Written by Ryan Humphries

Follow me on Twitter @NitroDFS or tag me in LineStar chat @N1TRO for any questions!

Tournament & Field 🏆

Golfers travel south of the border to play the WGC-Mexico Championship which is held just northwest of Mexico City at the Club de Golf Chapultepec. This is the fourth year that Chapultepec will play host for this event, so course history can’t be weighed super heavily, but some experience is definitely a plus. As is the case with all WGC tournaments, this is also a no-cut event that features a smaller field of just 72 players. First tee is set for Thursday, February 20th at noon ET. Like any WGC tournament, the field is absolutely stacked with the majority of the best golfers on the planet in attendance. There will be 20 of the world’s top 25, and 42 of the world’s top 50, golfers teeing up this week. As a result of this ultra-talented field, you’ll notice that there are many elite players that fall into the mid-range and even lower ranges of salary pricing -- then there is a pretty stiff talent drop off toward the very bottom. From a tournament strategy standpoint, don’t be afraid to leave several hundred dollars on the table in order to better your chances of having a unique lineup!

The Course Preview ⛳

Looking at the course, Club de Golf Chapultepec is a longer Par 71 set-up that stretches 7,355 yards. The distance of this course is a bit misleading, however, and you shouldn’t force yourself into favoring bombers over guys who may be shorter off the tee. The reason being is due to Chapultepec sitting at an elevation of roughly 7,700 feet above sea level. As a result, golf balls will fly further which causes the course to actually play more along the lines of around 6,900 yards in length. The tree-lined fairways here are a bit narrower than TOUR average and may result in golfers clubbing down since placing the ball in the right landing zones is crucial in order to produce more advantageous angles on approach shots. A strong iron and wedge game will be essential for success and will lead to more birdie opportunities on these larger-than-average Poa Annua greens. Assuming the weather cooperates, which is looking very likely, we should expect some decent scoring on this course -- certainly a bit more than what we saw last week at Riviera. Through the first three years of this tournament being held at Club de Golf Chapultepec, winning scores have ranged between 14-under (Dustin Johnson, 2017) to 21-under (Dustin Johnson, 2019).

Also of note, with many guys in this field being from the EURO Tour, they may not be accurately portrayed within the stats, having played fewer (or zero) eligible rounds on the PGA Tour recently. As a result, while I’ll still be considering PGA statistics, I won’t be weighing them quite as heavily in my decision making. Furthermore, with this being a no-cut event with a smaller field, I will be excluding my personal “cash and GPP” star ratings that you may recall from other newsletters. Barring a withdrawal or disqualification, everyone will be playing four rounds of golf, so I usually lean towards playing more GPPs when it comes to contest selection. With all that said, let’s jump into a quick look at the weather, some key stats to focus on, and some of my favorite players to target for this week!

Weather ⛅

Weather isn’t quite as important in no-cut events but it is still worth keeping an eye on. Temps should be comfortable, mostly in the 60s/70s throughout this tournament. Plenty of sunshine is expected as well, with the exception of Friday’s round. But no rain is expected so no worries there. Wind should only bear a slight impact on the opening two rounds. Thursday AM will see virtually no wind but as the afternoon rolls in, golfers can expect around 10 mph sustained wind speeds with around 15 mph gusts -- certainly manageable for professionals. On Friday, sustained winds are expected to be around 8-12 mph throughout the day with 15-18 mph wind gusts. That could make things a little tricky for some guys, especially as golfers adjust their club distance to the altitude, but overall I don’t think weather should determine any specific lineup builds this week. However, if you’re torn between two guys who are in separate waves, I would side with the golfer in the AM/PM wave as a tiebreaker simply due to that player drawing the very calm Thursday morning conditions.

As usual, the forecast page with the most up-to-date outlook will be linked to the image below.

