The Club de Golf Chapultepec is the host course this week, as 64 of the world’s best* players head south down Mexico way.
* Disclaimer – Adam Bland, Brandon Stone, Chan Kim, Wade Ormsby and Brett Rumford not considered in that bracket.
Rory McIlroy and Jason Day have also decided not to play this year. Rory’s digestive system was over par all week in 2017 – due to the local water/food on offer – so staying in South Florida is a prudent move for the Northern Irishman.
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Attitude to play at altitude
The Club de Golf Chapultepec is a tree lined course, that is at altitude. Keen golf fans would take this as an indication that last year would have suited the shorter hitters, who had to plot their way around the course.
They were very wrong!
The top 8 places in 2017’s leaderboard were filled by players who hit the ball long and into the stratosphere.
Golfers with high ball flights can carry trees on certain holes and completely negate the doglegs. Their length off the tee put them in position to attack the relatively small greens. So make your bets accordingly!
Best bets
Louis Oosthuizen – 55/1
This is a very big price for a classy operator like King Louis. A 75 on Sunday at the Honda Classic dropped him down to 24th place, but he played very well tee to green for the other three rounds, so that can be easily forgiven.
A decent week on the greens will hopefully put the former Open winner in the mix come Sunday night.
Thomas Pieters – 33/1
Thomas Pieters was fifth in the inaugural running of the event here last year. He finished three shots off Dustin Johnson’s winning score, even though he played the Par 5s in level par for the week. The Belgian usually eats those for breakfast, so expect him to generate plenty of birdies this time around.
The past 18 months he has proven his game is up there with the elite as he was a Top Points Scorer for Team Europe at the Ryder Cup and has put up huge performance at courses like Riviera & Augusta National.
He is trending in the right direction this season and that showed in a 13th placed finish at the Honda Classic. He’s not only on an upward trend for this week, but also towards the first major of the year in six weeks.
Elsewhere, we would also recommend taking on Phil Mickelson in Tournament match bets & 2 Balls through the week.
Phil’s erratic tendencies with the driver make him easy to oppose this week, on such a tight track. Although, it was probably one of his greatest scrambling performance of his career to finish T-7 here last year.
With more solid tee-to-green propositions around here like Justin Rose, Alex Noren and Sergio Garcia, taking on Lefty this week will hopefully prove fruitful!
Drive to PaddyPower.com if you’re looking for golf betting* All odds correct at time of posting.