After a wild few weeks on the West Coast, the PGA Tour is moving south of the border. Tony Finau looks to defend his title at the 2024 Mexico Open at Vidanta Vallarta. As always, here is your early look at the 2024 Mexico Open and a preview of how to bet.
2024 Mexico Open Preview
The Field
As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, Tony Finau is the big fish in this field as he looks to win his second straight Mexico Open. Tony Finau has been tremendous on Paspalum golf courses in his career.
He has wins at Vidanta Vallarta and at the Puerto Rico Open. He also has a Top 10 at Mayakoba, another runner-up finish at Vidanta Vallarta, and a runner-up finish at Royal Greens in Saudi Arabia.
He’s struggling with the putter but always seems to get it going on paspalum greens. He stands a great shot to come out on top again.
Other notables in the field include Nicolai Hojgaard, Stephan Jaeger, Emiliano Grillo, Thomas Detry and Thorbjorn Olesen.
For the full field, click here.
The Golf Course
The Mexico Open has its origins going back to the 1940s. It was first played in 1944 at the Club de Golf Chapultepec (site of the defunct WGC – Mexico Championship).
Over its history, it has been an event on the Latin America Tour, the European Challenge Tour, and the Korn Ferry Tour. And the Mexico Open has several elite winners. Mexico Open champions include Tony Lema, Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, Ben Crenshaw, and Stewart Cink.
However, 2024 marks the third time the Mexico Open is a fully sanctioned PGA Tour event. This year’s Mexico Open will play on the Greg Norman Signature Course at the Vidanta Villarta Resort.
The golf course opened for play in 2016. It rests near the banks of the Ameca River and provides stunning views of the Sierra Madre Mountains. It’s also in very close proximity to the Pacific Ocean.
It’s a relatively flat piece of property with very little elevation change tee-to-green. For resort guests, the golf course plays as a Par 73. However, a few Par 5s will be converted into Par 4s to make the Mexico Open a Par 71. It will run about 7,300 yards on the scorecard. The golf course also features paspalum fairways, rough, and greens.
There is very little information online about the golf course. There are a handful of reviews on GolfPass and a few bloggers who wrote about their experience at the golf course. Two years ago, I did a hole-by-hole breakdown of each hole at Vidanta Villarta using overhead Google Earth images. For those who’d like a refresher on the golf course, click here.
For those who’d rather watch instead of read, here are highlights of the final round of the 2022 Mexico Open that puts a spotlight on Vidanta Villarta:
The one thing players can often do at Vidanta Villarta is hit the driver off the tee. The golf course is fairly wide open. There are not a lot of trees, and the fairways average about 40 yards wide.
While a few water hazards can be avoided off the tee, it takes a huge miss to go into it. As long as players avoid a fairway bunker or few (and carry them to boot), guys who are comfortable pounding drivers on every hole can do very well on the golf course.
It’s also important to remember that Vidanta Villarta is a resort course. Paspalum grass is a very popular resort course grass of choice because it plays slow, the ball sticks to it like velcro, and it sits up nicely to allow for great ball-to-club contact.
While some players are bothered by playing on paspalum, some players love how well it sits on the ground. And for those who can struggle around the green, the paspalum can be a big relief for them.
Not only does it make chipping a little easier, but there’s a bigger margin for error since the ball grabs the grass once it hits the green.
Overall, this golf course isn’t anything all that special. That’s not all that rare of a comment to Greg Norman designs. He designs many of his golf courses to demand that players drive the ball very well.
But there’s also not a lot of character, uniqueness, or the complex strategy behind several of his golf courses either. The greens and surrounding bunkers also don’t seem to have much complexity to them either. So, while the surroundings are pretty, this is a largely forgettable golf course.
Betting Strategies
To begin the 2024 Mexico Open Preview, here is general information about the Greg Norman Signature Course at Vidanta Vallarta.
Yardage: ~7,300 Yards
Par: 71
- As mentioned earlier, this golf course normally plays as a Par 73 for the resort guests. There are a whopping six Par 5s and five Par 3s on the scorecard. However, the 4th and 16th holes will instead play as long Par 4s at the 2024 Mexico Open.
Average Green Size: N/A
- Because the GCSAA does not give out official golf course information, no green size square footage is readily available. However, per an estimate from Google Earth imagery, the greens are quite large at Vidanta Vallarta and average well over 7,000 square feet in area. Maybe more.
Agronomy
- Greens: Paspalum
- Collars & Approaches: Paspalum
- Fairways: Paspalum
- Rough: Paspalum (unknown length)
- As discussed later, the rough at Vidanta Vallarta is not penal. As such, it’s likely the rough is not all that deep.
