2025 Mexico Open Picks, Bets, Course Preview
QUICK NOTES
Weaker field event
Slow Greens
Big Drivers off the tee
Torrey, Craig Ranch, Myrtle Beach good comps
FIELD
132 Players
Cut: Top 65 & Ties Make the Cut
First Tee Time: Thursday, Feb 20
Defending Champion: Jake Knapp
HOT LINKS
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After a four week stretch featuring two signature events mixed with two other prominent tournaments we’ve finally hit true bye week for most of the world’s best: The Mexico Open.
I love events like this as pallet cleanser from the West Coast action. It’s very much like how I always looked forward to WCW Saturday Night as a kid during the nWo era. There’s more of a focus on some old favorites, unfamiliar names who you never really get to see on TV, and, in the rare occasion, future stars who just haven’t realized their potential yet.
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Mexico has really benefited from the DP World Tour memberships too. Since there have been three signature events in the first seven weeks of the year, coupled with the Middle East swing overseas, Farmers, then Mexico have acted as jumping off points for many of the international who earned their PGA TOUR cards in Europe a year ago, leading to a higher qualify of field.
Akshay Bhatia, Rasmus & Nic Højgaard, Michael Kim, Aaron Rai, Patrick Rodgers, Harry Hall, Kitayama, Taylor Moore, Ben Griffin, Kevin Yu, Stephan Jaeger, and Sam Stevens join defending champ Jake Knapp outside Puerto Vallarta. Makes sense, the commercials running during the final round of the Genesis seemed to imply it is an 11 star resort. They were throwing around more stars on screen than a Mario Party.
It’s not as strong as it could be however: Mav McNealy and Keith Mitchell have already withdrawn.
QUICK BETS
M. Kim +3000
J. Knapp +5500
N. Hojgaard +5500
EVR + 6600
Rozner +8000
First Round Leader
EVR +6000 (With Top 5)
Key Stats
Strokes Gained: Approach
Driving Distance Gained
Strokes Gained Putting 5-15 Feet
Eagles Gained
Mayo’s Key Stats powered by FantasyNational.com
Course
Vidanta Vallarta
Par: 71
Yardage: 7,456
Greens: Paspalum
Average Green Size: 7000 Sq. Ft.
Number of Sand Bunkers: 55
Number of Holes Water is in Play: 13
Par 3's (5): Average distance - 195 yards
- These holes play, in total, over par (the four most-oft par'd holes are Par 3's)
- Knapp had six bogeys in the victory, but none came on Par 3's (he had a Par 3 birdie in three of four days)
Par 4's (9): Average distance - 454 yards
- The three toughest holes are Par 4's from Hole 8-16 (all have a sub 8.5% under par rate)
- Knapp didn't bogey a Par 4 until his 10th hole on Saturday
Par 5's (4): Average distance - 593 yards
- Four of the five easiest holes on property, three with an eagle rate over 1.5%
- Knapp bogey'd a Par 5 twice in the win, but he birdied Holes 6-14-18 multiple times over the course of four rounds
DFS Streak
Holes 2-10-17 are three of the six hardest on the course, thus making it difficult to bridge either nine with three straight birdies. You'll need to get one of them to make starting hole matter and in that vein, I'd rather tackle 18-1-2 than 9-10-11 because 18 is something of a gimmie (77.2% under par rate, but I'm not building lineups with this in mind.
PAST WINNERS
2024: Jake Knapp, -19
2023: Tony Finau -24
2022: Jon Rahm -17
PAST WINNER NOTES
2024: Jake Knapp (+4000)
- Knapp lost ground ARG (-0.1) but led in APP (+8.7, one of two players to gain more than 6.3 strokes)
- Short putting -- of the top-12 finishers, nine gained ground putting from 5-10 feet but nine lost strokes from 15-20 feet
2023: Tony Finau (+850)
- 1-2 on the final leaderboard were 1-2 off the tee
- Finishing positions for the top-9 putters for the week: 3-2-8-5-39-4-24-1-5
2022: Jon Rahm (+450)
- Gained 2+ strokes through the bag (+5.6 strokes off the tee was 2nd best for the week)
- 7 of the top-12 putters for the week cashed top-12 paychecks
FIRST ROUND LEADERS
2024 ROUND 1
63 - Erik Van Rooyen (6 shots better than any of his other rounds)
64 - Sami Valimaki (first of four rounds in the 60's)
(4-way tie at 65, including David Lipsky who shot a Friday 78 and missed the cut)
2023 ROUND 1
63 - Austin Smootherman (followed it up with a 70 on Friday)
64 - Erik Van Rooyen (progressively got worse: 64-66-72-74), Tano Goya (only round in the 60's)
2022 ROUND 1
64 - Jon Rahm (first of four straight in the 60's), Kurt Kitayama (six shots worse on Friday), Jonathan Byrd ( 5 shots better than any other round ), Trey Mullinax (5 shots better than any other round), Brandon Todd (only round better than 71 for the week), Bryson Nimmer (flash in the pan: 74-74-73 the rest of the way)
NOTES
A very driver heavy course. There has been a heavy correlation between the Farmers and Mexico the past few years. Vidanta will be the second longest course played on TOUR (adjusted for Par) after Torrey Pines so far this season. Last year, Jake Knapp, Stephan Jaeger, Tony Finau, Doug Ghim, and Patrick Rodgers all finished inside the Top 15 of both events. Which is a pretty large number considering most of the Top 15 finishers from the Farmers didn’t play in the weaker Mexico event.
