four years:
Good Luck
Rick