WGC-Mexico Tee Times

Top Stats to Consider* 📊

1. Strokes Gained: Approach (SG: App) | 35%

2. Birdie or Better Percentage (BoB%) | 25%

3. Par 4 Average (P4 AVG) | 15%

4. Proximity to the Hole (Proximity) | 15%

5. Par 5 Birdie or Better Percentage (P5 BoB%) | 10%

High-Priced Targets

Dustin Johnson | DK: $11k, FD: $12k

Vegas: 7/1 | Custom Model Rank: #9

As mentioned in the introduction, this is just the fourth year in which Club de Golf Chapultepec has hosted this WGC event; Dustin Johnson has already won twice here (‘17 & ‘19) and finished T7 in the other year (‘18). I’m not weighing course history super heavily this week, however it is still nice to target guys who have proven that they can dial in their irons as they adjust their clubs to the extreme Mexico City altitude. In 2017, DJ led the field on approach shots gaining 8.68 strokes on the field. In his win here last year, he was second (only behind Tiger) gaining 7.92 strokes on approach shots. Sure, he isn’t in the most elite form but he does enter off of a solid T10 performance at Riviera last week where he gained strokes everywhere tee to green as well as on the Poa Annua greens, which is once again the type of putting surface golfers will contend with this week. On the stat sheet, DJ ranks 28th in SG: App, 20th in BoB%, 24th in P4 AVG, 22nd in Proximity, and 34th in P5 BoB%. He has only played three PGA events this season so it is a bit tough to fully gauge where his long term form is at. But with tournaments like The Players and The Masters only weeks away, expect a player of Johnson’s caliber to get ready to ramp up his game. With such a talented field, it really is difficult to narrow down these guys at the top and highlight one over the other, but it’s also hard to overlook DJ’s success at this particular course. He’s a top target across the board.

Webb Simpson | DK: $9.8k, FD: $11.4k

Vegas: 16/1 | Custom Model Rank: #2

Webb hasn’t had killer success in his previous two appearances at Chapultepec (T39 & T37) but his current form has to alleviate any and all concerns you could have with the guy. In his four full field PGA events this year he has finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and T7. He’s on just an absolute monstrous run right now and after taking a couple of weeks off following his win at the WMPO, I’d imagine he jumps right back into the swing of things. Simpson ranks 1st in SG: App, 1st in BoB%, 1st in P4 AVG, 1st in Proximity, and 4th in P5 BoB%. His ownership will certainly be among the highest in the field but with the way Webb Simpson is playing, he is about as scary of a fade as Rory McIlroy, yet boasts a considerably lower salary.

Mid-Priced Targets

Paul Casey | DK: $8.7k, FD: $10.7k

Vegas: 33/1 | Custom Model Rank: #13

If Casey could just start consistently sinking six-foot putts, his bank account would be much better for it. On the greens in the final round of three of his last four events, Casey has lost 3.1 strokes putting (Genesis), 4.6 strokes (Pebble Beach), and 4.2 strokes (Sentry TOC). The putter is essentially the only thing holding him back from several top 10 finishes this season because his ball striking has been excellent. In this field, Casey ranks 12th in SG: App, 18th in BoB%, 47th in P4 AVG, 25th in Proximity, and 6th in P5 BoB%. He has also had very strong success at Chapultepec, having finished T3, T12, and T16 in the last three years here. As I say nearly every week at some point in these newsletters, putting is the most volatile aspect of basically every golfer’s game. Putters can go cold just as fast as they can get hot. If Casey simply has a decent week with the flat stick, he could quite easily post up a top five finish or even an outright win down in Mexico.

Victor Perez | DK: $7.6k, FD: $9.3k

Vegas: 100/1 | Custom Model Rank: #20

Perez is a EURO Tour player who many American golf fans are not all too familiar with, myself included. But it simply takes a quick glance at his recent worldwide results to see why he should be considered as a very viable mid-range option this week. Perez has not missed a cut in his last nine starts and in that span he has seven top 20 results, including four top fives with one of those being a win. I don’t have full PGA strokes gained stats on him (since he doesn’t play on the PGA Tour) but on the EURO Tour he ranks 20th in SG: Total, 19th in SG: App, 1st in P4 AVG, and 11th in Birdies Per Round. Keep in mind, normally my strokes gained stats are tailored to rank against the field for the particular event in any given week, so those previous ranks for Perez are across the entirety of the European Tour. Perez also profiles as a bomber (320.75 yards/drive) and ranks 7th in SG: OTT on the EURO Tour. Driving distance isn’t of paramount importance on this course but it might be fun to see just how far this guy blasts ‘em in this altitude. While there are certainly some unknowns with this pick, the upside is quite apparent.

