WWTC: While several of the game’s brightest stars are teeing it up in Abu Dhabi this week, the PGA Tour heads South of the Border, where the warm breezes and sunny beaches of Cabo San Lucas will welcome the players and the many wives and girlfriends tagging along for the fun. This is the 18th edition of this tournament, now known as the World Wide Technology Championship, and though it’s never drawn a particularly strong field by Tour standards, it has developed a reputation for the elite off-course accommodations and atmosphere that keeps the WAGs coming back.
More importantly for our purposes, this event has produced some memorable finishes and has changed the lives of many of its champions over the years. It’s always been a birdie-fest, and that hasn’t changed with the move to the Tiger Woods-designed El Cardonal in 2023 after 16 years at El Camaleon, as the winning scores the past two years — 24-under for Eckroat last year and 27-under for Van Rooyen in 2023 — track almost perfectly with the numbers being fired at the previous venue. Bottom line: it’s going to take something in the 25 to 30-under range to get the job done this week, so you’d better bring your birdies.
El Cardonal is a bomber’s paradise, a 7,452-yard par-72 with plenty of space off the tee and large, perfectly maintained putting surfaces. With water only coming into play on one hole and “scary” shots practically nonexistent, it’s a relaxed shooting gallery type of atmosphere, so we’re looking for players who have been hot recently and are comfortable with a pedal-to-the-floor, birdies in bunches style of golf. Though El Cardonal does favor the longer guys in theory, last year’s champion Austin Eckroat certainly isn’t a bomber, ranking 120th in driving distance this season, so there are lots of ways to skin a cat, as they say, and plenty of different ways to make birdies on this golf course.
With that in mind, here’s what I’m thinking this week:
WIN MARKET
Recommendations to BACK (odds in parenthesis)
Garrick Higgo (30.0)- Higgo has found his stride and is playing the best golf of his young career, finishing 4th at the Baycurrent Classic last time out, runner-up at Sanderson Farms the previous week, and T7 in the start before that, the Procore Championship. He’s been giving off that “house money” vibe since his win at the Corales Puntacana back in April, and with the way he’s been playing lately the next one isn’t far off. Could this be the week? With his 6th-place showing on debut here last year, it certainly seems like a strong possibility. Better than 30/1, anyway.
Pierceson Coody (44.0)- The better of the Coody twins, grandsons of former Masters champ Charles Coody, Pierceson split this year between the PGA and Korn Ferry tours but finally found his footing on the Big Tour in late summer and hasn’t looked back, logging top-15 finishes in 3 of his past 4 starts, including a T3 in the Bank of Utah Championship last time out. In those three events he’s a combined 50-under par across 12 rounds, so he should feel right at home in this week’s race to 25-under at El Cardonal. Coody is an under-the-radar guy who could really make some noise here and is well worth a bet at better than 40/1.
Max McGreevy (90.0)- After a mostly underwhelming season McGreevy has started to heat up in recent weeks, as over his last seven starts he’s notched his first top-5 of 2025 and a pair of top-15 finishes, including a T11 at the Bank of Utah Championship last time out, where he closed with a Sunday 65 to pose 14-under for the week. So, obviously, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the present state of his game, and he does have some experience at El Cardonal after playing this event in 2023, when he made the cut and finished T31. Someone like McGreevy, meaning someone coming off a couple of good performances in a row with a little bit of experience at El Cardonal, will make a run at the trophy this week. Why not Max himself? He fits the bill, and at 90.0, the price is right.
