After a week off, the 2023-24 PGA TOUR season resumes in Mexico this week with the World Wide Technologies Championship. El Camaleon Golf Club in Playa del Carmen has hosted every edition of this event since its inception in 2007, but this year, El Cardonal at Diamante (par 72, 7,452 yards, paspalum greens) in Cabo San Lucas will make its professional debut and host the World Wide Technologies Championship.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $300K Sand Trap [$100K to 1st!]
El Cardonal was designed by Tiger Woods in 2014 and is the first course designed by the golfer to be used at the PGA level. Inspired by courses Woods played growing up in Southern California, El Cardonal features wide fairways, massive greens, 48 bunkers and only one water hazard. Combine these factors with this tree-less venue being located right on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and El Cardonal resembles a links course that should be very scoreable for the modern PGA TOUR player. The average width of the fairways here is a huge 60 yards, and with zero rough on the premises, longer players should have an advantage at El Cardonal and are the best targets.
El Cardonal is a traditional par 72 that features four par 3s, four par 5s and 10 par 4s. Six of the 10 par 4s fall between 450-500 yards and all four of the par 5s measure between 550-600 yards—certainly making these the key ranges to focus on for research this week.
Woods unfortunately won’t be competing on his own creation this week and only four of the top-50 ranked golfers in the world will be teeing it up in Mexico. This is a limited field of 132 players, but there will still be a standard top-65 and ties cut following the first two rounds.
Below, I break down four of my favorite sub $7.5K DraftKings bargain plays for the World Wide Technologies Championship.
Nick Hardy ($7,400) – Hardy continues to be vastly underpriced by DraftKings and is an easy choice at this low salary. The 31-year-old has only missed one cut in his last nine starts and has finished inside the top 20 in two of his past three starts. Gaining strokes OTT at three consecutive events heading into this week and ranking 33rd in driving distance this season, Hardy is an elite driver of the golf ball who should thrive at the wide-open El Cardonal.
In five career starts at courses that are home to paspalum greens, Hardy has carded three top-30 finishes, including a T21 at last year’s World Wide Technologies Championship.
Brandon Wu ($7,300) – Wu has made five cuts in a row and is a true paspalum specialist that is far too cheap for his upside. The Stanford product has only missed one cut in eight career starts at venues with paspalum greens, with four of these finishes impressively being top-10 results. In fact, Wu ranks fourth among all active PGA TOUR players in strokes gained per round at courses with paspalum putting surfaces.
With this type of prowess for paspalum greens on top of his strong current form as a ball striker, he ranks 19th in SG: Approach and 24th in SGT2G over his last 24 rounds. Wu is a real threat for a top-20 finish this weekend.
Greyson Sigg ($7,300) – Sigg is fresh off a T28 at the Shriners Open, in which he gained strokes in every major category. This marked the former Georgia Bulldog’s seventh made and his fourth top-30 finish in his last nine starts. Sigg has been striking the ball at a high level—he ranks 12th in SGT2G over his last 50 rounds—and is a safe bet to advance through the cut in his return to Mexico this week.
Sigg has finished T33rd and T42nd at the past two World Wide Technologies Championships and notably has made 6-of-7 cuts on courses with paspalum greens for his career—including three top-25 finishes.
Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $300K Sand Trap [$100K to 1st!]
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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is Hunta512) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skills and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.