The PGA Tour returns to action after a rare week without a tournament.
Making their return, they head to Mexico to take on El Cardonal at Diamante. For DFS purposes, we don’t have any course history to lean on so course fit and recent form will have to be our go-to handicapping tools. Let’s jump in to have some course-fit discussion.
Coastal Crushers
El Cardonal is a coastal course on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.
When looking at coastal tracks across the PGA Tour, you see a lot of crossover characteristics. First, wind can always be a factor when playing so close to the coast. Second, you have similar climates which leads to similar grass types and similar course layouts. You see less tree-lined layouts by the sea and more that are exposed to the elements. In this week’s case, you see wall-to-wall paspalum turf which is relatively common these days when heading to a coastal climate.
Grouping past performance on coastal courses can be an easy way to pick up on these course characteristics by lumping them all together.
Here are the top performers in adjusted strokes gained per round when playing on coastal courses, over the last two years:
- Cameron Young
- Thomas Detry
- Akshay Bhatia
- Matt Kuchar
- J.J. Spaun
- Maverick McNealy
- Ben Griffin
- Troy Merritt
- Keith Mitchell
- Greyson Sigg
- Taylor Montgomery
- Sahith Theegala
- Brandon Wu
- Hayden Buckley
- Will Gordon
We can also look at performance versus baseline to see who shows the largest increase in performance compared to their typical scores:
- Akshay Bhatia
- Troy Merritt
- Thomas Detry
- Will Gordon
- Hayden Buckley
- Kevin Yu
- Ben Griffin
- Erik Van Rooyen
- Greyson Sigg
- Ben Martin
- Brandon Wu
- Cameron Young
- Ryan Palmer
- Matt Kuchar
- Maverick McNealy
Overlap List: Names that show up on both lists include Cameron Young, Thomas Detry, Akshay Bhatia, Matt Kuchar, Ben Griffin, Troy Merritt, Greyson Sigg, Brandon Wu, Hayden Buckley, and Will Gordon.
McNealy would set up great for this course but he’s a wildcard this week due to the fact that he’s returning from a long injury layoff.
Detry comfortable by the sea
Early in his career, the only time we’d see him on the PGA Tour circuit was in majors or the Dominican Republic. He had family ties to the D.R. and even talked about setting up his “PGA Tour” base on the island. Detry’s comfort by the coast is picked up with the stats, as well. Over the last two years he has 15 events played on coastal courses and twirled “made cut worthy” performances in 14 of those. To put that in perspective, there are only four other golfers in this field who are in double digits for cut-worthy performance on coastal courses. If you need a consistent option to plug in and build around, Detry makes for a solid option this week in Mexico.
Merritt a boom-or-bust value option
Consistency is not the strength of his game. Just this season, Merritt has 18 missed cuts, in 31 starts. On the flip side, he has four top 20s in his last nine events played. The good weeks tend to be really good while the off weeks are generally missed cuts. When you look at his performance over the last two years, his adjusted strokes gained metrics are roughly three-fourths of a shot higher than his overall baseline over that same time period. Currently 115th in the FedExCup race, this boom-or-bust option is also highly motivated to stay inside of the 125 bubble.