Paspalum grass is a unique grass not seen a lot on the PGA Tour. It’s a grass used primarily near the ocean as it is more salt tolerant than other warm temperature grasses like bermuda. It also is a great grass to use at resorts like Vidanta Vallarta.
It is a very sticky grass. Once the ball hits the turf, it usually doesn’t roll out too far. The ball also sits up a bit on it, almost like on a tee. This is a great grass for amateur players looking to play a bit of golf while vacationing in paradise.
Here are a few other golf courses that feature paspalum grass:
- Mayakoba Golf Club
- El Cardonal at Diamante
- Grand Reserve Golf Club
- Puntcana Resort & Club
- Royal Greens
- Doha GC
- Al Hamra GC
- Al Mouj GC
- Golf Costa Adeje
- Yas Golf Links.
Because of its uniqueness, consulting these golf courses might reveal ace players on Paspalum.
Past Champions (with approximate pre-tournament odds)
- 2023: Tony Finau (+750)
- 2022: Jon Rahm (+425)
So far, chalk has prevailed at the Mexico Open. However, no winner on the PGA Tour so far this season has had pre-tournament odds better than 70/1. The unstoppable force meets the immovable object in the betting markets this week. Something will have to give.
Average Scoring:
- 2023: -1.09
- 2022: -0.81
There are plenty of golf courses on the PGA Tour that have featured much lower scoring averages than Vidanta Vallarta. However, when considering how weak the fields at the Mexico Open has been, this is not a very difficult golf course.
This is apparent when looking at average scores on the weekend. In the final round of the 2023 Mexico Open, the scoring average was -1.93. In 2022, it was -1.45. Once the bottom of the barrel tier of players were removed from the tournament, the golf course revealed itself as one that isn’t too difficult.
This is also apparent based on DataGolf’s estimation of the difficulty of Vidanta Vallarta in each area of the game. Since 2015, here is Vidanta Vallarta’ ranking in difficulty when compared to other golf courses played on the PGA Tour (out of 87 golf courses)
- Off the Tee: 66th
- Approach: 64th
- Around the Green: 86th
- Putting: 51st
In addition, Vidanta Vallarta has featured the 23rd easiest Par 3s, 40th easiest Par 4s and 18th easiest Par 5s. While lower-class players who don’t possess the certain skillsets required to do well at Vidanta Vallarta (see below) struggled, those who did generally don’t find Vidanta Vallarta too difficult.
Predictive Skillsets
Here is the relative skillset chart of the types of characteristics that are most predictive of success at Vidanta Vallarta (per DataGolf). This chart is a preview of the types of players one would expect to do well at the 2024 Mexico Open.
Driving stands out as an area with the most predictive elements of success at Vidanta Vallarta. There is a high correlation of golfers who possess length off the and have found success at Vidanta Vallarta.
This makes a lot of sense based on the layout and agronomy of the golf course. There is no reason not to pull driver a lot at Vidanta Vallarta. The fairways are very wide.
The paspalum grass slows down the ball once it hits the turf. Its slow nature prevents the ball from running out into undesirable locations. And the rough isn’t very penal at the golf course.
As such, length is a big edge at Vidanta Vallarta. While the golf course will punish those who spray it wildly offline through water hazards and out-of-bounds, overall, bombers have done quite well at this golf course.
While there are a handful of short hitters that can be considered paspalum aces (like Golf Gambling Podcast favorite Carson Young), these types of players find less success on the driver-heavy paspalum golf courses than the bombers do.
In Tournament Success
Here is a chart showing how players have separated themselves from the field at Vidanta Vallarta when compared to the average PGA Tour golf course (per DataGolf). This shows what skillsets are more rewarded in the tournament in order to fare better or worse than the field.
Not only is distance a very predictive skillset to success at Vidanta Vallarta, but it is more impactful towards one’s total Strokes Gained – Off-the-Tee round to round than it is at the typical PGA Tour venue.
In addition, how one drives it in the tournament also has a much greater degree of impact on one’s total strokes gained than it does at the typical PGA Tour setup. Anytime a predictive skillset is directly correlated to in-tournament success at an event, it is very easy to pick the types of golfers to bet.
Approach Shot Proximity
Here is the approach shot proximity buckets for Vidanta Vallarta (per DataGolf). This will preview what types of approach shots players are expected to hit at the 2024 Mexico Open.
There is a significantly disproportionate number of approach shots that come from over 175 yards at Vidanta Vallarta than the average PGA Tour golf course. In 2023, approximately 63% of all approach shots came from over 175 yards.
Given that Vidanta Vallarta features the longest collection of Par 4s and 5s on the PGA Tour since 2015, the fact players are asked to hit several long approach shots in the tournament should come as no surprise.
Follow the tips in this preview, and one should put together a solid betting card and DFS lineup for the 2024 Mexico Open.
