This article is part of our FanDuel PGA DFS Picks series.
World Wide Technology Championship
Course: El Cardonal at Diamante (7,452 yards, par 72)
Purse: $7,200,000
Winner: $1,296,000 and 500 FedExCup Fall points
Tournament Preview
As was the case this past year, the PGA Tour closes its 2024 schedule with three consecutive events, starting with the World Wide Technology Championship. The PGA Tour returns to Mexico for another trip around El Cardonal at Diamante in Los Cabos, a Tiger Woods-designed course. Being a Woods design, it's not surprising that this track is one of the longer ones on the PGA Tour schedule, ranking just outside the top 10 in length.
Some bigger names showed up in 2023, but this year we aren't quite as lucky. While we won't see Ludvig Aberg or Sahith Theegala this time around, we do get the return of Cameron Young, as well as Daniel Berger and Harris English, who were top-20 players in the not-too-distant past. Hey, it's the fall, right? We're not going to get a loaded field this time of the year, but we still have plenty of quality golfers trying to close the season in style.
While El Cardonal has some length, it's offset by being wide open, so expect to see a lot of low scores. Erik van Rooyen won this past year with a score of 27-under-par and he finished just two strokes ahead of Camilo Villegas and Matt Kuchar. You will have to go really low to win here. The winds are the only potential defense for the course, but it looks like golfers will have free rein this week, as the forecast calls for sunny weather all four days, with the wind topping out at 14 mph on Thursday and tailing off to a mere 10 mph by Sunday. This event saw record-low scores two of the past three years, and a repeat looks to be in store.
Recent Champions
2023 - Erik van Rooyen (-27)
2022 - Russell Henley (-23)*
2021 - Viktor Hovland (-23)*
2020 - Viktor Hovland (-20)*
2019 - Brendon Todd (-20)*
2018 - Matt Kuchar (-22)*
2017 - Patton Kizzire (-19)*
2016 - Pat Perez (-21)*
2015 - Graeme McDowell (-18)*
2014 - Charley Hoffman (-17)*
2013 - Harris English (-21)*
* Played at El Camaleon at Mayakoba
Key Stats to Victory
- SG: Approach
- SG: Putting
- Driving Distance
- Par-5 Scoring
Champion's Profile
As eluded to earlier, El Cardonal is a bomber's paradise. For starters, there is no rough. There is only paspalum grass and sand/native areas. While the area is very dry, paspalum fairways typically don't created a lot of rollout on the tee shots. Combine that with the massive width of some of these fairways and this course is primed for big hitters to have success. The greens are also the second largest on the PGA Tour by average square feet, trailing only Kapalua. While driving distance will be important, shots into the green and putting will be of utmost importance because most of the players in the field will be hitting approach shots from favorable positions.
The large greens also place an increased emphasis on putting and ball striking. GIR numbers should be very high this week, but that won't tell the whole story. Proximity to the hole upon approach will be paramount, as well as lag putting and of course, overall putting. El Cardonal features four par-5s, all of which are reachable by medium/long hitters. Par-5 scoring will definitely be a key to contending, especially considering the course has some lengthy par-3s and par-4s.
FanDuel Value Picks
The Chalk
Max Greyserman ($12,000)
Raise your hand if you saw Greyserman being the priciest option on the board at some point this season. No one? Okay, well, even though the field is light, Greyserman has certainly played his way into this spot. Would he be here if there were big names in the field? No, but let's not discount his recent results and his current form. Greyserman has five top-10s in 2024, the most recent coming two weeks ago at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP where he finished runner-up. Greyserman can struggle with accuracy off the tee, but that shouldn't be an issue here. What might be a problem is his approach shots into the greens, a stat he ranks 104th in on Tour.
Cameron Young ($11,900)
We're all waiting for Young to ascend to the top tier of the PGA Tour, but he hasn't yet put it all together. On paper this looks like an event that he could dominate, but Young has to start showing some consistency before we can back him on a weekly basis. Young had a great 2022 season, but his performance has dropped each of the past two years. We haven't seen him yet this fall, so perhaps the time off will serve him well. Amazingly, Young has yet to win on the PGA Tour, and as long as there is no rust, this looks like an amazing opportunity to pick up his first victory.
