Preview: WGC-Mexico Championship
Several big names are missing from the field as the PGA Tour and European Tour combine this week to co-host the second World Golf Championship of the 2020 season, with Mexico City, and Club de Golf Chapultepec playing host to the no-cut, big purse event.
The 17th Hole at Club de Golf Chapultepec Photo from the PGA Tour
Notably, Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose will be skipping this event.
Some of these players are less surprising absentee's than others. Cantlay will be undergoing surgery for a deviated septum, while Koepka is still on the mend from a knee injury suffered late last year. Despite these players missing out, the field is still especially strong, and if past events at Chapultepec are indicative of the future, viewers can expect a horde of big names to be in contention come Sunday.
The favourite this week is World Number one Rory McIlroy, who confirmed he would be in attendance at Chapultepec for the second year running late last week. He'll be looking to go one better than his 2019 attempt, when he finished in solo second.
Beating him to the block in 2019 was Dustin Johnson, whose victory at this event last season was his sixth WGC title.
Johnson has a magnificent record at Chapultepec. In the 3 renditions of this event, Dustin Johnson has won twice (2017, 2019) and finished T7 in the other. Over the course of those twelve rounds, he has never shot worse than one under par for a round, has 11 rounds in the 60's, has six rounds of 66 or better, and is a staggering 46 (forty-six!) under par for his career there.
What is it that has led to DJ being so successful in Mexico City?
The short answer to that is stellar iron-play, and making the most of increased driving distance at high altitude, thus, the stats that have historically driven players to success at Chapultepec are Driving Distance and Strokes Gained: Approach.
In Dustin Johnson's two wins, he has gained an average of over two strokes a round on the field in the category of 'Approach.' In fact, only one player (Justin Thomas, 2018) has managed a Top-10 at Chapultepec with negative 'Strokes Gained: Approach' in all three years since the championship moved away from Doral.
Looking at the adjusted Strokes Gained: Total table for all players to have played at Chapultepec, one other thing becomes abundantly clear. The 'Top 3 players' in Chapultepec's history in terms of 'True Strokes Gained,' in descending order, are Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, and Justin Thomas
One of these players have been the number one player on the PGA Tour end of seasons standings in the category of Strokes Gained: Off the Tee for the last three seasons (DJ 2017, 2018; Rory 2019), and none of them have finished outside of the Top-30 on Tour in that same time-period.
Hitting nukes off the tee is a serious advantage at Chapultepec. Mexico City sits at 2,240 meters (7,350 feet) above sea level, meaning the ball travels approximately 15% further through the air than it will have at Riviera last week. Historically, taking advantage of that extra length off the tee has been synonymous with success at this event.
Which players will we see in contention this weekend? Players like Collin Morikawa, Robert MacIntyre, Scottie Scheffler and Victor Perez will all be enticing bets at heightened odds, as all of them have the ball striking ability to contend at Chapultepec, but given tendency for stars of the game to have success here (and at WGC's in general) look for the more familiar names this weekend.
Here is who The Quick Hook is going with:
Not bad for everyone who isn't Bryson, and the drive to get better in this category alone is beginning to pay off.
The much publicised gym work is showing some serious some gains, as Bryson has cracked the Top-10 on Tour for SG: Off the Tee, where he currently sits in 8th place. On top of this, he ranks 5th for the season in Driving Distance, averaging a whopping 314.5 yards per drive. This is 30 places higher in the rankings, and 13 yards longer per drive than his 2019 average, which is a huge difference in such a short space of time.
I'm sure you remember that Chapultepec has a soft spot for long hitters.
He isn't hitting irons like he was before the bulk, as he currently sits 113th on the PGA Tour in 2020 for Strokes Gained: Approach.
Despite this, approach play is an attribute that Bryson performed well in last week at The Genesis Invitational, with 0.87 strokes gained per round. This is more akin to the Bryson of 2018, who placed 12th on Tour with an average of .566 strokes gained per round. If he rediscovers his 2018 iron-game, combined with his new found length, Bryson will be a force to be reckoned with.
The 17th Hole at Club de Golf Chapultepec Photo from the PGA TourNotably, Tiger Woods, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Cantlay, Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose will be skipping this event.
Some of these players are less surprising absentee's than others. Cantlay will be undergoing surgery for a deviated septum, while Koepka is still on the mend from a knee injury suffered late last year. Despite these players missing out, the field is still especially strong, and if past events at Chapultepec are indicative of the future, viewers can expect a horde of big names to be in contention come Sunday.
The favourite this week is World Number one Rory McIlroy, who confirmed he would be in attendance at Chapultepec for the second year running late last week. He'll be looking to go one better than his 2019 attempt, when he finished in solo second.
Beating him to the block in 2019 was Dustin Johnson, whose victory at this event last season was his sixth WGC title.
Johnson has a magnificent record at Chapultepec. In the 3 renditions of this event, Dustin Johnson has won twice (2017, 2019) and finished T7 in the other. Over the course of those twelve rounds, he has never shot worse than one under par for a round, has 11 rounds in the 60's, has six rounds of 66 or better, and is a staggering 46 (forty-six!) under par for his career there.
