Luke List Each-Way 40/1
Cameron Champ Each-Way 50/1
Erik Van Rooyen Each-Way 80/1
Matti Schmid – Top 20 – 4/1
It’s just about joining the dots.
Last weekend’s Qatar Masters winner, Sami Valimaki, may not have been the most obvious of pre-event picks but afterwards, well, it made a fair bit of sense.
The Finn, top-10 at both the Czech Masters and the Dunhill Links in recent months, had won his only previous DPWT event at Oman, a course with similar characteristics to Doha. Whilst his play-off victim, Jorge Campillo let him in late in the day, the Spaniard, and compatriot Nacho Elvira, were continuing excellent form in Qatar, the former with his second runner-up finish here to back up a win at Education City, the latter with his third top six finish in five years.
Those crossings and dottings may be tougher this week as the PGA Tour takes pride of place on another slow week for the main tours.
We are back in Mexico for the World Wide Technology Championship, but after the well-trodden fairways of El Camaleón signed off to the LIV rotation, the tournament debuts at the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal, positioned on the other side of the country.
Comparisons with the Mayakoba are obvious and must help, though perhaps correlation with the two runnings of the Mexican Open are stronger.
The Vallarta course is at least on the ‘right’ side of the country, and of more use when referring to any cross-winds across these wide and open fairways. It is also liable to be pummelled by some of the biggest hitters on tour, leading to winning scores over the two runnings of 17-under (Jon Rahm) and 24-under (Tony Finau), the two swapping gold and silver medals across the years.
Let’s not try and make this more complicated than it is. Hitting it long and reasonably online is the start. Having made the holding Paspalum fairways, the stronger iron players will have large greens to aim at, again the lack of roll giving favour to the more accurate ball-strikers. Length counts, proximity counts, both complicated by those players seeking a place in the top 125 and retaining their tour cards.
When looking at the top of the market for anyone that might eventually match two-time Mayakoba champion Viktor Hovland, or indeed Rahm and Finau, Ludvig Aberg is the name that stands out.
The 23-year-old Swede has been a revelation since turning professional in June, seeing his ranking rise from 1964 at the start of 2023, through to 759 after the Canadian Open. From that initial pro event, it’s been all-guns-blazing, now just eight spots off the world’s top 50.
12 top league tournaments have led to a win at Crans, three top four finishes (including the John Deere, driver-heavy Czech Masters and a closing runner-up at the Sanderson Farms) whilst he closed with a final round 62 in Napa just a fortnight ago.
According to respected golf stats site Tour Tips, the Ryder Cup rookie leads the strokes-gained-approach table for events over the last three months, as well as sitting atop the ball-striking lists. Add that to a consistent top-10 in driving distance and we have the perfect player for the test this week. It’s not for me, but there will undoubtedly be worse 9/1 shots over the year.
Four-time top-10 ranked Cameron Young has to fancy this event as the one that breaks his PGA Tour duck, whilst recent Fortinet champion Sahith Theegala will be another that views the event as lower class than his usual standard. Any of those could be confidently fancied, and at around 3/1 ‘coupled’ are, once again, not the worst team for an aggressive play.
Given the ‘unknown’ factor, I’ll start my card a little further down.
Like Theegala, Luke List is a recent winner with a decent follow-up, this time 18th at the Shriners, a single shot off Aberg’s total and surrounded by many of this week’s competitors.
Now ranked 80 in the world, the 38-year-old is just nine spots off a top-50 on the FedEx lists, meaning a win would almost certainly gain him access to all the full field and signature events for 2024, a level that many thought he would achieve some years ago.
While both Korn Ferry Tour victories were on Pete Dye-inspired designs, List’s first PGA victory was the Farmers, at Torrey Pines, a region that Tiger says inspired the design of El Cardonal,. That play-off win, against Will Zalatoris, came a year after Tony Finau and Viktor Hovland tied as runner-up behind Patrick Reed, and five years after Rahm’s romp around the same course.
It took 22 months, but the second trophy arrived in a five-man play-off at Jackson CC against four players that included Aberg once again, a final round of 70 being his highest of the week.