Matt Kuchar ($10,300)
Once upon a time Kuchar was one of the more reliable players on Tour, but at the age of 46 those days are long gone. What he's turned into now, though, is a guy who can really pop when he's on. It happened a year ago on this very track, where he finished in a tie for second with Camilo Villegas. Kuchar's form is good enough to make me think a run is possible this week. He posted a solo third at the 3M Open in late July and has played pretty well this fall. This is a boom-or-bust play, but I think we see the better side of Kuchar in Mexico.
The Middle Tier
Erik van Rooyen ($9,900)
The circumstances for van Rooyen entering this year's World Wide Technology Championship are much different than last year, as he was boosted by the inspiration of his terminally-ill friend and former teammate Jon Trasamar, but it's easy to think that this event now holds a special place in his heart after his win this past year. van Rooyen has played well this year, but he hasn't shown his best form that often. That could change this week, though, as he is the defending champion and is returning to a course that he annihilated just 12 months ago.
Daniel Berger ($9,600)
I mentioned Berger in the open as one of the bigger names in the field, and while he hasn't played like a top player for most of the season, he has shown some signs of life in recent months. Berger is of course coming off a long layoff that saw his miss all of the 2023 season, and while it's been a struggle to find his prior form, he showed flashes as recently as a month ago, when he finished seventh at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Is he ready to win again on the PGA Tour? Probably not quite yet, but he will get back there at some point and this week is just another step in his journey.
Nico Echavarria ($9,400)
As you can probably tell by now, I'm not nearly as much of a stats guy as Ryan Andrade, who usually writes this article. If I were, there's no way I would have Echavarria on this list because his numbers just aren't good. The reason of course is that he's so inconsistent. One week he's winning and the next four he's missing the cut. He's definitely not for the faint of heart, but what I'm interested in seeing is if he has learned how to handle winning on the PGA Tour. He picked up his second career win on the PGA Tour two weeks ago, and if he handles it like his first win, we won't see him on the leaderboard for another few months. However, if he has learned how to deal with it, he could use that win as a springboard toward consistent results.
Longer Shots with Value
Nate Lashley ($8,800)
For these final few picks, I decided to rely on some stats, hoping to find a hidden gem. Lashley may not necessarily be one of those, but he has some things working in his favor this week. We'll start with his shots into the greens, where he ranks 61st on Tour in SG: Approach. I know, 61st isn't great, but consider that most of the players ahead of him are not present, and suddenly he's one of the better players in the field in that department. Also working in his favor was his performance here last year, when he finished 19-under.
Henrik Norlander ($8,700)
Using my key metric for the week, SG: Approach, Norlander comes in with the best ranking in the field at 16th on Tour. The reason he's slightly lower on the list than Lashley is that Norlander didn't fare so well here this past year. Norlander missed the cut in 2023, but maybe we can chalk that up to some rust, as he hadn't played in the month leading up to last year's event. This time around, he has only been off a couple weeks and is less than a month removed from a top-10 at the Black Desert Championship.
Sam Ryder ($8,100)
We're going to close out the long shots with yet another guy who fares well in the SG: Approach category. Ryder ranks 45th on the PGA Tour in SG: Approach, which puts him among the best in the field. Unlike the preceding gentlemen, however, Ryder's form is not very good, which is normally a problem. He did post a top-10 here this past year and perhaps a return to a course where he shot 19-under can spark him.
Strategy Tips This Week
Based on a Standard $60K Salary Cap
Unlike this past year, we have some course history to lean on, which should come in really handy, especially when you consider the unique track. The problem that we have in the fall, however, is that the guys near to the top of the board aren't the usual suspects, which means they aren't as reliable as the elite golfers. With that said, we have several players that performed well on this track in 2023, so I have a little more confidence in this spot than I might at another run-of-the-mill fall event. When looking at the top of the list, Greyserman ($12,000) is going to be your safe option, while Young ($11,900) provides more upside but more risk. The top of your lineup will determine what follows, in that if you take Young, you probably aren't taking a boom-or-bust guy like Echavarria ($9,400) in the middle tier. My preference would be to play it safe at the top and almost skip the middle tier entirely, as those below $9,000 look to have some potential this week. With that in mind, you could stack a couple chalky players and fill out the lineup with some safer long shots.
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