What is it that has led to DJ being so successful in Mexico City?
The short answer to that is stellar iron-play, and making the most of increased driving distance at high altitude, thus, the stats that have historically driven players to success at Chapultepec are Driving Distance and Strokes Gained: Approach.
In Dustin Johnson's two wins, he has gained an average of over two strokes a round on the field in the category of 'Approach.' In fact, only one player (Justin Thomas, 2018) has managed a Top-10 at Chapultepec with negative 'Strokes Gained: Approach' in all three years since the championship moved away from Doral.
Looking at the adjusted Strokes Gained: Total table for all players to have played at Chapultepec, one other thing becomes abundantly clear. The 'Top 3 players' in Chapultepec's history in terms of 'True Strokes Gained,' in descending order, are Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, and Justin Thomas
One of these players have been the number one player on the PGA Tour end of seasons standings in the category of Strokes Gained: Off the Tee for the last three seasons (DJ 2017, 2018; Rory 2019), and none of them have finished outside of the Top-30 on Tour in that same time-period.
Hitting nukes off the tee is a serious advantage at Chapultepec. Mexico City sits at 2,240 meters (7,350 feet) above sea level, meaning the ball travels approximately 15% further through the air than it will have at Riviera last week. Historically, taking advantage of that extra length off the tee has been synonymous with success at this event.
Which players will we see in contention this weekend? Players like Collin Morikawa, Robert MacIntyre, Scottie Scheffler and Victor Perez will all be enticing bets at heightened odds, as all of them have the ball striking ability to contend at Chapultepec, but given tendency for stars of the game to have success here (and at WGC's in general) look for the more familiar names this weekend.
Here is who The Quick Hook is going with:
Bryson DeChambeau
Getty Images
Nobody has improved in the category of Driving Distance quite like Bryson in 2020. He was never poor with the big stick by any means, placing 24th on Tour in the category of Strokes Gained: Off the Tee in 2019, and 12th in 2018. Not bad, right?Not bad for everyone who isn't Bryson, and the drive to get better in this category alone is beginning to pay off.
The much publicised gym work is showing some serious some gains, as Bryson has cracked the Top-10 on Tour for SG: Off the Tee, where he currently sits in 8th place. On top of this, he ranks 5th for the season in Driving Distance, averaging a whopping 314.5 yards per drive. This is 30 places higher in the rankings, and 13 yards longer per drive than his 2019 average, which is a huge difference in such a short space of time.
I'm sure you remember that Chapultepec has a soft spot for long hitters.
He isn't hitting irons like he was before the bulk, as he currently sits 113th on the PGA Tour in 2020 for Strokes Gained: Approach.
Despite this, approach play is an attribute that Bryson performed well in last week at The Genesis Invitational, with 0.87 strokes gained per round. This is more akin to the Bryson of 2018, who placed 12th on Tour with an average of .566 strokes gained per round. If he rediscovers his 2018 iron-game, combined with his new found length, Bryson will be a force to be reckoned with.
Sergio Garcia
Photo by European Tour
Sergio has a good record in Mexico City, with results of T6, T7 and T12 in his three trips to Chapultepec. He'll be arriving this time around with some confidence, too, as he has played solid golf so far in 2020. In his four starts this season, the Spaniard has finished T8, T23, T6, and most recently, T37 at The Genesis Invitational.
Another positive for Garcia will be that at 40 years old, he's still striking the ball as strong as ever. On the European Tour, he is gaining over a shot per round in 2020 for his approach play. He also placed tenth in the field last week at Riviera in the category of Strokes Gained: Tee to Green, picking up a shot and a half per round with the long game.
Garcia has won a worldwide event every year since 2011, but it's now 3 years since his last PGA Tour victory. With the way he's striking it, it's a story as old as time itself for Sergio; if the putter works, he's going to be in contention, and that could very well happen this week.
Rory McIlroy
Photo by Orlando Ramirez/USA Today Sports
He's World Number One for a reason, and all of the stats back the Northern Irishman to take home a second successive World Golf Championship title.
He's consistently one of the best (if not the best) drivers of the golf ball on the planet. In 2019, Rory was the only player on Tour to gain over 1 shot per round in the category of Stokes Gained: Off the Tee, amassing a total of +1.195 strokes gained per round. That was nearly HALF A SHOT better per round than second placed Jhonnatan Vegas. That same gap separated second place from 39th place in 2019.
His iron play has been immaculate for the past 18 months, too, averaging 1.14 strokes gained per round in the category of approach in 2020, and averaging 0.64 strokes gained for the whole of 2019.
It's tough to opt for Rory as the tournament favourite over Dustin Johnson at a course that DJ has made his whipping boy for the past three years, but Rory is making it impossible not to pick him. He hasn't finished outside of a Top-5 in any of his last five worldwide starts, and nobody should expect that run to end here.
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