After a break from action over the past week, the PGA Tour heads to a new course, El Cardonal, in Los Cabos, Mexico for the World Wide Technology Championship. Opened in 2014, this 225-acre parcel in the foothills of the Baja California desert is the first golf course designed by 82-time PGA winner Tiger Woods and is the first time that a Tour event will be held on one of his courses.
El Cardonal’s design was inspired by the classic Golden Age courses on the West Coast that Woods played growing up. With several options for navigating each hole, proper decision-making is rewarded, as he created a course that emphasizes strategy and creativity.
Providing dramatic views of the Pacific Ocean, Diamante is a private resort located at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula in the state of Baja California Sur. In addition to El Cardonal, Diamante also features the Dunes Course, designed by Davis Love III.
The World Wide Technology Championship is one of two FedExCup events in Mexico, along with the Mexico Open at Vidanta. The event previously had been played at El Camaleon Golf Club south of Cancun in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. But after 16 years of staging a PGA Tour event, the Greg Norman-designed course unsurprisingly ended its relationship with the Tour and instead hosted the inaugural event of the LIV Golf league’s second season in February.
Characterized by wide fairways, strategically placed bunkers, and enormous undulated greens, the resort-style course should be a birdie-maker’s delight. While howling winds off the coast and the encroaching desert arroyos will provide some pushback, El Cardonal should feature plenty of scoring opportunities throughout.
The Field
Though lacking in star power, this week’s World Wide Technology Championship will have 22 of the top 100 ranked players in the world in attendance, including Cameron Young, Sahith Theegala, Lucas Glover, Emiliano Grillo, and Ludvig Aberg. Featuring a field of 132 players, 500 FedExCup points and jobs are on the line as time is running out to become eligible to make the final top 125 for next year’s season, which begins in January.
Eligibility into the first few signature events next year also is based on this year’s points, so getting as close as possible to the top 50 is vital. Beau Hossler, Taylor Montgomery, Nick Hardy, and Ben Griffin are each among the golfers in this field who are sitting in the 51-60 range.
Betting Strategies
Even without past course history and any strokes gained data from this course to rely on, the recipe for success at El Cardonal seems quite clear. The most important thing to understand is that players have options. Each option has its advantages and disadvantages. Longer hitters can bomb away aggressively with the driver off the tee in order to set up closer approach shots to the hole. This obviously brings the desert arroyos and fairway bunkers into play for those who are wild with their tee shots.
The second option is to play more conservatively off the tee in order to get the best possible angle into the green and to avoid any of the trouble areas. The negative with this approach is it will leave golfers with much longer irons into the greens. Each method is viable thanks in part to the lack of overall hazards, especially when hitting their approach shots into the enormous greens. While driving distance is an advantage this week for the likes of Ludvig Aberg, Cameron Young, Luke List and Davis Thompson, shorter hitters, without a doubt, can also contend here.
Thus, with almost everyone having a good chance to hit the green, it will be the quality of the approach shot that will most likely define the result on each hole. Thus, SG: Approach is the most important stat this week. In my opinion, a player’s ability to manage approach flight and land the ball on the proper quadrant of these undulating greens so it can feed toward the hole will be the foremost factor in determining the winner.
With the likelihood of this turning into a birdie-fest with a 25-under winning score, and essentially a putting contest, we want players who are birdie machines and who can score in bunches, especially on the par 5s. When looking at my Scoring model for the week, Aberg, Lucas Glover, Sam Ryder, Doug Ghim, and Davis Thompson are among the best in this field in Birdie or Better % and Par 5 Scoring
I also want to bet on golfers who have experience in handling massive greens and who succeed at three-putt avoidance. Four of my outright and finishing position selections excel in this area – Emiliano Grillo, Adam Svensson, Ben Griffin, and Andrew Putnam.
Successful past performance on Paspalum grass is another narrative I am chasing this week. Paspalum is a real spongy grass that takes some time to get used to, and some players just flat-out struggle on this surface. Brandon Wu is an example of someone who thrives on this surface. In his handful of PGA Tour appearances on courses that feature Paspalum, he has finishes that include a 3rd, 32nd, 28th, 3rd, 7th, and 2nd. In some parts, Emiliano Grillo has become known as the Prince of Paspalum thanks to his success on this surface. Over the past three years, he has had five top-8 finishes on this grass type.
