An excellent field has been put together south of the border for the third-to-last event of 2021 on the PGA Tour. Justin Thomas (12/1) finished tied for 12th in the World Wide Technologies Championship at Mayakoba. Viktor Hovland (16/1) also returns as the event’s defending champion.
Here are some golfers who are worth a wager this weekend at El Cameleon in Quintana Roo, Mexico.
Abraham Ancer (16/1): Gets a home game here in his native Mexico. He is currently enjoying his best year of his career, the highlight of which is a victory in the WGC: FedEx St. Jude Invitational against a stellar field. Along with that victory he finished second at the Wells Fargo Championship and has three other top 5s to boot. He sits on the precipice of the world’s top 10 and arrives here in good form, off a 14th-place finish in Las Vegas at the CJ Cup three weeks ago. After missing the cut on debut here in 2015, Ancer has made every cut since and has finishes of 9-21-8-12 on his four most recent visits. Ancer is also one of the more accurate hitters off the tee and has been putting well of late.
Russell Henley (40/1): While Henley has missed two consecutive cuts here at Mayakoba, he tops the field for Driving Accuracy, SG: Approach, and Opportunities Gained. He has always been a good player on coastal courses as evident by his 2013 Sony Open in Hawaii victory at Waialae (a strongly correlated course to El Camaleon). Henley has also fared well on other correlated courses with two top 10s at Harbour Town (RBC Heritage) and three top 10s at Sea Island (RSM Classic).
Joaquin Niemann (40/1): Has a good history on coastal courses with a fifth at Kapalua in 2020 and a second on the same course earlier this year. Furthermore, he finished second this year at Waialae (Sony Open in Hawaii), where previous Mayakoba champions Patton Kizzire and Matt Kuchar have also won. He also has a fifth at Harbour Town. He settled for a T-28 at the Zozo in Japan but opened with a 64 and was seventh best in the field for GIR.
Rickie Fowler (50/1): Was the Mayakoba runner-up in 2017. His T-3 at the CJ Cup was his best finish anywhere in over 2¹/₂ years. Fowler ranked first in the field for GIR, SG: Off-The-Tee and SG: Tee-To-Green.
Kevin Streelman (66/1): Popped in a couple different statistical categories including Driving Accuracy, Fairways Gained, Opportunities Gained and Proximity to the Hole from 100-125 yards (second over the last 36 rounds). He also has a solid history on coastal courses with a T-3 (2013) and T-6 (2019) at Harbour Town (RBC Heritage), T-3 (2014) at Kapalua (Tournament of Champions), and a runner-up (2020) and 6th (2018) at Pebble Beach.
Russell Knox (80/1): Hit the most greens in the field last week (77.78 percent) but got caught on the wrong end of the wind Thursday morning and had to come from behind to finish T-12. His course form at the Mayakoba is exceptional, with a second, a third and a ninth, no missed cuts in eight efforts and no finishes worse than 37th. The Scotsman also has a runner-up and a 9th at Harbour Town (RBC Heritage), which is a correlated course here.
Jhonattan Vegas (80/1): Was the runner-up earlier this year at Coco Beach (another correlated course) in the Puerto Rico Open, which is one of three runner-up finishes (Palmetto Championship, 3M Open) for him this season. He ranks top 10 in this field for SG: Off-The-Tee, SG: Approach, Opportunities Gained and GIR Gained, amongst others.