We did it again! Another outright win in the books for 2019 as we crushed the Bryson outright at 15-1 this past week at the Shriners Hospital Open. We also added on a Sam Ryder top five for an additional 14-1 so, all in all, our betting card came through for us up about 24 units. DFS was also a tremendous success with several FGB members and fellow GolfWRXers winning MULTIPLE GPPs!! Overall, we could not have asked much more from the Shriners open and am looking forward to another cut event here at Mayakoba.

In addition to this article and the FGB Podcast which I host each week, I will also be a guest on The Pat Mayo Experience show again this afternoon. If you are looking for even more insight and analysis for this golf course and the field, I highly encourage you to check out Pat’s show this week as he is one of the sharpest golf minds in the industry. Of course, you can always find me on Twitter @Redkacheek and I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have.

Let’s go ahead and take a look at the course.

Here are the details of the course for the Mayakoba Golf Classic:

Course Snapshot

Course: El Camaleon Golf Club at the Mayakoba Resort
City: Playa del Carmen, Mexico
Par: 71
Length: 6,987
Course Difficulty: 70.32 (32nd)
Birdie Average: 3.80 (35th)
Birdie or Better Percentage: 21.55% (33rd)

Course Rankings (OFF THE TEE)

SG: Tee-to-Green: N/A
SG: Off-the-Tee: N/A
Driving Distance: 283.1 (4th)
Driving Accuracy: 64.58% (32nd)

Course Rankings (APPROACH TO THE GREEN)

SG: Approach-the-Green: N/A
GIR Percentage: 67.42 (34th)
Proximity to Hole: N/A
Rough Proximity: N/A
Fairway Proximity: N/A

Course Rankings (AROUND THE GREEN)

SG: Around-the-Green: N/A
Sand Save Percentage: 53.65% (44th)
Scrambling Percentage: 58.46% (30th)

Course Rankings (PUTTING)

SG: Putting: N/A
Putting Average: 1.763 (31st)
One-Putt Percentage: 39.00% (30th)
3-Putt Avoidance: 3.20 (19th)
Putting – Inside 10’: N/A
Putting from – > 25’: N/A

This course has played very consistent over the years and that is great for us as we dig into the key stats. As you can see, Mayakoba is an exceptionally short golf course for today’s standards. The driving accuracy number looks very good (read easy) but do not let that fool you, as driving distance is near the bottom of the pack for the PGA Tour at only 283.1 yards. I will get right to it, this is absolutely an accuracy, tee-shot placement, and second-shot golf course. I certainly wouldn’t rule out any longer hitters, as they likely will be able to club down on most par-4 tee shots and get the ball in play with a 3-wood or even a 2-iron.

Check out these quotes below from Cam Champ and also Jon Rahm that gives the perfect picture of who should play well here:

Cameron Champ: “Obviously it’s very demanding off the tee, but if you hit fairways here, the course is very scorable depending on the weather conditions. Obviously, the wind can pick up some. I hit a lot of 2-irons here, I think half the holes I’ll probably hit 2-iron on the majority of the holes. Par 5s obviously I’ll hit drivers. I just kind of feel comfortable. Even though it’s narrow, it’s just the way it suits my eye, for some reason I just feel comfortable.”

Jon Rahm: “Well, technically it doesn’t suit my game. I mean, it’s really a course for shorter hitters, it’s not really long off the tee. There’s a lot of emphasis and importance on keeping the ball in play off the tee, so that means I’m not able to use my driver as much as I would like to, which is one of my main tools.”

As you can see, driving accuracy and iron play is going to be critical this week, so here are my Key Stats for the week:

• SG: T2G
• SG: APP
• GIRs Gained
• Driving Accuracy
• Par 4 Scoring (400-450)
• Par 5 Scoring
• *Recent Form
• **Course History

The last two are not so much stat driven but should certainly be considered when building out your player pool. I use Course History as a gauge but not a be-all and end-all, and same goes for Recent Form where I like to SEE which guys have some momentum (good or bad) coming into this week.

I am going to list out the top Cash and GPP plays in each price range to help you get a better picture of how to build your lineups…

Expensive

Rickie Fowler (Cash/GPP)
Tony Finau (GPP)
Gary Woodland (Cash/GPP)
Billy Horschel (GPP)
Emiliano Grillo (Cash/GPP)
Charles Howell III (Cash/GPP)

Mid-tier

Zach Johnson (GPP)
Cameron Champ (Cash/GPP)
J.B. Holmes (GPP)
Joaquin Niemann (Cash/GPP)
Ryan Moore (GPP)
Abraham Ancer (GPP)

Value

Sungjae Im (Cash/GPP)
Keith Mitchell (GPP)
Chris Kirk (Cash/GPP)
J.J. Spaun (Cash/GPP)
Harold Varner III (GPP)
Anders Albertson (GPP)
Viktor Hovland* (Relatively expensive and unknown but GOOD at golf)

Super Value

Danny Lee (GPP)
Mack Hughes (Cash/GPP)
Alex Prugh (Cash/GPP)
Richy Werenski (GPP)
Adam Svensson (GPP)