VIVA, MEXICO! It’s fiesta time on the PGA TOUR and for the second year in a row, the Mexico Open is a PGA TOUR event. Its long been a golf tournament, but only recently has been a PGA TOUR event. Last year was the inaugural PGA TOUR event with Jon Rahm capturing the title. Last year’s champion and this year’s Masters winner is back in the field and he’s a MASSIVE betting favorite and by far and away the best player in the field. Outside of Rahm, Tony Finau stands out, but beyond that this is a field with a ton of middling options which should make for a rather fun and chaotic tournament. Get those lineups ready, queue up the leaderboard, and lock in for the best sweat in fantasy sports, the Friday cut sweat is back this week in a normal, full field, stroke play PGA TOUR event, so let’s dig in.

Course Information

Vidanta Vallarta (that’s fun to say) is a par 71 that plays 7,400+ yards which is certainly a longer golf course. It plays long and we have a bit of a fun and quirky topic to at least highlight which is the grass. Yes, the grass! The course is entirely Paspalum grass which grows great in warm, tropical areas near salt water. I say this to highlight that when digging into the data what stands out is that there are some relatively bad putters in this field that seem to putt *better* on Paspalum grass. Putting is rather difficult to predict, but super important when it comes to scoring fantasy points and winning golf tournaments. In fact, I like someone this week just because of some putting stats. See below in Golfers to Target!

Reignmaker PGA TOUR Contest Selection

In addition to the standard contests across tiers, this week DraftKings rolled out two portfolio gated contests that I wanted to highlight. If you hold one RARE or higher tier card of the top five finishers from last year’s Mexico Open in your portfolio (Jon Rahm, Tony Finau, Kurt Kitayama, Brandon Wu, Davis Riley), you’re able to enter a tournament that has 2 top prizes of a VIP golf experience to the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. Given DraftKings connections, I’m sure this experience will be one that rolls out the red carpet. As long as you have just one of these golfers in your portfolio at the time of lineup lock this week (meaning you can still buy any of their cards on secondary if this kind of contest interests you), then you’ll be able to enter a lineup into these contests.

There are two contests, one for anyone with a RARE+ of those five golfers, and another for anyone with an ELITE+ of those five golfers in their collections. In addition to the VIP experience top prize for first and second place in both tournaments, there is also an additional $5000 in cash prizes paid out to third place and beyond. These contests are likely to be some of the highest EV contests of the week, and if you’re open to a VIP experience, then they might be right for you. Either way, adding this kind of optionality and flare to Reignmakers contests is something that I like seeing. Let me know what you think in the comments. Do you like this, or does it not move the needle for you?

Golfers to Target

As always in this article, I’ll highlight three golfers I like across the odds ranges: Best odds (+2000 or better), mid range (+2000-9000), and long shots (+10000 and up).This setup is a bit of a bombers paradise, those that can tee it high and let it fly and strike long irons have a bit of a leg up.

Best Odds (not Jon Rahm): Patrick Rodgers LOW ASK, CORE $5.30, RARE $27, ELITE $169.99

I’m digging a bit deeper here in the best odds bucket. A couple weeks ago Patrick Rodgers had a solid chance to notch his first career PGA TOUR victory at the Valero Texas Open. He didn’t get it done, but he followed that up with a T19 at the RBC Heritage in a stacked field. That said, he missed the cut in a weak field at the Corales Puntacana Championship prior to the Valero and RBC, but I like Rodgers to play well here. He hits his long irons much better than tour average and in this field, he’s probably top 10. He has as storied an amateur career as most anyone, and is really looking fora breakthrough victory. Look for him near the top of the leaderboard again this week.

Mid Range: Emiliano Grillo LOW ASK, CORE $3.91, RARE $14.69, ELITE $111.12

Grillo is the definition of a hot and cold golfer. When he’s hot he can make birdies in bunches with the best of them, but when he is cold every 3 foot putt is an adventure. The flat stick is typically not his friend, so just beware that if you roster Grillo, you’re in for an agonizing sweat. I noted in the intro that we’re playing on Paspalum grass here at Vidanta Vallarta and this surface seems to really help Grillo. He has upside when he gets going so I’m looking to see if the stars can align on Emiliano.

*Note – I also really like Aaron Rai (again) in this range. But how many times can I write up Aaron? Look for him to play well.

Long Shot: Mark Hubbard LOW ASK*, CORE $1.40, RARE $8, ELITE $56.99

The odds board is THIN down here with the long shots this week so I’m going with someone whose game I like and who fared decent at this event last year. Mark Hubbard finished 51st here last year and while he missed the cut at the Zurich (team event) he finished 29th at the Corrales and 11th at the RBC Heritage. I’ll take some solid recent form in the long shot category for this week!

All data on DraftKings Reignmakers pricing comes from our site https://www.otmnft.com/reignmakerspro/market/players so check it out and get your collection jumpstarted today!

That does it for this week and as always, I’ll see you all on the leaderboard!