Club de Golf Chapultepec in Mexico City, Mexico, hosts the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship this week. Last year this event — not called the Mexico Championship — was held at Trump National Doral. I’m pretty sure Alanis Morissette has a song about this.
The course is long (7,382 feet) but also plays at an altitude of 7,780 feet above sea level, which will take some of the distance out of the equation. For some relatively recent results in high altitude, you can access the data from the 2014 BMW Championship played at Denver’s Cherry Hills Country Club via our Trends tool. Also, as regards the Euro players in this tourney, the European Tour has played the European Masters at Crans-sur Sierre Golf Club in the Swiss Alps since 1972.
That said, I’m not relying on courses with somewhat similar altitudes too heavily. Instead I am focused on golfers who excel in Long-Term Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (LT Adj Bird Avg), hit a bunch of Greens in Regulation (GIR), and are in good form, as evidenced by Recent Adjusted Round Score (Adj Rd Score).
Two Big Guns
The New World Order
Dustin Johnson ($12,500) supplanted Jason Day (who has already withdrawn from this tournament) as the World No. 1 with his victory two weeks ago at the Genesis Open. Since a missed cut at last year’s PGA Championship, Johnson has finished eighth or better in seven of 10 tournaments, winning twice. His 67.5 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks third, and his 74.7 Recent GIR percentage ranks ninth overall.
DJ’s 67.8 LT Adj Rd Score is tied atop this week’s elite field, his 16.6 LT Adj Bird Avg is fifth, and his massive 314.2-yard LT Driving Distance (DD) leads all competitors. Johnson played well in WGC events last season, winning the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and finishing T5, T14, and T5 in three other tournaments. He has three WGC wins in his career.
Johnson has the highest salary and best odds to win the tournament (13.3 percent) this week. DJ has played reasonably well in comparable spots:
In addition to producing a +6.0 Plus/Minus with 63.6 percent Consistency across the sample, he’s also scored at least 95 DraftKings points in six of eleven tournaments. At the same time, DJ has been owned at 29.0 percent in similar situations, so he could be a fade consideration.
Once contests lock, be sure to compare your ownership of DJ to the rest of the field’s at various buy-in levels with our new DFS Ownership Dashboard. If you’re not utilizing this tool, you’re missing out (a.k.a. #NotSharp).
DJ is currently the No. 2 player in the CSURAM88 Player Model. (Pro users can review the No. 1 player and other top golfers in our PGA Models.)
It’s Jordan . . . Mr. Spieth If You’re Nasty
Jordan Spieth ($11,500) is the only other player in the field with odds to win greater than 10 percent this week: He’s currently at 11.1 percent. Spieth’s 67.9 LT Adj Rd Score and 17.0 LT Adj Bird Avg are both second this week.
Spieth has been lights out to start 2017, winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and accumulating two third-place as well as ninth- and 22nd-place finishes. His 67.3 Recent Adj Rd Score leads the field. Jordan’s 72.2 percent Recent GIR is 16th, and his 17.7 Recent Adj Bird Avg is tied for fourth among golfers who have made more than two starts the past six weeks.
Spieth also played well at the WGC events last season, finishing T7, T17, T9, and T3.
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Henrik Stenson ($10,300): Stenson’s 68.0 LT Adj Rd Score ranks fourth, his 75.1 LT GIR percentage is second, and his 17.0 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for second. Henrik has not finished worse than eighth since the Deutsche Bank Championship last September — a run of six straight tournaments. Stenson’s 81.5 Recent GIR Percentage and 21.0 Recent Adj Bird Avg both lead the field. He has four top-five finishes in WGC events.
Jon Rahm ($9,000): Rahm’s 68.5 LT Adj Rd Score is ninth, his 70.9 percent LT GIR is tied for 12th, and his 17.0 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for second. It doesn’t hurt that Rahm recently won the Farmers Insurance Open on a course with Kikuyu grass in the fairways and rough and Poa annua greens like the ones at Chapultepec this week.
Sergio Garcia ($8,500): Garcia has been very good at the elevation of Crans-sur Sierre: He won the event in 2005 and has finished third, fourth, and sixth in five starts at that track. Garcia’s 67.8 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for fourth, his 72.6 percent Recent GIR is 15th, and his 16.7 Recent Adj Bird Avg is tied for 11th in this week’s field.
Tyrrell Hatton ($8,300): Coming off a fourth-place finish at last week’s Honda Classic — check out CSURAM’s Honda Lineup Review — I expect Hatton to be heavily owned in this week’s slate and for good reason: He’s really good at golf. Hatton has now ripped off nine consecutive top-25 finishes worldwide. He had back-to-back T3 finishes at Crans-sur Sierre in 2014 and 2015. Hatton’s 67.8 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for fourth, his 75.8 percent Recent GIR is sixth, and his 17.7 Recent Adj Bird Avg is tied for fifth.
Brendan Steele ($7,900): After nearly breaking DFS Twitter last week with an opening round 73 that had him seven over par after his first six holes, Steele shot a 65 in the second round and finished the tournament T14. Steele’s 68.2 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for 11th, and his 17.6 Recent Adj Bird Avg ranks seventh overall. Steele has been perfect in 2017, averaging a +29.53 Plus/Minus across six tournaments.
Martin Kaymer ($7,500): Kaymer’s 73.4 Recent GIR percentage is 11th, and his 16.3 Recent Adj Bird Avg is tied for 16th. Kaymer has posted two fourth-place finishes in four starts this year, one of which was last week at the Honda Classic.
Jhonattan Vegas ($6,600): Vegas’ 68.2 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for 11th, and his 16.3 Recent Adj Bird Avg is tied with Kaymer for 16th. Vegas posted 100 DK points at a very difficult track last week.
Humpnostication Prognostication
Because we have no course history data to pull from, there is no Levitanimal this week.
That said, Alexander Noren ($7,200) has crushed the Crans-sur Sierre Golf Club with two victories in seven trips, winning last year when he accumulated 125.5 DK points. Noren has finished 13th and 21st in two starts this year. Noren’s 78.5 percent Recent GIR ranks fourth, and he has a very respectable 14.3 LT Adj Bird Avg. Noren is likely to be lower-owned than a more recognizable Euro like Hatton and currently has a FantasyLabs projected ownership of nine to 12 percent in large tournaments.
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Be sure to visit our suite of Tools to research all of the golfers. Good luck this week!
