In this weekly feature, we will take a closer look at the upcoming PGA Tour event to see what the best outright winner values are on the board and also analyze some of our other favorite golf player picks for Rounds 2-4.
Let’s see if we can nail some winners and make some money along the way.
Golf Props Today: Mexico Open
Each week, we take a look at our top outright winner plays along with the reasons why.
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Winner Picks – Mexico Open
This week’s PGA Tour stop is the Mexico Open at Vidanta – hosted at the Vidanta Vallarta course in … Mexico!
This is only the fourth time the PGA Tour has played here, with Jon Rahm and Tony Finau going 1-2 in the first two editions, and Jake Knapp edging Sami Valimaki last year.
The course plays as an absolute bomb-and-gouge spectacle, with a large lean on distance and less punishment for missed fairways than your average PGA Tour course.
With the new PGA elevated events schedule, we see our second year of basically zero big names teeing it up this week. Essentially an “alternative” tour stop this week, it’s a big opportunity for somebody to break through and make a name for themselves, like bomber Jake Knapp did last year in a big way.
He played one more solid event after that, which gave some interesting consideration to his career trajectory, but he’s been virtually a non-factor since.
This is fairly “normal” for young first-time winners on tour who secure their career for about 2 years usually with a win – it’s hard to keep the competitive edge and grind that was necessary to get to that point.
I almost NEVER pick defending champs because there’s just usually enough of a public lean on them for little-to-no reason that eats into any possible edge, but this week Jake Knapp is actually a fairly attractive play, and the number is good enough at +4000 to make it make sense.
Knapp’s longtime swing coach is John Ortega, but he’s been featured recently on Calicut-based swing guru Dana Dahlquist’s Instagram page.
Coaching relationships like these are becoming common on the PGA Tour, where players will informally bounce around and get a few different opinions. Sometimes it works and sometimes it’s a disaster, but the early returns have Knapp putting up tee-to-green numbers that we haven’t seen since this time last year, where he looked like he might be the next big thing on tour.
At the end of the day he’s a bomber and a capable and streaky putter. His numbers are deflated coming into this event, but there’s almost zero well-established contenders in his way and he just needs a good week putting in order to contend with his current long game. That’s enough for me at 40/1 at a course that is obviously well suited to his game.
The next best play is a perpetual “flier” on the PGA Tour since his inception: Kevin Yu.
I consider him like a poor man’s Ben An … a guy who can hit the ball as well as anyone on tour but routinely putts his way out of tournaments. Just like Ben An, however, he has found a way to put up really really great putting numbers once every handful of events. So there’s a pulse there, just have to catch it when it all lines up, like it did just a few months ago at the Sanderson Open where the career-negative SGP Yu gained over 8 strokes in a single tournament on the greens.
His last two tournaments are top 20s against WAY stronger fields at the Waste Management and Genesis, so if he keeps it up there’s plenty of room for a big week this week at 35/1.
Outright Winner Best Bets:
Jake Knapp +4000
Kevin Yu +3500
Round 2/3/4 Plays – Mexico Open
For each tournament, we will go through Round 2/3/4 plays on sites like Underdog.
Round 2 Picks
Coming soon! Check back later this week for more picks and analysis.
Round 3 Picks
Coming soon! Check back later this week for more picks and analysis.
Round 4 Picks
Coming soon! Check back later this week for more picks and analysis.
