Golf In Mexico! It's The WGC-Mexico Preview

Riggs2/28/2018 9:10 PM

Welcome to Mexico, boys and girls. We’re just outside Mexico City at Club de Golf Chapultepec, which will play host to this tourney through 2023. Although the course has been around since 1928 — and hosted many tournaments throughout its history — it hit the scene last year as a fresh, new, and unseen venue for the entire field. It had never hosted an event like this. Fortunately, the players seem to LOVE it.

You’re going to hear a lot about altitude. Last year, players were hitting clubs INSANELY far. DJ was driving 300+ yard holes with irons. Rory was hitting his 8-iron 210 yards.

So why, during the Florida swing, are we in Mexico and not Florida? The Tour has adamantly denied last year’s switch had anything to do with politics, but Trump Doral was the venue until they decided to change that during his presidential run.

And when this all went down, Rory said:

It’s quite ironic that we’re going to Mexico after being at Doral. We just jump over the wall?

Political? Logistical? Financial? In reality it doesn’t matter. Who cares. The boys are in Mexico, the elevation is high, the prize is a World Golf Championship. Let’s get to it.

History

lol there really is none. Dustin Johnson won here last year by one stroke and that’s about all we’ve got.

For a more larger picture, Tiger’s won nearly more WGC events (18) than every other golfer in history combined (22) and he’s not even in the field. Unfortunately no. 389 in the world rankings didn’t sneak in.

The boys are playing for a $10 million purse with about a $1.7 million first place prize. Healthy.

Here are some final round highlights from our one and only previous stop here.

The Track

The players call the Club de Golf Chapultepec a surprisingly “classic” layout, meaning it doesn’t scream “OH WOW THEY’RE DEFINITELY IN MEXICO” when you turn on the coverage.

7,330 yards. Par 71. DJ said pre-tourney last year the elevation makes about a 15% difference on yardages. According to that logic you’d take off about 1,100 yards and boom, we’re playing a 6,230-ish yard track. Interesting.

Did somebody say ELEVATION? The announcers LOVE when there’s something unique going on and that’s exactly what we get here. Elevation. Altitude. They’ll be dropping a million references to it (I mean look how much whales swimming in the pacific affects January & February coverage). You’ll hear it all week and probably for good reason. This site is the highest elevation in PGA Tour history (7,800 feet).

Spieth did this last year at the 16th, which was cool.

Phil was all over Mexico City last year but still finished top-10.

DJ did this.

JT did this…

To which the comments are now this…

Here are some more just general shots of the course.

Clubhouse

Ah, a rare modern look. This reminds me of what Rio tried to do except good.

Rio = gross. Mexico = classy. I can’t quite put my finger on it but this thing just works for me.

Mexico Clubhouse = 7.9.

Weather

Field

Most of the top-50 in the world rankings are here but here are the notable absentees: Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson, Hideki Matsuyama, and big time Stoolie Jason Day.

Predictions

First, some odds.

Dustin Johnson: 6-1
Justin Thomas: 8-1
Jon Rahm: 12-1
Jordan Spieth: 12-1
Tommy Fleetwood: 16-1
Rickie Fowler: 18-1
Phil Mickelson: 18-1
Justin Rose: 20-1

Winning Score

Dustin Johnson won at 14-under here last year, and 9 guys got to double digits under par. The weather’s supposed to be perfect. The players have now seen the course.

Winning score, -15.

Winner

He’s not necessarily an underdog but I don’t care. Jon Rahm kills the ball and tends to play well at courses where it travels (lost to DJ in the match play final last year in Austin where the ball was going for miles).

Winner, Jon Rahm (at 12-1).

Dark Horse

Matthew Fitzpatrick has finished inside the top-20 in 11 of his last 12 events, including a win. Pretty good. He’s also 60-1 to win this week.

Dark horse, Matthew Fitzpatrick.

The Steven Bowditch Memorial DFL Award

It’s the top players in the world this week so I’m not going to pick a DFL, just want to use this space to highlight the fact that my DFL horse Smylie Kaufman fired 83-80 at the Honda last week to finish +23 and, you guessed it, dead fucking last.

Coverage