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Joe Idone's @TourPicks Exclusive Course Preview and Breakdown for the 2024 WWT Championship at El Cardonal at Diamante in Los Cabos, Mexico. He offers a comprehensive preview and concentrated analysis for DFS lineups.
The PGA Tour heads south of the border this week and back to El Cardonal at Diamante for their second installment as host venue for the World Wide Technology Championship. Last year proved that it was a stark contrast from the previous venue at Mayakoba, with El Cardonal boasting forgiving resort-style conditions and tons of low scoring.
There was unfortunately no shot tracker data last year, but I took down a ton of notes and I remember this venue well. I've created a plan of attack based on how I believe the course will once again play and which skill sets will be disproportionately rewarded.
Let's break down everything you need to know about El Cardonal at Diamante and how we can isolate certain player attributes that I believe are best suited for a high likelihood of success this week. I hope this piece can be a FREE and easy read to start your prep week. Let's dig into the course!
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An Introduction to El Cardonal at Diamante
In an effort to likely distance itself from LIV Chairman Greg Norman and his design at Mayakoba, the PGA Tour switch the host venue to El Cardonal at Diamante in Los Cabos, Mexico. El Cardonal was the very first course that was ever completed by the TGR design group in 2014, with extensive input from design leader Tiger Woods.
The course sits on the vast landscape of Baja California and has quickly become a premier golf tourist destination in Cabo. Tiger Woods wanted the property to embody the never-ending backdrops of the area, giving expansive room off the tee for a typical resort style golf. The course was built with a deep focus on sustainability and minimum maintenance, utilizing several native features to create the paths of the holes.
While you can land a plane on the fairways given how wide they are, the massive greens also present several pin locations that bring angles heavily into play here. Here is what Tiger has said about this design at El Cardonal.
“I set up the golf strategy to make golfers think and make choices. There are going to be different ways to play every hole. Angles of approach are going to be very important and will dictate the type of shots you should consider. I love this kind of golf.”
Diamanté is looking pristine for this week 👌⛳️
🎟️ https://t.co/bnkMqCNcSn pic.twitter.com/yFZrothuOU
— World Wide Technology Championship (@WWTChampionship) November 3, 2024
Scorecard:
Course Specs
It's sounds crazy to say, but by today's standards, 7,400 yards is not a long course for the pros. It does play essentially at sea level and the Paspalum surfaces mean little to no firmness or roll-out from the fairways. On the other hand, the Paspalum greens are ultra receptive and allow players the opportunity to stick long iron approach shots with ease on these massive greens.
The greens themselves are enormous, averaging 8,500 sq. ft., and are the largest surface area greens on the PGA Tour schedule. Given the resort course playability expectations, you aren't going to notice a ton of nuance or undulation to them either. They putt fairly slow, and given the magnitude they could present problems and extremely long putts from over 50 ft in circumstances.
The course has a generous blend of varying length par 4's. One thing I have noticed with most Tiger Woods designs is that he likes to include short, potentially drivable par 4's on each side of the golf course. You have that hear in holes #3 and #10 which can be drivable on days when they move the teebox up a bit. Water only comes into play on one hole.
Let's face it, this course is easy and the pros will tear it apart if the wind stays down. The fairway widths at 60+ yards effectively diminish precision off the tee and allow for players to bomb it down the fairway without fear. The course then becomes a second-shot golf course, and as is the case with most low-scoring tournaments, ultimately will come down to making 5-15 foot putts regularly.
Statistical Considerations
This is one of the rare courses on the schedule where I would go as far to say that your first shot doesn't matter. There is little to no way for anyone to separate from the field with OTT play. As much as I like bombers, and I am factoring in Driving Distance into my model, I still look at last years leaderboard and it does not look to correlate that strongly. All in all, when accuracy doesn't matter at all, having an extra ten yards of distance always matters.
I mentioned before how I think this is a second-shot golf course. You have to make 6-8 birdies per round if you want to win this event, so recent incoming short-term SG: Approach play is going to be extremely important if you want to maximize your opportunities to score. Here are the top ten over the last 30 rounds played:
- Doug Ghim
- J.J. Spaun
- Lucas Glover
- Joel Dahmen
- Austin Smotherman
- Ben Griffin
- Nick Hardy
- Zac Blair
- Matt NeSmith
- Jhonattan Vegas
Ultimately, the difference between winning and coming in tenth place this week likely comes down to the putter. I looked at strokes gained putting on Paspalum, but since that data is limited, I also looked at Putting on all surfaces from 5-15 ft.. In terms of key proximity ranges, this course provides good variance in my opinion, but your scoring chances are going to come from 150-200 yards more often then not.
Good luck and enjoy the 2024 WWT Championship and make sure to check out the Preferred Lines Podcast for my full breakdown and picks to win!
