Paulie’s Picks: 2021 World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba

The venue for this week’s World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, El Camaleon Golf Club, is very much a known quantity on the PGA Tour. The event has been here since 2007, so we have a precise sense of the skill set needed to succeed. El Camaleon places a heavy emphasis on accuracy off the tee and approach shots from 125 to 175 yards. Distance is not as important as it usually is on tour. Nor is putting, as the slow paspalum greens typically condense the field’s putting stats.

With that in mind, here are a few players to target the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba:

Justin Thomas $11,200

Thomas is the best player in the field, and his game actually fits El Camaleon quite well. His weaknesses are putting and driving accuracy, and fortunately for him, putting won’t be particularly emphasized, and he will frequently be using less than driver off the tee. Like all players in the field, Thomas will have an abundance of approach shots from 125 to 175 yards. From that distance, he is No. 1 on the PGA Tour. His 15 wins over his past 200 starts have almost all come against better fields than this. With so much value available down the board, it makes sense to pay up for Thomas.

Russell Knox $7,300

Knox is a horse for this course: he is short and accurate off the tee, he excels with short irons, and his usual weakness is putting. In all eight of his starts at this event, he has finished 37th or better and placed in the top 10 three times. He comes into this week in good form, having finished 12th at the Bermuda Championship.

Brice Garnett $6,500

Garnett is playable at only a few events each year, as his game suits a very specific type of course. He is accurate but short off the tee and performs well in windy conditions. So it’s no surprise that some of his best results have come at Punta Cana and Mayakoba. He has finished 32nd or better in each of his past six starts at El Camaleon, so makes a great value play this week.