EURO Tour Stats Page

Low-Priced Targets

Robert MacIntyre | DK: $7.2k, FD: $8.5k

Vegas: 100/1 | Custom Model Rank: #54 (No PGA Stats)

Keeping the trend of European players going, I believe MacIntyre is a value play worth considering with very notable upside. He missed the cut in his most recent event a few weeks ago at the Saudi International, but prior to that, MacIntyre has nine consecutive made cuts which included five top 10 results. He only has six measured rounds this season on the EURO Tour, which I don’t believe is an adequate enough sample size to really gauge him on. However, in 2019 MacIntyre ranked 7th in SG: Total, 8th in SG: App, 27th in P4 AVG, 18th in Birdies Per Round, and 28th in Greens in Regulation. MacIntyre and Perez will both be making their debuts at Club de Golf Chapultepec but both guys have the sort of game which fits the mold of what I’m looking for here. Also, due to lack of name recognition, I’m expecting a lot of these lower-priced European players to go underowned.

Carlos Ortiz | DK: $6.6k, FD: $8.8k

Vegas: 150/1 | Custom Model Rank: #32

Ortiz earned himself a mention in last week’s newsletter for the Genesis Open as a value play and for a while he was flirting with a top 10 finish on the leaderboard. He fell a bit over the weekend but still came away with a very respectable T26 finish in what was an ultra-talented field -- much like the one we have this week. Ortiz has also flashed plenty of upside with three top five finishes this season so he could absolutely outperform his DFS salaries once again. He ranks 43rd in SG: App, 23rd in BoB%, 21st in P4 AVG, 34th in Proximity, and 22nd in P5 BoB%. Ortiz should be a crowd favorite as just one of two Mexican golfers in the field (Abraham Ancer). This will be his career debut on this course but as a native from Guadalajara, which sits at an altitude of about 5,100 feet, expect Ortiz to have a solid grasp on how the very notable altitude affects his club distance.

Quick Hits | Others to Consider

Justin Thomas | DK: $10.8k, FD: $11.7k

Vegas: 10/1 | Custom Model Rank: #8

JT burned plenty of people last week but perhaps that suppresses his ownership. He could be in store for a quick bounce back performance, as he has finished inside the top 10 in all three of his appearances at Chapultepec.

Bryson DeChambeau | DK: $9k, FD: $10.8k

Vegas: 25/1 | Custom Model Rank: #21

DeChambeau further pieced together his game last week, ranking 2nd in the field in SG: T2G. He would have pushed for the win if his putter ran a little hotter (-1.60 SG: Putting on the week). He saw a pretty significant price increase but there is still meat on the bone for some upside.

Collin Morikawa | DK: $8.5k, FD: $10.5k

Vegas: 40/1 | Custom Model Rank: #6

This is probably a good week to get Morikawa at lowered ownership. Normally he is relied upon as a cut maker, but with no cut for this tournament people may look elsewhere for more winning upside. I still believe in his upside, however. He’s one of the best ball strikers in the world (ranks 2nd in this field) but, like so many others, he just needs to get hot with the putter (51st in SG: Putting).

Tyrrell Hatton | DK: $7.4k, FD: $9.1k

Vegas: 80/1 | Custom Model Rank: #18

A bit of rust is a concern with Hatton, as he hasn’t competed in either a PGA or EURO Tour event since November. But, prior to his hiatus, the form was solid, with five top 20 results over his previous six events, including a win (Turkish Airlines Open). He has also stepped up on this course, with finishes of T19, T3, and T10 over the last three years.

Scottie Scheffler | DK: $7.1k, FD: $9k

Vegas: 100/1 | Custom Model Rank: #15

One of only about a dozen players who gained strokes everywhere tee to green (App, OTT, ARG) and putting last week. He has fallen off a bit after his hot early season run that extended into January. But he is guaranteed four rounds this week and is absolutely capable of outperforming these low salaries.

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That will do it for our WGC-Mexico Championship preview! As always, hit me up in the LineStar chat or on Twitter @NitroDFS for any questions. Good luck this week!

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