Two very different courses this week on the major tours this week, with the PGA Tour taking on a completely new course and the DP World Tour returning to a well-known track with heaps of history and (old) form.

Vindanta Vallarta offers wide fairways to the almost 7500-yard challenge, but it will be the ability to cope with the paspalum grass and travel to Mexico that also need a good look, whilst a simple look at course winners (Jimenez, Levet, Davis and Bjorn) the PGA Catalunya Resort suggests the chance for the more traditional player to thrive.

Here are the best five bets across both events this week:

Tony Finau – Top-10 +300

Finau’s issues around and on the greens are well known, but this event surely represents a chance to begin the charge back to his former world ranking inside the top-10.

Winner in Puerto Rico back in 2016, he was the second player to burst the curse of that tournament (behind Hovland) when winning The Northern Trust five years later, coming from off the pace to beat Cam Smith with Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele behind.

In between those victories, the 32-year-old has let backers down with some abject displays when in contention, but there have been signs in recent weeks and in higher grade events, to think he should easily challenge at this level.

Of his seven events in 2022, we only have strokes-gained data from four, but, in these, he has ranked top-20 in approaches leading to an average of around 23rd for tee-to-green.

It’s all a bit mid-30s for Big Tone, both in stats and finishes, but, in this grade, 33rd at Riviera, 29th in Texas and 35th at Augusta read perfectly well enough, and his liking for the grass he faces this week is ably evidenced not only by the win in Rio Grande, but by a seventh, eighth and 16th place at El Camaleon and a top-10 at the PGA at Kiawah Island.

Aaron Wise – Top-5/Top-20 +650/+175 

Take the very short-priced favourite away, and there look to be very few that are in form, have the length off the tee, experience on the grass type and who may have the potential to be slightly better class than this field. 25-year-old Aaron Wise is definitely one of those.

Top-14 for distance off the tee in all three of his last starts, that prowess combined with better-than-field-average approach stats, has seen him average around 15th for tee-to-green.

Rather like Finau, Wise’s recent form reads well in this class – 17th at Bay Hill and 21st at The Heritage (fifth at halfway) – and whilst he isn’t easy to predict, he seems to like this part of the world with a 10th, charging runner-up, and 15th in the Mayakoba, and 19th at the WGC in Chapultepec.

Unlike most of these, the best is still to come from Wise, and a field average putting display on greens he likes should do the job this week.

Adrian Otaegui – Win +2500

Adrian Otaegui – Top-10 +280

It’s tough to get away from the maxim, ‘when in Spain, back the home crowd’.

The last three runnings of the Spanish Open have seen home players bag three wins and two runner-up spots, whilst last week’s ISPS Handa Championship saw the mercurial brilliance of Pablo Larrazabal beat compatriot Otaegui, who may gain his revenge just seven days later.

With his first two victories at ‘specialist’ events – match-play and the Belgian ‘knockout’ – many doubted the 29-year-old’s ability to win a regular event, until his come-from-behind victory in Fife, at the one-off ‘lockdown’ event, the Scottish Championship.

Despite the trio of wins, Otaegui could also have won the Scandinavian Mixed, when a missed putt on the 72nd hole cost him the chance of a play-off, and more recently, in Qatar, when he had a poor set of holes around the turn on an admittedly tough Sunday.

Being average off the tee won’t be a huge negative this week, especially as his iron play is very much on point at the moment, with tee-to-green figures of at least +3 in his last five outings, the latest three being around +7, +6 and +9.

Otaegui tied for the win at the 2015 European Tour Q-School, which took in this course as part of its six-round rotation, an effort that followed a top-five the year before.

He knows the course, plays very well at home and on narrow courses, is in form and comes here having seen his compatriot take all the plaudits last week.

Richard Bland – Win +3000

Richard Bland Top-10/Top-20 +320/+150

As unlikely as it is, a one-time winner in 583 professional starts might be one of the best plays of the week on the DP Tour.

Ignore the amount of events played – the 49-year-old has had a new dawn since beating Guido Migliozzi at the British Masters a year ago – and concentrate on what he has been doing since the win.

134th on the OWGR after The Belfry, Bland has continued his always-quality tee-to-green game, but instead of being a regular fade on a Sunday, he has now become a player to fear.

Seven further top-10s in 2021 saw him rise to 74 in the world, and he hasn’t stopped yet.

2022 has seen Bland split Viktor Hovland and Rory McIlroy in Dubai, beat Taylor Gooch and Lee Westwood and halving with Bryson DeChambeau at the Match Play, and finishing top-30 at the Texas Open.

Unlucky not to get into The Masters when the ranking points conspired against him, he is now officially ranked 48th and comes to a course that should reward his careful play, just as it did the likes of similar players Jimenez and Bjorn.

Lack of length off the tee should not matter here and his pin-point iron play will leave less pressure on the short game, something that itself has improved with confidence after a win.

12th in Miguel’s victory in 2014, Bland is a different player these days and might be the best way of upsetting another strong home challenge.