The WGC-Mexico Championship will instead be the WGC-Workday Championship this week because the PGA Tour will not be playing in Mexico. Instead, the Workday Championship will be held at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida.
There won’t really be any course form data, at least not from a professional event because this course has never hosted one. The 2015 NCAA Men’s Golf Championships were held here and that event was won by none other than Bryson DeChambeau. He is one of many star players in the field for this WGC event and the start of the Florida swing that will include the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the PLAYERS Championship, and the Honda Classic.
We’ll survey the odds from BetOnline Sportsbook and put together some betting thoughts for the WGC-Workday Championship. Even with a limited field, we’ll save those for the end.
The Field
This is a WGC event, which means a big prize purse and a lot of FedEx Cup points. The winner gets 550 points for an event of this magnitude and the prize purse has $10.5 million in it.
There are only 72 players eligible for the WGC fields. The top 50 players from the Official World Golf Ranking, the top 30 from the PGA Tour FedEx Cup list, the top 20 from the European Tour, and then two each from the Asian Tour, Japan Golf Tour, PGA Tour of Australasia, and the Sunshine Tour. Travel factors obviously come into play with COVID still a thing.
The highest-ranked player from Mexico still gets entry into the field, even though this year’s event is in Florida. This WGC event was at Doral from 2007-16, so playing a WGC event in Florida is nothing new.
There is an alternate event in Puerto Rico that has drawn some fairly big names, especially from the European Tour as those players look to settle into the Florida swing in preparation for The Masters in April.
If you can name a PGA golfer, he’s probably in the field. Phil Mickelson is playing the PGA Tour Champions event, but Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Tony Finau, Rory McIlroy, DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, Daniel Berger, Tyrrell Hatton, Viktor Hovland, Webb Simpson, and Brooks Koepka are just some of the names in this field.
Course Profile
The Concession Golf Club is a par 72 that comes in at just under 7,500 yards. There are going to be four par 5s on the course this week and those will be scoring holes for the long hitters. The fairways are wider, but the greens are much smaller than what we’ve seen in recent events.
A lot of luck will come into play this week. There are lots of hills and undulations on this course. Bunkers are in play on just about every hole and getting a good lie on flat ground would be a lot better than an uphill lie into some high faces. Water comes into play on a few holes for guys that hit a fade. It would seem like a draw will be safer this week for avoiding the drink.
Wind could be something of a factor, but the course is far enough inland that it shouldn’t be as bad as some of the events we’ve seen in Florida and not nearly as bad as what happened at Riviera last week.
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Yay or Neigh?
Well, we don’t have course form here. Some Floridians have probably played this course and those that played in the 2015 NCAA Championship played here. The course will be set up a lot differently for a PGA Tour event to be sure.
DeChambeau won at The Concession for SMU in 2015. CT Pan finished one shot back at 7-under. The Washington product shot a final-round 67, but couldn’t run down DeChambeau. Texas Longhorn Doug Ghim was tied for eighth at 2-under and teammate Beau Hossler tied for 10th at 1-under.
DeChambeau is the only one that met the criteria to qualify for this event.
Handicap & Picks
Strokes Gained Approach is a huge deal every week, but that will be especially true of this week. The green complexes are really small here. Iron play will be essential and we’ll also need players that can scramble around the greens in case they wind up in bunkers or need to chip it close.
The fairways are pretty wide here, although they will play more favorably towards guys that hit a draw. Even though we don’t have course form data to go off of for this week, we can still put together a profile of a player that fits the mold.
I liked him last week and I like him again here. Patrick Cantlay’s iron play has not graded as well as others, but he’s sixth in SG: ARG and tied for 15th in Proximity to the Hole. He’s still a solid 50th in SG: APP. He shot an opening-round 67 last week, but struggled a little bit after that. Still, Cantlay has four straight top-15 finishes and fits this course profile well.
With so many terrific players in this field, price hunting is a bit of a challenge. Somebody like Collin Morikawa at 45/1 is listed at a price that you would almost never see. It is similarly rare to see a guy like Tommy Fleetwood at +5500. Morikawa has struggled in his last two events, but we all know what he’s capable of on a regular basis. Fleetwood is also an excellent player. Morikawa is 25th in average proximity to the hole.
There is a chance that this could also become a putting tournament. We’ll be on Bermuda greens this week. If that’s the case, maybe you look at a guy like Kevin Kisner at +10000 makes some sense.
The reality is that we probably see a short price win this tournament, especially on a new course that won’t allow guys really familiar with it to level the playing field as a result.
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ODDS FOR THE 2021 WGC-WORKDAY CHAMPIONSHIP FROM BETONLINE
Dustin Johnson | +700 |
Jon Rahm | +900 |
Rory McIlroy | +1600 |
Xander Schauffele | +1600 |
Justin Thomas | +1800 |
Bryson DeChambeau | +2000 |
Patrick Cantlay | +2000 |
Tony Finau | +2200 |
Tyrrell Hatton | +2200 |
Viktor Hovland | +2200 |
Brooks Koepka | +2500 |
Daniel Berger | +3000 |
Patrick Reed | +3000 |
Webb Simpson | +3300 |
Sungjae Im | +3500 |
Collin Morikawa | +4000 |
Joaquin Niemann | +4000 |
Scottie Scheffler | +4500 |
Cameron Smith | +5000 |
Hideki Matsuyama | +5000 |
Harris English | +5500 |
Tommy Fleetwood | +5500 |
Adam Scott | +6000 |
Jason Day | +6000 |
Matthew Fitzpatrick | +6000 |
Justin Rose | +7000 |
Will Zalatoris | +7000 |
Louis Oosthuizen | +7500 |
Max Homa | +7500 |
Sergio Garcia | +7500 |
Abraham Ancer | +8000 |
Ryan Palmer | +9000 |
Billy Horschel | +10000 |
Christiaan Bezuidenhout | +11000 |
Marc Leishman | +11000 |
Bubba Watson | +12500 |
Carlos Ortiz | +12500 |
Jason Kokrak | +12500 |
Kevin Kisner | +12500 |
Kevin Na | +12500 |
Matthew Wolff | +12500 |
Robert MacIntyre | +12500 |
Shane Lowry | +12500 |
Victor Perez | +12500 |
Gary Woodland | +15000 |
Lanto Griffin | +15000 |
Rasmus Hojgaard | +15000 |
Bernd Wiesberger | +17500 |
Brendon Todd | +17500 |
Lee Westwood | +17500 |
Mackenzie Hughes | +17500 |
Thomas Detry | +17500 |
Andy Sullivan | +20000 |
Cameron Champ | +20000 |
Erik van Rooyen | +20000 |
Laurie Canter | +20000 |
Lucas Herbert | +20000 |
Matt Kuchar | +20000 |
Sebastián Muñoz | +20000 |
Rafa Cabrera Bello | +22500 |
David Lipsky | +25000 |
Sami Valimaki | +25000 |
Aaron Rai | +30000 |
Chan Kim | +30000 |
Jason Scrivener | +30000 |
Brad Kennedy | +100000 |
Danie van Tonder | +100000 |
JC Ritchie | +100000 |
Min Woo Lee | +100000 |
Trevor Simsby | +100000 |
Wade Ormsby | +100000 |
Yuki Inamori | +100000 |