Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Mexico Open preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: Mexico Open

3pts e.w. Keith Mitchell at 28/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Maverick McNealy at 60/1 (888sport 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Alex Smalley at 70/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

1pt e.w. Sam Stevens at 70/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Robert MacIntyre at 125/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Kevin Dougherty at 250/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

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The end of the west coast swing is good news for various people involved in some way with the PGA Tour, from the communications department and fans in the UK, to those who gained membership via the Korn Ferry Tour last year. Hopefully, it also marks the turning of the tide for punters, too.

Although they're each guaranteed half a million dollars and therefore don't require any great sympathy, it's possible to argue there's never been a worse time to graduate from the second tier in the United States. By the middle of February last year, Eric Cole had played 11 times and banked $335,880, before more than doubling that when runner-up on his 12th go. His equivalents this time are a third of the way to that number of starts if they're lucky.

We'll learn more about all of them over the coming weeks as they finally get to string together a run of tournaments, beginning with the Mexico Open. Vidanta Vallarta is a good place to get things moving as it won't take a lot of figuring out. It is quite simply a big, resort-style course with very wide fairways, where you reach for your driver 11, 12 or even 13 times per round.

That club has been key, first when Jon Rahm beat Tony Finau, then when Finau got his own back and beat Rahm. They're not the only two who've featured in both renewals, either: another constant has been Cameron Champ, and when you see his name on both leaderboards, you get the message. It's not just that this par 71 is long on the scorecard, it's that it plays its full distance. It has a driveable par-four and it still has four par-fives, too.

Approaches are played from further away than just about anywhere else on the PGA Tour and that again favours the bombers. When you look at the stats which reveal who hits it closest from 200 yards, you see such players. That's not because they're better with a six-iron; it's that the shorter hitters might be hitting four-irons or hybrids. Golf, after all, is a numbers game.

The other factor which may help those finding their feet is that the field is weak.

Finau returns to defend and he's not a bad price at 15/2, but you do have to sign up to the strong possibility that he misses a lot of putts. It's true that he's beaten up fields like this pretty regularly over the past two years, but that run of successes coincided with the sort of putting he hasn't produced for many months now.

Nicolai Hojgaard certainly deserves to be second-favourite and his putter has become a strength, and then follows a list of players who have found winning difficult. Stephan Jaeger, Thomas Detry, Taylor Pendrith and Patrick Rodgers haven't yet managed it on the PGA Tour – they might not get a better opportunity to change that all year.

My preferred options among those in that top quarter of the betting were Erik van Rooyen, Davis Thompson and KEITH MITCHELL, and I've come down on the side of the latter.

Mitchell's sole PGA Tour win to date came in the Honda Classic at around this time of year and he's always a candidate to find some improvement once the west coast swing is finished. It's probably no coincidence that his best three performances out there this year came away from poa annua greens.

These paspalum surfaces should be much more to his liking and so should the course in general, as he's one of the longest and most reliable drivers on the circuit. Mitchell is currently fourth in strokes-gained off-the-tee, he was seventh last year, fourth the year before, 11th the year before that, and this is largely the product of his power.

Given that consistent excellence he really ought to have won more than once but Mitchell's iron play is unreliable, and his putting comes and goes. The former though has shown signs of improvement lately, particularly when leading the field over 36 measured holes at the AmEx but also over the first couple of rounds in Phoenix last time.

A top-20 finish there sets him up nicely for Vidanta and while it's his debut here, there are two course correlations which offer encouragement. First is the 3M Open, won by Champ and Finau and certainly an event for bigger hitters, where he's twice finished in the top five. Second is the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where long approach shots are standard – he's been fifth and sixth at Bay Hill.

Runner-up on similar greens in the Corales Puntacana, Mitchell should have no excuses where the course is concerned and hopefully this once again proves to be the time of year to catch him.

Van Rooyen showed up well here last year then went on to win in Mexico. He considers his long irons a strength and having put him up in Phoenix, where he was on the wrong side of the draw, was strongly considered. So was Thompson, who is hitting the ball really well, but he's dipped under 40/1 generally and that looks short enough.

Instead I'll give the vote to MAVERICK MCNEALY, whose best golf over the past few years would entitle him to be half the price he is.

He was in fact in my staking plan for the Farmers last year at 40s, and then this event, when it featured Rahm, Wyndham Clark, Beau Hossler, and generally greater strength throughout.

McNealy didn't play particularly well but it transpired that he'd been dealing with a nagging shoulder injury which later forced him to take an extended break, only returning in the autumn as he felt his way back in to life on the PGA Tour.

It took time, his Christmas wedding no doubt also proving a welcome distraction, but he's started to roll now and that coincides with returning to his favoured cut shot. McNealy said last time out in Phoenix that he'd got away from it for a while, hitting a draw, but was much more comfortable returning to the shot shape which helped him to be the number one college player.

Sixth in Phoenix was the first proper validation of the work he's been doing but as well as spending all week inside the top 10 there, he'd done so for three rounds at Torrey Pines, before a mid-pack finish in an elite field at Pebble Beach, where he was improving with each round before the tournament was halted early.

That means McNealy has ended seven of his last 11 rounds inside the top 10, with 10 of those rounds par or better, so he really does look to have turned a corner. As a big-hitter with strong form elsewhere in Mexico at El Camaleon, and one of the few good putters towards the top of this field, that makes for a hugely appealing profile at 50/1 and upwards.