Recent form lines in Mexico read disappointingly given the apparent suitability, but he does have a 6th and 17th at El Bosque during the KFT period, and a 7th around El Camaleon in 2016. Missed cuts rarely read well but he was in no sort of form at Vidanta when missing by a single shot, and only avoided the weekend at Mayakoba by the same margin in 2021.
Away from the immediate location, Paspalum form works fine with an eighth place from two starts at the Corales (withdrew from the other) and his current ranking as top-15 for driving distance (averaging 9th over four latest starts) and ball-striking should mean he can attack these pins from the right distance and lie. At 40/1 he appeals as a similar type to another rejuvenated player in Lucas Glover but at a much better price.
Cameron Champ will always be on the list of potential winners when driving distance is mentioned, and it is no different this week.
Currently leading the distance charts over the last three months and high enough in the approach and ball-striking stats to count, the California-born, Texan resident currently lies 127th on the FedEx lists, meaning he needs to rise just a few places to assure himself of playing rights next year.
The 28-year-old looks to be coming back to the sort of form that saw him win three times between 2018 and 2021, a period that also saw a pair of top 20 finishes at the first two majors of 2020. 17th at the low-scoring Barracuda Championship in July, Champ has recently gone on a run that reads 9th at Sanderson Farms, 18th at Shriners (led at halfway) and 59th in Japan.
It’s no coincidence that the selection has three good finishes at Augusta – T19, T26 and T10th – given the open nature of the fairways and, combined with recent form, looks good enough to see him compete in this class, particularly in Mexico, where he has a 10th at the Mayakoba and a 6th and 8th at the closer track, Vidanta.
Callum Tarren and Davis Thompson both made the short-list with the former preferred after going close at Napa and being on a nice run of finishes. He doesn’t have any form here to speak of, though, and I looked instead to both Chris Gotterup, a huge hitter with immense promise who first came to prominence when 7th at Puerto Rico, and Erik Van Rooyen.
South African Van Rooyen has been on the radar for a few months this year and would appear to have another opportunity to build on his sole PGA Tour win to date – the 2021 Barracuda Championship.
Currently in 125th place on the FedEx list, EVR will be fully aware that he is holding on to his PGA card by the narrowest of margins, with previous selection Cameron Champ just one of many threats teeing it up this week. However, if repeating form is any guide, the 33-year-old may well get the result he is looking for, and better to boot.
Current form sees a standout Summer outing of 6th at Tahoe Mountain before recent form of 8th at Crans, 16th at K-Club, and then 30th, 16th and 23rd when back on the PGA Tour, all events showing prowess off the tee box and an average of around 20th for tee to green.
The glaring weakness in Van Rooyen’s game is around the green, something that he shouldn’t have to worry too much about on the vast targets, and he already has enough Paspalum form to keep us interested.
2nd at Doha, 3rd at Al Mouj, 12th at Abu and 17th at Al Hamra all read nicely for the task ahead, whilst his more local form reads three cuts from four outings, a best of third place at Chapultepec and a 33rd place at this year’s higher-class Mexico Open, at which he lay in second place at halfway and in seventh going into payday.
In form, with a target on his back, and back at a location he knows he can compete at, EVR is too big at the current price.
Finally, I’ll add Matti Schmid via a top-20, another young bomber that has enough relative form to count here.
The two-time European Amateur champion hasn’t yet lifted himself over the line but it won’t be long judged on his runner-up finish behind Adrian Meronk in Sotogrande.
On that occasion, the promising German looked all over the winner coming down the stretch succumbing only to a brilliant run of 12 holes from the Pole, now ranked inside the world’s top 50.
That effort followed a closing final round of 63 at the Shriners, a closing 65 at Crans and finishes of 20th and 22nd at this year’s Wyndham and 3M championships. Those finishes see a steady improvement from the long-hitting 25-year-old and he is expected to follow the likes of similar type Vincent Norrman into the winner’s enclosure very soon.
Huge off the tee, Schmid is another who is let down by his short game, something that can be negated here as it was when tied-eighth at the Barbasol and T33 in Puerto Rico.
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