Top 10 Most Important Stats
- SG: APP
- Driving Distance
- 3-Putt AVD
- Birdie or Better %
- SG: Putting (Bent)
- Opportunities Gained
- Par 5 Scoring
- Sand Save %
- SG: Easy Scoring Conditions
- Proximity 175+ yds
World Wide Technology Championship – Final Model
In each preview article and on Discord, I present my final model, which gives a detailed player ranking of the most important stats and splits for the week. My modeling is built around the PGA’s Strokes Gained data, which is divided into SG: Off the Tee (OTT), SG: Approach (APP), SG: Around the Green (ARG), and SG: Putting (P). Learn more about Strokes Gained and why it can be so useful in analyzing the past and predicting future performance. Many of the individual splits will be posted on my Twitter feed, with the final model exclusively published here for subscribers.
Outright Betting Selections
*Lines accurate at the time of publication.
Emiliano Grillo +3500
As mentioned above, historically, Grillo has played his best golf on shorter coastal courses with paspalum greens and should have an automatic comfort level here at El Cardonal. Thanks to the improvement he has made with his putting game, combined with his typical pinpoint ball-striking, Grillo can score with anyone. This has led to him being in contention more this past year than he ever has with eight top-15 finishes over the past seven months. His last start at the ZOZO Championship saw him finish in 10th place.
(0.68u) BetRivers
Adam Svensson +3500
Along with Grillo, Svensson is another player who brings some win equity to the table from within this second tier of golfers at Los Cabos. In the midst of his best year on Tour, his well-rounded game doesn’t show any weakness at the moment as he is one of only three players in the field to rank in the top-30 of each of the strokes gained categories (Aberg and Theegala are the others). Ever since his win at the RSM a year ago, his consistency and upside have also shown up in his finishing position with eight top-20s.
(0.68u) DraftKings
Davis Thompson +5500
After an inconsistent start to his PGA Tour career, Thompson has turned on the jets. After battling with Jon Rahm and finishing runner-up at the American Express tournament back in January, Thompson has gone from missing multiple cuts in a row to six top-35 finishes in his last seven starts. His off-the-tee game has been impeccable, and he has also gained on approach in each of his last four starts. Whether it’s Birdie or Better % or Par 5 Scoring, Thompson has the ceiling to raise the trophy on Sunday if he can just be positive with the flat stick.
(0.30u) BetMGM
Brandon Wu +7500
Along with his excellent history on Paspalum courses, Wu is also someone who plays his best on easy-scoring tracks. This would include his 3rd place finish at the Mexico Open and his runner-up finish at Pebble Beach from earlier this year. While his putter has been the main culprit for his lack of top-end finishes over the past few months, he has thrived on the slower nature of Paspalum greens. He ranks 12th in my approach model and is 8th in Scoring Chances over his last 36 rounds. This is a perfect event for him to put it all together and capture his first PGA Tour victory.
(0.32u) FanDuel
Other Outright Selections
- Chris Kirk +4000 (0.60u) – DraftKings
- Ben Griffin +6500 (0.36u) – DraftKings
- Andrew Putnam +7000 (0.34u) – BetRivers
- Sam Ryder +9000 (0.26u) – FanDuel
Finishing Position Picks – all BetRivers
Top 20
- Sahith Theegala +100 (1.2u)
- Stephan Jaeger +138 (1u)
- Emiliano Grillo +140 (1u)
Top 30
- Adam Svensson +100 (1u)
- Thomas Detry +100 (1u)
- Chris Kirk +110 (1u)
- Akshay Bhatia +110 (1u)
- Davis Thompson +110 (1u)
Top 40 – all BetRivers
- Andrew Putnam -110 (1.2u)
- Ben Griffin +100 (1u)
- Brandon Wu +110 (1.2u)
- Sam Ryder +110 (1u)
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Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images