Logically this make some sense. Torrey is obviously a lot harder, and puts more of an emphasis on strong chipping. But the longer you hit it off the tee, the shorter club you’ll have to access the pin. Of course, that applies at every course. But it means a lot less when we’re talking about the difference between 100 and 125 yard shots than what we’ll see this week:
47% of approaches come from 175+ at Torrey Pines (South)
62% of approaches come from 175+ at Vidanta
Fortunately for the field, Vidanta is Torrey Pines on easy mode. The rough is short so missing fairways doesn’t present many issues, the greens are larger, slower and easier, the field seems to have little issues around the greens, and the Par 5s are far less challenging. Hence the significantly lower scores despite it being a 71.
Vidanta’s only protection, except maybe some periodic winds, are the 13 water hazards. Mash it anywhere you want off the tee, just make sure it’s long and not wet, and it’ll be OK.
Like at Torrey, you’ll get your share of shorter hitters who hit their long irons great and roll it fantastically all four rounds who pop up on the leaderboard, but it’s the bigger hitters you want. Last year only one of the top 7 on the leaderboard lost distance to the field. That was Justin Lower and he was about average. The year previous it was 10 of the Top 11. Being the longest guy in the field isn’t a requirement but bering above average does seem to be. The other events to scan that seem to have crossover, beyond Farmers, are Byron Nelson, last year’s Myrtle Beach Classic, PGA National, and the Cabo event in the swing season.
Putting on Paspalum
It would be fantastic if we could sift through the numbers on how players fare navigating paspalum putting surfaces. But we don’t have that luxury. The only course in the regular rotation sporting paspalum greens along with shot link data is Vidanta. Not breaking a ton a news here, but those who have posted good results at this course over the first three of its existence likely have solid putting numbers. The best we can do is cobble together the SG: TOTAL data from the Paspalum courses (Puerto Rico, Corales, Cabo, Vidanta) and see which players out perform their baseline results on these courses and try and draw a conclusion from those numbers. It does help that most paspalum tournaments are alternate events so the same players tend to populate those fields.
Here are the per round leaders in SG: TOTAL on paspalum courses over the past three years:
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MORE NUMBERS
89.99 — hit green percentage inside 125 yards, the second easiest greens to hit from this distance from any course on the PGA TOUR Last Season
+0.417 The 10th hole at Vidanta Vallarta played as the third toughest hole in 2023.
43’ 9” proximity to hole average, the second longest average of any course on TOUR.
38’ 10” fairway proximity, the longest of any course on the TOUR
20’ 3” proximity to the hole inside 100 yards (rgh), the third closest proximity of any course on the PGA TOUR Last Season proximity to the hole inside 100 yards (from the rough), the third closest proximity of any course on the PGA TOUR in 2023.
LAG PUTTING
Since the proximity numbers above are quite long, I needed more info on this field in terms of putting from distance, so I turned to my pal Drew Mathews at Fantasy Golf Bag. Drew’s always got really cool datas, including lag putting stats. Check it out.
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EARLY PICKS
Jake Knapp — Finished sixth T2G at Torrey Pines last week and, if you recall, is the defending champion at this venue. If he was among the betting favorites I’d likely pass, but he’s strongly down the down board, so I’m in.
Erik Van Rooyen — It’s been about brutal start to the season for EVR. Except for the round one front nine at Pebble Beach. That was electric. But this is a bet on history of skill and results. His driver has become a major issue since last summer. He normally hovered in the Top 25% of the field off the tee for the past few years, but has lost more than a stroke to the field in four of his past seven starts. And some of those were not against the world’s best.
Antoine Rozner — Fresh off a 4th place finish in Qatar, ROZ is seemingly perfectly suited for Mexico. Plus distance against this field and elite ball striking when he’s on. Which he has been more often than not lately. He got back on track with his performance in Qatar, but was electric to end the DP World Tour season in the fall with 4th in Korea, T6 in Abu Dhabi, and a T3 at the DP World Tour Championship finishing only behind Rory and Rasmus Hojgaard. He’s contended in far stronger fields than this, and he’s being priced like a guy who is struggling for status on Korn Ferry.