At the end of a PGA Tour season which has witnessed a revolution, there's time for one more Greg Norman story. The Shark, whose apparel can be swept up for discount prices at your favourite golf outlet, is the course designer of El Camaleon, home of the Worldwide Technology Championship. which emerged at the weekend, he'll soon be kicking out the current tenants and bringing in his LIV bandwagon.
That's probably a good thing for all concerned. This is a fun tournament which has in recent seasons helped Viktor Hovland make his name, but it now lacks the Mexican stars so many fans come out to see. Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz have both jumped ship, and there's something awkward about the event as it now stands.
Before the change, Hovland gets the chance to land a rare hat-trick, having won this title in 2020 and 2021. The king of offshore wins having yet to win in the USA, his claims are obvious and he's had three chances to add to his tally (all outside the US) since July. That he's disappointed on each occasion is a worry and he's not hit the ball as well as he can, though, which makes odds of 10/1 appear skinny.
Scottie Scheffler will be determined to get back to the top of the world rankings and is a better bet at slightly shorter, but he'll need these slower greens to prompt a big jolt of putting improvement. The same goes for Collin Morikawa, motivated surely by a lack of silverware in almost a year now. My issue with him is not price and not necessarily putter, but the fact he's really not threatened to win at any stage in 2022.
With Tony Finau returning from a prolonged break, Billy Horschel and Aaron Wise suddenly make sense at what appear to be prohibitive odds. Wise will do for many, that much is certain, and days after Jordan Smith doubled his tally on the DP World Tour perhaps this superb talent will do the same. He'll need to keep on putting well and there's just something unconvincing about him, even if his form is hard to quibble with.
I'd love to tell you this awfully dull start to a betting preview is an artistic way of revealing my lack of inspiration regarding the top of the market, but that's not true. What is true is that I find it very hard to generate enthusiasm for putting up a short price in a tournament on its last legs, played at a resort course which will again be extremely receptive and likely demand one of these generally unconvincing putters turns a corner.
In a tournament which has been won by some of the best putters around but more recently has gone to quality drivers of a ball, I'll turn to THOMAS DETRY, whose strengths lie in what he does off the tee and, lately, what he does on the green.
Detry has made a fabulous start to life as a PGA Tour member, all but securing his status for 2023-24 already. His finishing positions read 12th, ninth, 69th and second, latterly finishing runner-up to Seamus Power on Sunday, and it's no wonder Luke Donald and Edoardo Molinari included him alongside Power and Smith in their celebratory tweets.
Still, Dahmen arrived at the Corales Puntacana Championship last year with stacks of course form but a badly misbehaving putter. Then everything came together at a course he loves, and perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that slower greens certainly seemed to help a player from the Pacific Northwest.
Dahmen's record here at El Camaleon, the type of short course on which he can be competitive, is very similar. He's played 20 rounds, all of them par or better, and in fact putted superbly when sixth in 2019. Again, that came at a time when he'd generally struggled on the greens just as he did the following week, so while we don't have strokes-gained data for these events with paspalum grass, there are hints he's found comfort on it.
In a low-key way, Buckley drives the ball a little like Hovland: in fact, he was better last year, ranking 13 places ahead of the Norwegian and just outside the top 10. The similarity is in that both are accurate as well as being above average in distance, without being what you'd call a bomber in this day and age.
Buckley's driving has been so good that he hasn't lost strokes on the field since the first week in April, one of three such examples from a solid rookie season which saw him bag two top-10s early on, but in some ways impress more with a run of consistent performances from the US Open onwards.
A minor change to his putting set-up before taking 14th at Brookline certainly helped as he's gained strokes more often than he's lost them with the putter since then and with three top-20s to his name in his last three starts, he arrives here as one of the form players in the field.
To my eye he looks an ideal type for El Camaleon which negates concerns around the fact that this will be his course debut, and 13th place courtesy of three very good rounds in the Dominican Republic gives us some correlating form on similar putting surfaces.
While Buckley looks rock-solid, CAMERON CHAMP comes with greater risk but enormous upside at 80/1.
Champ was eighth last time out in Japan, a welcome return to form, and we know all about his talent and how dangerous he can be when something clicks.
Earlier in the year he followed a back-to-form 10th in the Masters with sixth in Mexico, his other two standout displays also came in back-to-back starts, and last summer he followed 11th in the John Deere Classic with his third win, at the 3M Open.
Wins one and two also followed better displays and going back to that Mexico effort when he contended behind Jon Rahm, as well as coming at a resort course in this part of the world, the greens were similar, and the course designer the same.
This formerly top-class amateur didn't make the start he'd have hoped for with a PGA Tour card in his pocket, but something clicked at the CJ Cup where he defied a slow start to shoot 67-69-69 and climb to a respectable share of 29th.
Suh led the field in fairways and greens at Congaree, his short-game keeping him away from the top 10. What he does around the green would certainly have to be a concern but if Hovland can overcome it here, where a high greens-in-regulation count is important, then maybe so too can a player who was his equal in college.
Wu's best performances since graduating ahead of last season came when third in Puerto Rico and second to Rahm in the Mexico Open, both of which appeal as good form guides given that Hovland's breakthrough came in the former event and that Wise was among several El Camaleon specialists who showed up well at Vidanta Vallarta.
I rated Wu the bet of the week in Bermuda where he got off to a slow start, but there was plenty to like about a second-round 64 and while quiet thereafter, he continued to move up the leaderboard over the weekend.
That was the latest in a string of encouraging performances to begin the new season and with sixth place in the Scottish Open adding weight to his coastal form, I can't resist giving him another chance.
Posted at 2010 GMT on 31/10/22
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