There are only three events left in the PGA Tour's official 2021 calendar year, and this week's World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba is the best of the bunch. It includes seven of the top 20 players in the world and a defending champ ready to make some real noise near the very top of the Official World Golf Rankings this season.
Let's take a closer look at this week's contest with odds provided via Caesars Sportsbook.
Event information
Event: World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba | Dates: Nov. 4-7
Location: El Camaleon Golf Club — Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Par: 71 | Purse: $7.2 million
Three things to know
1. Slick like Vik: I'd forgotten this, but Adam Stanley pointed it out on PGATour.com. With a win here last season, Viktor Hovland joined a list of players that includes ... wait for it ... Seve Ballesteros, Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm as the only Europeans to win multiple times on the PGA Tour before turning 24 in the last 75 years. What a stat! What a group! Hovland has been arguably the best ball-striker in this field over his last 20 rounds but doesn't have a ton to show for it. He's seventh on approach shots and third off the tee among everyone in this field over their last 20 rounds, but a bad short game -- 121st in strokes gained around the green -- has deflated his overall tee-to-green numbers and kept him from winning. Since he won here last year, he's played in 24 events worldwide and finished in the top six in eight of them -- including a win at the BMW International Open on the European Tour. There's a reason he has the second-shortest odds behind Justin Thomas.
2. Emphasis on accuracy: Data Golf has a wonderful tool that shows you which statistical categories each golf course favors. El Camaleon disproportionately favors driving accuracy, which is a rarity on the PGA Tour these days. If you turn the relative importance toggle off -- driving distance is more important than driving accuracy at any course -- then what you see is a course that is maybe the most accuracy-friendly of any on the PGA Tour. Wins here by Brendon Todd, Matt Kuchar, Brian Gay and Graeme McDowell seem to confirm this reality, which is helpful when thinking about who's going to play well this week at El Camaleon.
3. Still J.T. SZN: Ever the storyline, J.T. flushed it at the CJ Cup at Summit. Flushed it. He finished 13th in approach shots and fourth from tee to green overall but made nothing. That's been the story of his post-Players Championship year. He lost 0.6 strokes per round to the field, which was his fourth such instance on the PGA Tour since that Players win (he also had two right before that). Here's what's interesting, though. He rarely has two of these in a row. In the previous five instances in which he lost at least 0.6 strokes to the field with his putter, he bounced back to gain at least 0.2 strokes with his putter in the next event he played four times. So if you believe he's going to stay flushing, it's not difficult to envision him having a monster week.
Grading the field
J.T. and Hovland are joined by Brooks Koepka, Tony Finau, Tyrrell Hatton, Billy Horschel, Abraham Ancer and Patrick Reed. Though it's not a Memorial-like field, this could be considered an elite field given that it's the beginning of November. Grade: A
2021 Mayakoba picks
| Winner (33-1): My colleague, Rick Gehman, has been warning me that Aaron Wise learned to putt and he's about to start popping off. That may be true, but I'm more concerned with the fact that he ranks second of everyone else in this field from tee to green over his last 20 rounds. He has two straight top 10s coming in and long enough odds to make a play on him worthwhile. There are other guys I like just as much on this board -- Russell Henley, Shane Lowry, Talor Gooch and J.T. among them -- but this has a Wise victory written all over it. |
| Top 10 (20-1 to win): Ancer ended last season on an absolute tear with four top 15s, including a win, in his last five starts, and he seemed to find something last time out at the CJ Cup at Summit where he finished T14. He's a complete menace when you take distance out of the equation, like you can at this course, and he should thrive in a contest where iron play rules. I do not like how short the odds are, but I do love the fit of his game for this golf course. |
| Sleeper (40-1): Gooch's statistical profile also fits this golf course very well. His two best attributes historically are iron play and putting, and both are useful this week. I'd like to see him be a bit more accurate off the tee, but in three starts this season he has three top-20 finishes as well as two top fives (in good fields!). He's gained at least 1.4 strokes per round with his irons alone in his last two events and comes into this week ranked No. 6 in this field from tee to green over his last 20 rounds. At 40-1, he's a great play here. |
Who will win the World Wide Technology Championship, and which long shots will stun the golfing world? Visit SportsLine now to see the projected leaderboard and best bets, all from the model that's nailed seven golf majors and is up almost $10,000 since the restart.
