With the WGC-Mexico Championship returning to Chapultepec Golf Club for the third consecutive season our stats guru suggests three players to keep an eye on this week.
Mexico’s capital city plays host to the limited-field event – which comprises a strong field including many of the world’s leading golfers.
We’ve crunched the numbers to narrow down your fantasy team choices for the first WGC tournament of 2019.
Favourite - Justin Thomas
The American simply has an outstanding record at Chapultepec Golf Club. No one has a better scoring average than Thomas (67.63) at the Mexican venue, where he also holds the course record thanks to his third round of 62 in last year’s tournament.
Thomas, who has finished inside the top five in both his starts in this event, also arrives in Central America in excellent form having been a runner-up last week on the US PGA Tour – and has finished no worse than tied 16thin 2019.
Having lost in a play-off to Phil Mickelson last year – despite holing his second shot to the par four 18thin his final round – he’ll rightly start this week as the hot favourite.
Form Horse - Ian Poulter
Another player arriving in Mexico in form is Poulter. The Englishman has been trending upwards since starring in The Ryder Cup in Paris, having finished inside the top ten in four of the eight appearances he has made since Europe won the biennial contest.
In fact, no other player had such a successful 2019 Desert Swing as the 43-year-old, who claimed a share of sixth in Abu Dhabi, tied third in Dubai and joint sixth again in Saudi Arabia to leave himself in tenth place in the Race to Dubai Rankings presented by Rolex.
Returning to action after a skiing holiday with the family at a course which favours precision rather than length off the tee, expect Poulter to slide right back into contention in Mexico.
Wildcard - Joost Luiten
Following a long lay-off with a wrist injury Luiten is starting to rediscover the form that has seen him become a six-time European Tour winner.
Since his return to action in October last year the Dutchman has been flying up the Official World Golf Ranking, moving back into the top 100 after finishing in third place in his first start of the year in Abu Dhabi – the first Rolex Series event of 2019.
A share of sixth place in Saudi Arabia, alongside Poulter, underlined the fact that Luiten is ready to compete with the world’s elite once more – do not be surprised to see him continue his climb up the world rankings this week.
Those are our picks, did we do enough to convince you? Add them to your line-up in theFantasy Race To Dubaibefore the action begins on Thursday morning.