Smalley signs of improvement

Next on the list is ALEX SMALLEY, whose second round at Riviera was just enough to turn my head, especially as it saw a return to form from his approach play and putting.

Another strong driver, ranking around 50th of 200-plus players in each of the past two seasons, Smalley's real strength is his iron play when he's on-song and it had deserted him for a time, before an excellent Friday in the Genesis Invitational.

One round is very little to go on but it could be the platform he needs, especially as he's shown how effective he can be both by the coast (10th Scotland, fifth RSM, 11th Bermuda) and on paspalum greens (second, 14th and 22th in the Corales Puntacana).

Smalley also tends to pop up in the same events, something he did to an extent with his second top-25 in the AmEx. He's done it in the aforementioned Corales Puntacana, as well as Houston, Bermuda and the John Deere Classic, so the fact that he was sixth here two years ago has to go down as encouraging.

He said at the time: "Puntacana and here have the same type of grass, it's Paspalum, so I feel pretty comfortable on Paspalum. So I was looking forward to the week to begin with. I don't know, I guess I like international destinations as well."

Last year's missed cut came when he was struggling and was all to do with his short-game anyway, so while he has endured a bit of a quiet run, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Smalley is hugely promising and this is the weakest event he's played in 2024.

SAM STEVENS has similar potential and he's starting to show it now, with 28th in Phoenix an especially strong performance given that it was his debut in the event.

Stevens was a classy amateur and his formative months as a professional were spent in Latin America, including a handful of starts in Mexico plus a win in Colombia, so we's well used to these new conditions players will have to adjust to.

He's also contended on paspalum grass a couple of times in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, while later on in his rookie campaign he finished 10th in the 3M Open, which as mentioned strikes me as one of the best tournaments to go looking for form clues.

In the mix at the Nelson, where fairways are wide and driver is the club off almost every tee, Stevens looks to have the right game for Vidanta and he's certainly long enough off the tee, so he looked an obvious selection at a nice price having contended again by the coast in Hawaii back in January.

Anything upwards of 50/1 is worth taking and there's some 80s around if you're content to sacrifice a place or two.

Ryder Cup star worth a few Bob

It's after these four that I find it a little hard to wade through the long list of course-suitable players who are set to go off at big prices, and while the run of such winners has to end soon, this might be a good event to sprinkle a few speculative wagers on the exchanges in the hope that there's one more jackpot to be landed.

Options included the Coody twins, both long and with plenty of raw ability. Pierceson hasn't shown the promise of Parker at this level just yet but did feature at Bay Hill last year, though if forced to choose I would have to come down on the side of Parker, who hit the ball superbly at driver-heavy Torrey Pines when last in action.

But at the same price I'll delay my foray into the Korn Ferry graduates by giving the benefit of the doubt to ROBERT MACINTYRE.

In OWGR terms, MacIntyre is one of the best players in the field, ranking 71st. That puts him close behind Detry and Thorbjorn Olesen and, broadly speaking, over the past two or three seasons you'd expect to see these players quoted at the same sort of prices over in Europe, with MacIntyre if anything shortest.

It was he after all who made the Ryder Cup side and while there is much more to it, and DataGolf have him ranked outside the top 200, that only serves to underline the point: MacIntyre's floor is undeniably low, but his established ceiling is higher than most players in this field.

Why risk him now? Well, because he did actually hit the ball just fine at Torrey Pines, then again in Phoenix. MacIntyre has been particularly solid off the tee lately and there's some irony in the fact that the one time he struggled, in Hawaii, his putter came to the rescue and saw him make the cut.

That putter has been hugely problematic in three starts since but, again, that's him. Granted, the numbers he produced in the Farmers were shockingly bad and he has no chance if they return, but from October to January he'd putted well and I doubt there's anything to it beyond the fact that he is volatile in all areas.

The change in grass, to a paspalum surface that will be familiar to DP World Tour players who've seen it plenty in the Middle East, is reason enough to hope for (rather than expect) improvement and I do think this is the sort of course he'll enjoy. MacIntyre's two wins have come on courses which are driver-heavy, and he loves being able to attack.

This is a player with an excellent record in majors, who pushed Rory McIlroy all the way last summer, and three-figure prices in a field like this are simply too big to ignore. He's much better than that and this is a good chance to show it.

Finally then to those Korn Ferry Tour graduates. Jake Knapp is the obvious one, a fact reflected in his price, and Alejandro Tosti similarly so, but I'll side with KEVIN DOUGHERTY at around the 250/1 mark.

Perhaps the longest driver of them all, Dougherty was second in strokes-gained off-the-tee at Torrey Pines, where he also putted well but struggled with his approaches and chipping on his way to 50th place.

Prior to that he'd returned from three months off with a narrow missed cut in the AmEx, shooting 11-under for his 54-holes and striking his ball really well, so it's been a promising if stuttering start for a player who has been around a little longer than some of those mentioned.

Dougherty hasn't found winning easy but at these prices we don't need to dwell on that, and can instead take heart from the fact he was the 54-hole leader in the Suncoast Classic last year, one of the most big-hitter-friendly events at Korn Ferry Tour level.

He's been third in Utah twice, an event Champ has won, and runner-up in Colombia, while a strong record in the Pinnacle Bank Championship is also promising given that powerhouses Tosti and Seth Reeves are both winners there.

Ultimately though this is about how his game matches up to the course and while the same is true of Chan Kim and Chris Gotterup, both respected, Dougherty's driving ability marks him down as a genuine outsider worth chancing at 200/1-plus.

Posted at 1000 GMT on 20/02/24

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